Stellantis (STLA.US) delays the launch of the Ram electric pickup truck to the first half of 2025.

Stellantis NV (STLA.US) CEO Carlos Tavares said on Tuesday that the company will delay the launch of two electric pickups from the end of this year to the first half of 2025. The company is rolling out several different products, including the all-electric Dodge Charger Daytona muscle car, electric Jeep SUV, Wagoneer S, and two new pickups: the all-electric Ram REV and Ramcharger. Tavares said in a conference call with reporters, "We have a huge workload, and we want to carefully validate the products, so we will take it slow." "We are managing the peak period between the upcoming products." Last year, Stellantis struggled in the United States. Ram is one of the company's main profit sources in the U.S., and sales for the first 9 months of this year dropped by 24%. The company is also preparing to launch a range of electric products, despite weak demand for electric vehicles, as former U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to relax stricter fuel economy regulations that had encouraged the production of more electric vehicles in the auto industry. Since taking over Stellantis at the beginning of 2021, Tavares has made electrification a core part of his strategy. At the same time, he pledged not to pay fines or use regulatory credits as a buffer to give the company more flexibility in the difficult transition to electric vehicles. However, he admitted on Tuesday that American consumers may not be ready to quickly adopt zero-emission vehicles, and said that if Stellantis needs to pay fines or buy regulatory credits from competitors in the short term to comply with stricter fuel economy standards, he will not be "dogmatic" about it. Tavares said, "It depends on whether there are enough customers buying zero-emission vehicles - if there are, then we're fine and we will meet our targets. It's not that we are expecting very strong demand, because we see that the market's response is not very fast." Tavares heavily promoted the carmaker's latest "multi-energy" platform, which will support all-electric or hybrid trucks while offering a range of up to 690 miles, but can also be used for fuel vehicles.