Car giant boss behind two ‘struggling' brands denies talks over ‘massive merger' with rival firm
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The head of Stellantis has denied merger rumours
Credit: Reuters
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Renault enjoyed a boost in sales across its brands last year
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Both firms are moving towards making electric cars, like this Renault 5 E-Tech
Credit: Getty
Stellantis is the company behind brands such as Fiat and Peugot.
The news comes as some of the firm's badges, including
But Mr Elkann has dismissed increasing rumours of the company merging with fellow European brand Renault.
Instead, he said: "We are not discussing any merger."
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Mr Elkann was sat in a panel adjacent to
It is the second time in a few months that the company has denied rumours of a merger with Renault.
In October last year, then CEO of Stellantis,
He did so while visiting a Renault hub in eastern France.
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Renault boss de Meo declined to comment on what he described as "rumours" at the same event.
Mr Tavares has since resigned as Stellantis CEO in December last year.
He is yet to be replaced.
The Sun's Motors Editor Rob Gill takes the new electric Renault 5 for a spin
The merger has been denied amid starkly contrasting economic backgrounds for the
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Renault Group enjoyed boosts in sales for all three of its
Renault rose 1.8 percent to 1,577,351 vehicles,
Stellantis, by contrast, has encountered increasingly stuttering financial success.
The company itself is the product of a merger between
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In February, the company announced that its results for 2024 saw a 70% drop in net profit performance, and a 17% reduction in revenues year-on--year.
This was in part due to 'temporary gaps in product offerings."
Earlier this year, Chrysler announced that progress making the company's new flagship electric model, the Airflow, was
This followed
located in the middle of the desert, in Arizona, in a desperate bid to cut costs, last year.
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Fiat and Abarth were also forced to
This followed a 14% sales drop for Fiat last year compared to 2024.
Then in the wake of US President Donald Trump's tariffs, Stellantis considered selling iconic brands
Maserati sold just 11,300 cars worldwide in 2024, and saw its new electric sports model MC20 Folgore get cancelled following low demand.
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Consequently, Stellantis then hired management consulting firm
Stellanis told
: "McKinsey has been asked to provide its considerations regarding the recently announced U.S. tariffs for
Alfa Romeo is currently working on next-generation versions of
However, Maserati cancelling its plans for electric cars perhaps points towards a more precarious position for the brand.
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The former Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares also denied merger rumours while visiting a Renault plant last year
Credit: Alamy
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Stellantis is the firm behind Fiat cars
Credit: stellantis /Fiat
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RTÉ News
31 minutes ago
- RTÉ News
Green Fables: The ways firms have misled on their sustainability
Shein has been hit with its second fine from European regulators in as many months – with both including accusations of greenwashing. The Chinese fast fashion retailer was accused by Italian authorities of making "misleading or omissive" environmental claims about its products, which centred on what were seen as vague, misleading and often confusing information about its attempts to be more sustainable. A more specific part of the case pointed to a line of products it sold under the 'evoluSHEIN by Design' tag, which were said to be more sustainable. But the Italian regulator said that sustainability was over-stated – and might have incorrectly led consumers to believe that they were made solely from 'sustainable' materials, while also being fully recyclable. Which was not the case. As a result it imposed a €1m fine on a Dublin-based company - Infinite Style Services Co Limited - which operates Shein's website in Europe. Shein said it cooperated fully with the investigation and has taken immediate action to address the issues raised. The move by Italian authorities follows the imposition of a €40m fine by French regulators last month. Much of that case was relating to false claims about the discount it was applying to certain products - but an element of it also related to its inability to substantiate a claim that it had reduced its emissions by 25%. Is Shein the first fast fashion firm to have mislead consumers in this way? Far from it. The fashion industry is a major contributor to global emissions and waste and while some of the biggest operators have promised to do something about that, they've often failed to back that up with real action. H&M, for example, has faced multiple accusations of greenwashing. In one case it pulled a sustainability scorecard that it was using after an investigation found it was misleading. The idea of the scorecard was to show consumers what kind of environmental impact different materials had, but in one case it claimed a particular fabric used 30% less water in its production than standard processes – when the truth was it used 30% more. It has also been criticised for its 'Conscious Collection', which included clothes made from organic and recycled materials. But this line only makes up a tiny proportion of H&M's overall range – even though they would have made a big push to promote it in