FCA US sales plummeted in Q3 (corrected)

General Motors announced a 2% drop in U.S. sales for the third quarter of 2024, compared to the third quarter of 2023; but that was entirely due to cutbacks in fleet sales. The former Chrysler with Fiat and Alfa Romeo posted a stunning 20% fall, due mainly to July and August sales, but on the positive side inventory fell by around 12% (50,000 vehicles).

For those blaming the company’s problems on battery-electrics, it’s worth noting that Stellantis sold just two of them in the USA during the quarter—the limited appeal 500e and the even more limited top-end ProMaster. Tesla, which sells only electric cars, had a bad sales quarter and still outsold Stellantis by a hundred thousand cars or so.

In total, FCA US had 305,294 U.S. sales in the third quarter, with market share below 8%. Heavy incentives spurred increases in sales in August and more in September.

The Compass did gain by 71%. Stellantis media reps cherry-picked two more numbers to claim quite specific, qualified gains, mainly comparing to the second quarter of 2024.

While the Jeep 4xe line were America’s top selling plugin hybrids, it didn’t take much; the Wrangler 4xe, pushed heavily in the past year, only had 10,866 sales, around a third of the Wrangler’s total for the quarter. The Grand Cherokee 4xe only had 3,019 sales, just 6% of that vehicle’s total. Dodge Hornet R/T sales were optimistically billed as “number five among top-selling plug-in hybrids in the U.S.” That translates to a pitiful 1,396 sales, which was around a third of all Hornet sales for the quarter. The equivalent Alfa Romeo Tonale had a mere 1,122 sales for all models combined. For 2025 there will be just one model of Tonale.

Fiat’s sales more than doubled in the quarter as the new 500e electric car debuted, though it is not a success in the classic sense of actually selling well. Fiat’s marketing can best be described by this tortured euphemism for slapping on a rebate: “ Following the spirit of the original Cinquecento, the FIAT brand just announced a new incentive offering for the all-new, all-electric Fiat 500e to further democratize mobility.”

Looking at the chart with a more objective eye, one finds that Jeep’s fall was almost entirely due to the loss of two vehicles, the Cherokee (due for replacement in 2025) and Renegade. Wrangler sales fell by 14% as the company refused to drop prices, yet made the V6 harder to buy in some states, and has failed to address issues experienced by many owners; for 2025 it’s likely to drop further as the V6 appears to come only with a manual transmission.

The Grand Wagoneer fell by around 230 sales, while the Wagoneer rose by nearly 300. The Grand Cherokee continues to disappoint compared with past years, but was by far the best-selling Jeep, with 54,188 sales to the #2 Wrangler’s 35,874. In past years the Wrangler has been #1 or a close rival to the Grand Cherokee.

Over at Ram, the news was unreservedly bad with the ProMaster falling by 12% and the Ram pickup falling by a stunning 19%, to 89,140. Both Ram and GM are bringing new 2025 models. Chrysler sales continue to free-fall with the 300 dropped and the Pacifica falling by 44% to just 21,504. Yet Chrysler was not far from Dodge, which has two cars still in production; the Hornet, which failed to beat the discontinued Charger’s sales (no new Chargers have been made since 2023) and came was not much above the Challenger (which also ceased production in 2023). Durango sales were below 14,000 for the quarter—three months—down 15%.

As for Fiat and Alfa Romeo—Fiat sales make Chrysler look like Toyota, with a mere 316 sales. 235 of these were the 500 and 500e, and 81 were the 500X. Alfa Romeo did somewhat better, but its top seller, the Tonale, had one third the sales of its Dodge equivalent, and all Alfa Romeos and Fiats combined sold worse than the Grand Wagoneer alone—or the leftover Challengers, for that matter.