Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep and Ram truck dealers all over America have signed an open letter warning parent company Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares about the "rapid degradation"of their brands, which is chiefly the result of these brands having had most of the models that sold (such as the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger) either taken off the market or altered in such a way – the way one alters a male dog –  as to make them a harder sell. As in the case of the Ram trucks that used to offer V8 power that are now powered by turbocharged (and hybridized) sixes

Chrysler has been left to twist in the wind with nothing to sell except a minivan since the end of the 2023 model year – which is already almost two models years in the rearview. Are there even any Chrysler dealers left? They have been folded into Dodge/Ram/Jeep dealers as a kind of slow-fade into the inevitable oblivion. It's an example of what the letter calls the "short term decision making" of corporate parent Stellantis. And Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares.

"For over two years now, the U.S. Stellantis National Dealer Council has been sounding this alarm to your US executive team, warning them that the course you had set for Stellantis was going to be a disaster in the long run . . . a disaster not just for us, but for everyone involved – and now that disaster has arrived," reads the letter, in part.

Yup. It was about two years ago that the decision was taken by Stellantis that subsidiary brands such as Dodge and Chrysler would be shorn of their best-selling models because these were costing Stellantis – the parent company – too much in regulatory compliance costs. The Dodge Charger and its two-door sibling the Challenger, along with the closely related Chrysler 300 sedan sold well but each sale resulted in costs – to Stellantis – in the form of fines for noncompliance with Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) which are basically federally mandated MPG minimums; these are now scheduled to rise to about 50 MPG and vehicles like the big (and heavy) and V8 powered especially Charger/Challenger/300 could never be "compliant" with that.