their marketing and in-store display. And one of the key elements of their sustainability programme was to offer consumers the chance to recycle old clothes in-store in order to 'close the loop'. Placed alongside a line of clothes that used recycling material, the clear implication here was the customers' old clothes would be used to make new products. But that just wasn't the case. Industry experts point out that recycling any fabric for use in the likes of clothing is actually extremely difficult – and often more expensive and less efficient than creating something from virgin materials. Really the most practical re-use of old clothing is for them to be repurposed as industrial rags, as insulation, or stuffing in couches and mattresses. But an investigation by a Swedish newspaper in 2023 has raised doubts that the products sent through these recycling programmes even went to this use case. At the time reporters dropped in ten new, unstained items of clothing into the recycling bins, with each one containing a tracker that allowed their movement to be monitored remotely. They found that, at first, the products got shipped to Germany for processing – and many then were sent far afield towards their final destination. Some of the items turned up in Benin in Africa, one turned up in India, some ended up in Ghana – all countries where huge volumes of clothes are sent from the likes of western Europe, and generally either dumped of incinerated. But this isn't just a problem facing H&M. Experts have cast doubt on all of the major retailers' clothes recycling schemes – because there is limited capacity to recycle items properly, and there are limited applications for that recycled material. There are also a lot of companies that are willing to take the problem off retailers hands for a fee – and, while they might give assurances that they are disposing of it correctly, they often end up dumping or burning it. But critics say that the real goal of these recycling schemes isn't to generate a flow of second-hand material for clothing lines. Instead, what these recycling programmes are said to be trying to do is make the consumer feel better about buying lots of clothes on a regular basis, rather than encouraging them to rethink their fast fashion purchases altogether. Is this kind of greenwashing new? No – companies have long tried to paint themselves as being more natural, healthy and eco-friendly. But case of greenwashing have become more common – and more prominent – in the past two decades, as we have all become more aware of the need to reduce our emissions and our waste. And survey after survey has shown that consumers want the products they buy to be more environmentally friendly; and most say they are willing to pay a premium for a more sustainable product. But making your product greener can be hard work – it might require an overhaul of your supply chain, or spending more on better quality raw materials. It might even mean foregoing some profit margin or even sales in order to make the entire business more sustainable. So many companies would rather put their efforts into looking more sustainable, and reaping the rewards, rather than actually changing things all of that much under the hood. What's been the biggest greenwashing case in recent history? That's likely to be Volkswagen's emissions cheating scandal, which came to light almost ten years ago. Dubbed Dieselgate, it related to the company's attempts to hide the true emissions of some vehicles so that they would appear more environmentally-friendly. That made them more attractive to consumers, and allowed them to pass what were increasingly strict emissions standards tests in the US and in Europe. It did this by fitting a piece of software in the car that allowed it to detect when it was being tested – at which point it would activate emissions controls. They would otherwise be switched off so as not to impact the car's performance. In one case it was found that the real world emissions were 40 times the level that showed up in testing – so it was a huge difference. And even though the company initially tried to say it was an isolated incident, and something that wasn't an intentional company policy, it was eventually found to be in place in 11 million vehicles. In the end Volkswagen had to pay out somewhere in the region of €33 billion in fines and compensation to national regulators – and customers who had been duped and left with a less-valuable car. The case also had a huge impact on the company's reputation globally – and forced it to completely upend its business. There was a management overhaul, the then CEO Martin Winterkorn resigned after eight years at the helm – he is currently awaiting trial in Germany for fraud. And the company's new management team pledged to accelerate its plan to transition to electric vehicles as a kind of penance for the environmental impact Dieselgate had had. Have any Irish firms been accused of greenwashing? Yes – and one of the most prominent cases shows you just how tricky it can be to nail down a claim – because the same data can be presented in different ways to make completely different arguments. Ryanair regularly boasts about its low emissions – it would have been delighted to see a report just last month by aviation analytics firm Cirium, which said it had the lowest emissions per passenger per kilometre of any large airline in the world. But, at the same time, Ryanair has also been consistently ranked as one of Europe's biggest polluters. Back in 2019 a report by Transport and Environment, based on EU data, said Ryanair was one of Europe's top ten carbon emitters. All of the others in the top ten that year operated coal-powered energy plants. And those two claims might seem to be at odds – but it's possible for them both to be true at the same time. Because Ryanair has a fairly modern fleet of