Stellantis’ $26 Billion EV Write-Off Follows the CEO’s looting of the Company; Ford’s EV Disaster Results in a Company-Wide Loss of $8 Billion in 2025

The tide of red ink washing over legacy auto manufacturers just keeps getting worse, as the cost of their EV misadventures are now being reflected in losses, write-offs, and course corrections.

A few months ago, Ford announced that it’s long-overdue pivot from EVs would result in total write-offs of almost $20 billion, including $12 billion in Q4 2025 alone. That was enough to cause Ford to record an overall, company-wide loss in 2025 of $8 billion.

“Ford reports Q4 profit miss, $8 billion net loss for year as EV unit losses hit results” [Yahoo Finance – 02/10/2026]

Jim Farley’s comments on Ford’s 2025 performance, claiming that the company ”delivered a strong 2025,” would be comical if it weren’t for the fact that his mismanagement is hemorrhaging capital from the once-great auto manufacturer.

"Ford delivered a strong 2025 in a dynamic and often volatile environment," Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a statement. "We improved our core business and execution, made significant progress in the areas of the business we control — lowering material and warranty costs and making real progress on quality — and made difficult but critical strategic decisions that set us up for a stronger future."

Meanwhile, Stellantis (Dodge, Jeep, Chrysler, Ram, Fiat, Peugeot, etc) just announced that its failed EV efforts are going to cost the company an eye-popping $26 billion in charge-offs.

“Chrysler Parent Stellantis’ Shares Fall 25% As It Takes $26.5 Billion Write Off Amid EV Retreat” [Forbes – 02/06/2026]

Antonio Filosa, who became Stellantis’ CEO just 8 months ago acknowledged Stellantis’ mistakes in pushing EVs on consumers who refused to buy them. He also correctly pointed out that the previous CEO, Carlos Tavares, had inflicted “poor operational execution” on the company. That is a polite way of saying Tavares just about destroyed the company by promoting an “EV transition,” while at the same time manipulating production, sales, and pricing for short-term results that provided himself obscene compensation.

Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa said the charges “reflect the cost of over-estimating the pace of the energy transition that distanced us from many car buyers’ real-world needs, means and desires.”

As I wrote at The Blaze in December 2024 when Tavares was pushed out, Stellantis sales were now in free fall, its product-pipeline was barren, and its dealers were in revolt. But it was less than a year earlier that Tavares awarded himself (with board consent) a $39 million compensation package, making him the highest paid executive in the auto industry.

As US sales plunged 36% by the end of 2024, dealers accused Tavares of “reckless short-term decision making” that caused “rapid degradation” of the Dodge, RAM, Jeep, and Chrysler brands. They claimed that not only was the product line stale and over-priced, but that popular products had been eliminated with the intent to replace them at a later date with electric products. To goose short-term profits, Tavares slashed vehicle production and eliminated headcount, resulting in a short-term cost savings that created long-term problems.

When European dealers advised Tavares that consumers were rejecting EVs and pleaded for Stellantis to seek regulatory relief from EV mandates, Tavares betrayed the dealers and sided with the regulators, even as competitors such as Volkswagen and Renault sought regulatory relief.

The Stellantis disaster lies at the intersection of the EV delusion and the management crisis afflicting major corporations, in which self-serving executives are willing to destroy their companies for personal gain, or otherwise not perform their jobs in fiduciary service to shareholders. From that Blaze piece:

Tavares failed to serve his company, shareholders, customers, or franchised dealers. Instead, he served two masters: himself and the globalist eco-bureaucracy that seems content to watch Stellantis collapse as a manufacturer of gasoline-powered vehicles.

To maintain both civil and economic order, investors and corporate boards must take responsibility for preventing further destruction of institutions like Stellantis. Greedy and self-serving leaders, such as Carlos Tavares, cannot be allowed to undermine companies at the expense of all other stakeholders.

To bring this all full-circle, at least the Stellantis board did push Carlos Tavares out eventually, replacing him with a CEO who seeks to manufacture and sell vehicles that consumers actually want to buy. Inexplicably, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, who has cost the company $20 billion to date by pursuing the EV fantasy, is still running the company and boasting of the great job he is doing.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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