Chrysler is Over

It’s all but official. Chrysler is about to be cancelled.

This can be inferred by the recently disclosed decision to “put on hold until further notice” the new Chrysler models that aren’t coming. A leaked email from within Chrysler to a supplier – of parts for the new models that aren’t coming – reads as follows:

“The C6X (CA) program has been put on hold until further notice. Therefore, any spending associated with this program should be suspended immediately. Please contact [redacted] at [redacted]@stellantis.com if you have any questions.”

The C6X was supposed to be the first of a new line of devices to fill up the currently all-but-empty Chrysler dealer lots around the country. The only new vehicle they’ve had to offer buyers since 2023 – the last year you could buy a new 300 sedan – is the Pacifica minivan. It’s hard to maintain a brand on that basis.

But that’s all there is – and soon (apparently) there will be no more.

It’s probably a good thing. In the manner of letting go when an elderly or terminally ill person passes. It is sad, of course – but the inevitability of the thing provides a degree of both comfort and closure. Put another way, deluding oneself into believing the end isn’t inevitable makes the end – when it comes – more traumatic.

When Stellantis – the parent company of Chrysler as well as Dodge and Jeep and Ram – decided to play Climate Change Kabuki and cancelled models with engines like the 300 and the Dodge Charger/Challenger it was based upon – in favor of battery powered devices, it sealed the fate of both Chrysler and Dodge. The former CEO of Stellantis – Carlos Tavares – thought he was being both politically correct and financially sensible in that Chrysler and Dodge were having to pay huge sums to Elon Musk (Tesla) for “carbon credits” to offset the dearth of devices in the lineups of these two brands. The V8 300 and Charger were especially burdensome – in terms of regulatory compliance costs.

It cost Stellantis a great deal of money to offer these models. The millions that had to be spent buying “carbon credits” to appease the federal regulatory apparat for the sin of producing V8-powered muscle machines the federal apparat does not want produced – and so punishes, via environmental extortion – had to be recovered somehow. Stellantis tried to do by folding the cost of buying those “carbon credits” into the sticker price of vehicles like the 300 and Charger/Challenger.

This was a combination of craven, short-sighted and suicidal.

Short-sighted, because passing along the compliance costs assured sales of these models would wane – not because people didn’t want these models but because they were becoming increasingly unaffordable. There are only so many people who can afford a $50,000 V8 Charger – which (if you didn’t have to pay compliance costs) would cost much less than that.

Craven – because Stellantis could have done the ballsy thing and explained to the public why models like the 300 and Charger/Challenger had become so expensive. There is nothing intrinsically expensive about a big sedan (or coupe) with a big V8 engine. If anything, such vehicles are intrinsically inexpensive – because they are intrinsically simple, especially relative to a device. (People are of course told that devices are “simple,” having fewer parts – but this is disingenuous because while the number of parts may be lower their complexity is much greater.)

Evidence in support of this is right there in the rearview. Americans – working class and middle class Americans – used to commonly own big sedans (and wagons) with V8 engines, establishing as fact that they were once – and could be, again – affordable.

It is compliance costs that have made them unaffordable.

Why not explain this fact to people – so as to arouse their anger at the regulatory apparat that is making what were once regularly (and affectionately) styled American cars rich people’s cars? Observe that the only remaining rear-drive big cars with V8s are six figure luxury brand cars – such as those made by BMW and Mercedes-Benz – because rich people can afford to pay the compliance costs.

Rather than spend all those millions on compliance costs – and pass along those costs to buyers, who increasingly cannot afford to pay them – Stellantis could have spent the money on media/public relations blitz. Saturation ads on TV and online explaining what compliance costs are – and that Chrysler and Dodge were being bled white by that insufferable plate-lipped Albino and his “carbon credits” grift.

VW ought to have done the same but didn’t when it was accused of “noncompliance” back in 2016. Instead, it agreed to spend millions on ads – promoting devices made by its rivals, among other servile apologias. It agreed to sell devices instead of cars its buyers wanted.  And that’s why VW is about to go the way of Chrysler. And probably Dodge, too.

Which brings us to suicidal.

The decision to cancel models that had intrinsic appeal – and that could have been made much more appealing, by lowering what they cost to sell by fighting the compliance regime that made them expensive to sell – in favor of more devices for which there is no market being precisely that. And more than that – as regards Chrysler and Dodge particularly, for they are (were) brands esteemed precisely because their vehicles were a thumb-in-the-eye to the pushing of devices.

Chrysler – and Dodge – not selling ballsy American cars with big V8s is like McDonald’s deciding to stop selling hamburgers in favor of soy patties with vegan mayonnaise.

And that’s why Chrysler’s done. Probably Dodge, too.

It’s all very sad – because unlike the passing of an elderly or terminally ill person, this passing isn’t natural. It is a kind of “died suddenly” – the departed having been both young and healthy prior to departure.

Hopefully, other brands that haven’t yet signed their own death warrants will face the existential threat and realize they will never comply their way out of this.

And man the Hell up – before it’s too late.

. . .

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