planes, which are more energy efficient, and because it tends to fill more seats on each of its planes, it does mean that the amount of fuel burned per passenger tends to be a good bit lower than those using older planes, and with fewer bums on seats. And this is the emissions metric Ryanair likes to use – the amount of carbon emitted per passenger, per kilometre travelled. But of course Ryanair also carries a huge number of passengers each year – it had 203 million passengers in the year to July. That makes Ryanair the biggest airline in Europe by passenger numbers – and one of, if not the biggest in the world. And generally each of those is travelling hundreds if not thousands of kilometres at a time. And even if your per-passenger number is low – once it's multiplied by 203 million, and then by hundreds or thousands of kilometres, you're going to get a pretty big end figure. Needless to say, while per-passenger emissions aren't irrelevant, it's also true to say that the environment doesn't care how many people were involved in producing all of that carbon. The impact is has is just the same. What are some other examples of greenwashing? Well similar to those clothes recycling bins that shops have, there have been lots of recycling programmes set up that are of dubious value. Nespresso's pod recycling scheme has been accused of being inconvenient for users, while it is also not open to users of third-party pods. But by Nespresso's own data, just one third of its are sent back to be recycled. Similarly those packaging recycling stations in supermarkets are a form of greenwashing – because all they do is let the consumer dump the packaging in the shop, rather than having to bring it home and put it in their own bin. It doesn't actually reduce the amount of waste being generated by supermarkets and consumer goods in the first place, which is the real problem. Companies are also very good at making big promises around sustainability, but without any real enforcement in place to make sure they follow through. Coca-Cola, for example, is the world's biggest plastic polluter but, back in 2019, they promised to do something about that by sourcing half of their plastic from recycled material by 2030. But late last year, they softened that target significantly, aiming instead for 35% of its material to be recycled by 2035. Although you might not know it was a downgrade if you read their press release – which was titled 'Coca-Cola company evolves voluntary environmental goals'. It made no mention of the old targets. And of course many companies, including Coca-Cola, brag about their packaging being 100% recyclable – but that ignores the fact that only a small portion of plastic globally is recycled each year – most is dumped or burned. And even after consumers go to the effort of cleaning and properly disposing of plastic – and paying for it to be collected – there's still no guarantee it will be recycled. But sometimes greenwashing doesn't even need to get consumers lost in the weeds like that – it can be something as simple as a company literally making its packaging green, maybe adding a few flowers to make it look more natural, or packaging it in brown cardboard that looks more eco-friendly even if it isn't. And unfortunately, while there are resources online to help consumers to make good choices, most of the onus is on them to figure out what is genuinely good and what is simply marketing trickery.
Irish Independent
2 hours ago
- Irish Independent
Pharma companies warned Government over competitiveness before Trump's tariff war began
Multinationals criticised the impact of EU rules on how they do business Major pharmaceutical companies raised concerns about Ireland's competitiveness, ahead of Donald Trump's opening shots in early April which began the tariff war with the EU. Correspondence released under the Freedom of Information Act to the Sunday Independent show that companies called on the Government to address supply chain issues and ensure there was a diverse and skilled workforce here. They also criticised the impact of EU regulations on how they do business. The warnings from Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson came before Mr Trump heightened uncertainty in the sector by announcing sweeping global trade tariffs, and underlined the need for Ireland to react if it is to retain its significant foreign direct investment from the pharma sector. Multinational pharmaceutical companies play a significant role in Ireland's economy. IDA Ireland data shows more than 90 pharmaceutical companies are based here and provide in the region of 45,000 jobs. They also pay billions in corporation tax. US-headquartered Eli Lilly, which employs 3,500 people in Limerick, Cork and on a nationwide commercial team, met with Department of Enterprise officials in February and outlined their concerns around the future of the EU-US trading relationship. Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson told Enterprise Minister Peter Burke that policy enhancements for business, health and housing 'should be considered in a co-ordinated manner that reflects national strategic priorities'. Trump has threatened future tariffs of between 150pc and 250p on pharma Notes from the Eli Lilly meeting show it told Department of Enterprise and IDA Ireland officials that it wants to see 'greater intensity from Ireland at EU level, specifically around the EU pharmaceutical legislation.' New EU pharma rules, which may be adopted by the end of this year, are designed to address issues around the availability of medicines, how they are produced, and aim to improve competitiveness in the sector. But some businesses raised concerns about the protections for clinical data before it is made available to the manufacturers of cheaper generic versions of drugs. Existing rules allow pharma companies to keep clinical data