Stellantis appears to be abandoning Carlos Tavares’ emphasis on low-wage, inexperienced “low-wage-country” engineering teams with a hiring spree at the Chrysler Technical Center.
Evan Xiao, VP of Stellantis global propulsion calibration, pointed to job postings for chief engineers and for engineers in just about every aspect of vehicle powertrain:
- Internal Combustion Engines
- Traditional and hybrid transmissions
- HVAC and Engine Systems
- Embedded Controls and Software
- Calibration for drivability and emissions
- Hybrid battery
- Power Electronics and Electric Drive units
The listings show that the company is serious about bringing development back in-house, after essentially sourcing transmissions to other companies and trying to have fresh-from-college engineers tackle difficult issues that require experience and advanced training.
They also show that Stellantis is planning continued work in just about every form of propulsion, including traditional gasoline-only, hybrid, and battery-electric. The example Xiao highlighted was in the former Chrysler headquarters in Auburn Hills.
The listings are good news for Mopar buyers, but since cars tend to take three to six years to develop and powertrains take even longer, it will be a long time before the effects are fully felt. So far the company has not issued any official news on changes to how work is done, even after Ford adopted Chrysler’s skunkworks approach to rapidly bring out eight low-cost EVs.
David Zatz started what was to become the world’s biggest Mopar site (Allpar) in 1994. After a chemo-induced 2007-2010 break, during which he wrote car books covering Vipers, minivans, and Jeeps, he returned with Patrick Rall to create StellPower.com for daily news, and to set up MoTales for mo’ tales (Chrysler history and “permanent” car and truck pages). He most recently wrote Century of Chrysler, a 100-year retrospective on the marque.
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