MILAN (Reuters) – Fiat-maker Stellantis’ vehicle production in Italy fell by 32% in the first nine months of 2025, pointing to a full-year contraction of around the same magnitude, the FIM Cisl union said on Tuesday.
The data is likely to stoke worries about the decline of Italy’s automotive industry, which in past years has led to friction between the Franco-Italian automaker and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s rightist government.
The contraction is due to a mix of persistently weak market demand in Europe and of long times needed by the automaker to launch new models, the Italian union said in its quarterly report on Stellantis’ output.
In the January-September period, Stellantis produced around 265,500 vehicles – passenger cars and light commercial vehicles – in its Italian plants, FIM Cisl said.
It forecast total production for 2025 of just over 310,000 units, a contraction similar to that seen in 2024. In particular, Stellantis’ Italian passenger car output is expected to fall below 200,000 units at the end of this year, FIM Cisl said.
That would compare with 283,000 cars last year, which was the lowest in almost 70 years.
“It’s a result far worse than forecasts at the beginning of this year,” FIM Cisl head Ferdinando Uliano said while presenting the report.
Stellantis, whose brands also include Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Peugeot, was not immediately available for comment. The group, which is due to release its third-quarter shipment and revenue data on October 30, does not publish country-specific production data.
Stellantis in December unveiled a plan to revive production in Italy, which has suffered from soft European demand, especially for electric vehicles, high energy costs, growing Chinese competition and a model lineup revamp.
New models – including the hybrid version of the Fiat 500 city car and DS8 and Jeep’s Compass SUVs – “will bring significant results only during 2026” Uliano said, adding almost half of the group’s workforce in Italy was affected by furlough measures.
Italian unions are expected to press Stellantis’ new CEO Antonio Filosa about the company’s plans for Italy in a meeting in Fiat’s hometown of Turin scheduled for October 20.
Filosa, who started in the CEO position in June, is working on a revision of Stellantis long-term business plan, which he is due to unveil in the first quarter of next year.
(Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari, editing by Cristina Carlevaro and Alvise Armellini; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )
