Editor's letter: The big task for Stellantis UK's new boss

Maria Grazia Davino

All of the Stellantis brands have a long-term future and security in the UK, even DS, which has sold just over 2000 cars in 2023 to the end of October. She’ll set them up to succeed and says Stellantis’s UK success will be based on “all of my brands doing their jobs properly”. 

Stellantis will stay in the background as a name and not ever be pushed as a brand and the company “has the brands and products that allow me to do something that if well executed can work”. She dismisses the notion that it doesn’t matter which brand a customer buys into so long as it’s a Stellantis one, because each brand needs to deliver on its own business plan. 

On those brands, Davino says it is a “privilege” to have a domestic brand in Vauxhall and it is a “fundamental part of Stellantis’s UK performance”. It is Stellantis’s largest brand in the UK by some margin and sells its biggest-selling car, the Vauxhall Corsa, and has two factories. 

Peugeot is “doing very well but can do and must do better” with a whole host of new cars arriving. Citroën is finding its place as an entry-level brand and “can help Stellantis in an important way” with cars like the new ë-C3 bringing the cost of an EV close to £20,000.

Fiat has struggled with the ramp-up of the 500e and Davino says it has “not been helped by big operational issues”, including a switch in the retail network. But “the offer now works and it is the right one”.

She says DS “has a long way to go” in the UK and more must be done to build awareness of the brand. Alfa is in a similar boat. “The brand is good, products good, performance not,” says Davino. Jeep’s future success looks likely to be defined by the Avenger, which has “big UK potential”.

Stellantis also recently acquired a 20% stake in Chinese brand Leapmotor, and while it has yet to be decided if the brand will come to the UK, it would do so under Davino’s watch should it get the go-ahead. In case her job wasn’t busy enough, she is also in charge of Stellantis’s used car Spoticar business, the thriving van division and the two plants at Ellesmere Port and Luton.