At Stellantis’ investor day on May 21, when the automaker unveiled its plans to reinvigorate the company’s performance, CEO Antonio Filosa named Chinese automakers as one of the foremost threats facing his business.
But Stellantis said it has a plan to both beat them — and to join them.
The automaker holds two key partnerships with Chinese automakers — Leapmotor and Dongfeng Motor Corporation — and rolled out a brand new platform upon which it will build its vehicles, a move Davide Mele, Stellantis’ chief of product planning, said is “how we close the cost gap with Chinese [automakers] operating in Europe.”
To be clear, the leadership of Stellantis, which is a global company that does a significant amount of its business in the United States, does not expect to sell Chinese vehicles in America any time soon.
Currently, hefty tariffs and regulatory roadblocks prevent Chinese vehicles from being sold in the United States. Filosa doesn’t expect that to change.
“We don’t see, sincerely, in the short- or mid-term, possibilities to bring some of the fruits of those partnerships to the U.S.,” Filosa said about the company’s joint ventures with Leapmotor and Dongfeng during a news conference on investor day. Nevertheless, the company’s new plan focuses heavily on how the automaker can compete with Chinese EV makers in markets like Europe, South America and the Middle East.
Leveraging both Chinese partnerships and a new platform, this is how Stellantis said it is going to do it.
A brand new ‘mega platform’
At the center of Stellantis’ plans to revive operations and remain competitive is its new, scalable platform called STLA One (pronounced “Stella One”).
A vehicle platform is the foundation and shared components upon which different vehicles are built. Stellantis has previously used an array of platforms as the basis for its vehicles — STLA Small (with the sub-class Smart Car platform), STLA Medium, STLA Large and STLA Frame. Beginning in 2027, though, the automaker is moving to consolidate its five platforms into three, with STLA One as the basis for more than 2 million of the cars the company hopes to sell in the next nine years.
“STLA One is designed to grow into a mega platform supporting 30-plus models and targeting more than 2 million units by 2035,” the company said in a news release the day it announced the platform.
STLA One will cover B-, C-, and D-segment vehicles, with B-class denoting small, mini cars and D-class meaning midsize family cars. This will cover vehicles currently built on STLA Small and Medium platforms.
Consolidating platforms, the company said, has a few benefits — all of which will allow it to compete better on the global stage.
The company claims that the new platform, which can be scaled up or down depending on the size of the vehicle, will be 20% more cost-efficient than its current platform mix. STLA One will also integrate some of the company’s new computing software, developed by Silicon Valley tech startups, called STLA Brain and STLA Smart Cockpit.
A good deal with Leapmotor
Stellantis is also parading a successful partnership with the Chinese car company, Leapmotor, after signing a deal on May 8 to build more of the Chinese EVs in various Stellantis manufacturing plants in Spain, while agreeing to integrate some Leapmotor technologies into some of the company’s European nameplates.
Since 2023, Stellantis has owned part of Leapmotor, a fledgling EV company that is rising to the top of the Chinese EV market.
In the company’s latest earnings report, issued April 30, Stellantis said Leapmotor contributed to growth — or helped stop the bleeding in regions of sales losses — in every area where Leapmotor is sold. In South America, for example, losses in sales were buoyed by a good fiscal quarter of Leapmotor sales, and in Europe (where Leapmotor was among the best-selling EV brands) Stellantis’ performance was boosted largely by the Chinese company.
The small-but-mighty start-up has outpaced EV heavyweights like Tesla and BYD over select time frames, too. In 2025, Leapmotor delivered more than 40,000 vehicles in Europe and expanded its presence to South America, the Middle East and Africa. In April, Leapmotor launched in Mexico.
In essence, there are two Leapmotors, and Stellantis has a stake in both. The first is the original company and the Chinese arm of the business, Leapmotor, of which Stellantis owns 20%. Then there is Leapmotor International — a global joint venture in which Stellantis owns 51% of the company and Leapmotor owns 49% — which is the arm of the venture doing business in places like Europe, Mexico and South America.
The deal was signed in 2024 under former Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares and allowed Stellantis to get into the Chinese market without having to establish its own manufacturing plants in the country, and vice versa for Leapmotor.
Leapmotor vehicles are tiny, convenient, high-tech and inexpensive. When converted from foreign currency, most Leapmotor vehicles sell for about $30,000 — about $20,000 shy of the average transaction price of a new car in the United States.
A new deal with DongFeng
Similar to the manufacturing deal signed with Leapmotor, Stellantis announced it will also be furthering a longstanding partnership the European arm of the company has held with Dongfeng.
Stellantis brands Peugeot and Citroën have been tied to Dongfeng since 1992, long before Stellantis was formed in 2021. But on May 20, the two companies said they hope to form a Europe-based joint venture similar to Leapmotor International but limited to Europe, with Stellantis owning 51% and Dongfeng owning 49%.
The deal, when finalized, would give Stellantis an opportunity to build Jeeps and Peugeots in China, with Dongfeng exploring the possibility of making its own vehicles in Stellantis’ European manufacturing plants to sell in the region.
Liam Rappleye covers Stellantis and the UAW for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him: LRappleye@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Stellantis: New platform, Chinese tie-ups are hopes for global success
Reporting by Liam Rappleye, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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