for eight years. Reforms would reduce this period to six years, although extensions may apply in some scenarios. Officials here said they recognised the need to strike a balance between access to affordable medicines and incentivising innovation. Notes from the Eli Lilly meeting show officials in the Department of Enterprise acknowledged EU-US trade concerns in the pharma sector, saying 'predictability is key for business' and that European engagement would be 'bolstered by expertise from industry'. The company 'also highlighted the importance of de-risking supply chains, ensuring there is a diverse skillset in Irish operations' and said that it 'would like to see more regulation co-operation between the US and EU, especially with the US Food and Drug Administration,' meeting notes stated. A letter sent to Mr Burke by Michaela Hagenhofer, Johnson & Johnson's general manager of commercial operations in Ireland, raised concerns about the European Commission proposing 'to weaken intellectual property incentives for pharmaceuticals… from eight years to six'. The letter stated: 'At European level, it is important that Ireland secures and strengthens its reputation as a life sciences hub by advocating for a competitive business environment. In recent decades, Europe's share of pharmaceutical investment has significantly declined.' A Department of Enterprise spokesman said it supports protecting intellectual property 'and will continue to make the case for this at EU level'. The EU and US last month agreed a 15pc tariff rate would apply on most European goods imported to America. Pharmaceutical goods are not currently the subject of this tariff, but the US is examining its drug supply chains, and levies could be imposed once that analysis concludes. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said any future pharma tariffs would be capped at 15pc. Trump indicated this cap may only be maintained for 'one year, one-and-a-half years maximum' and threatened future rates of between 150pc and 250pc unless pharma companies return production to the US. 'The department welcomes an agreement that will provide much needed certainty to businesses which operate in Ireland and will continue to engage with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the European Commission,' a Department of Enterprise spokesman said. 'The Department has favoured a zero-for-zero arrangement and will continue to argue against any tariffs which may interfere with the closely integrated nature of the Irish and US pharmaceutical sectors.'
RTÉ News
12 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Work under way on first interconnector between Ireland and mainland Europe
Work has begun to lay the underwater cable for the first electricity interconnector between Ireland and mainland Europe. It marks a major milestone in the €1.6 billion Celtic Interconnecter project, which will link the electricity grids of Ireland and France to ensure security of power supply. A specialist marine vessel Calypso, from Norway, has begun cable laying along a 84km section of the route. Once fully installed, the entire 575km interconnector will run from east Cork to the northwest of Brittany. It will allow for the exchange of 700MW of electricity - enough to power some 450,000 homes. The high voltage direct current (HVDC) cable is being laid onto the seabed by the crew of the Calpso, with burial works done by two further vessels. Being weather sensitive, the work is being carried out in summer. The ship is fitted with a carousel on deck but also with a second, below-deck cable carousel, with a total cable carrying capacity of 8,000 tonnes. Marine survey teams have already mapped the seabed in advance of the works to chart the best route for the cable. The project, co-funded by the EU Connecting Europe Fund, is being developed with Eirgrid and its French equivalent, Réseau de Transport d'Electricité. Construction first began in 2023 and the project is expected to be operational by the Spring of 2028. Extensive preparation works and ducting has been undertaken at Claycastle beach where the HVDC cable will make landfall at Youghal. Cable installation work has already been carried out along roadsides and through fields to transfer the electricity from Claycastle beach to a major converter station near Carrigtwohill. High voltage direct current (HVDC) arriving from France will be converted in Ireland to high voltage alternating current (HVAC) for use in the Irish network and vice versa for power that is exported to France. Essential onshore cable ducting works at Claycastle beach, where the HVDC cable comes ashore, was completed in March and reinstatement works are currently nearing completion. Between the beach and the converter station at Carrigtwohill, 97% of trenching and ducting is complete. Preparations are under way for the arrival later this month of three massive transformers, each 200 tonnes in weight, for installation at the converter station. HVAC cable has also been installed between the converter station site and the Knockraha substation, which feeds to the national grid 10km away. EirGrid's Onshore Project Manager Shane Cooney said the project has been in development for over 10 years and in construction for nearly three years. Now, he said, it is at a very important stage. Mr Cooney said the project is of "national significance", adding it is also important on a European level. He said: "It has secured European funding of over €500 million for the project and that is based on the fact that the project will deliver a connection between Ireland and the European Union with its power grids, which will led to balancing of power prices across the European grid. "It promotes the development of renewals on the grid giving us the pathway to be able to export excess renewables when we have them and it also gives us security of supply."
