| Thanks for reading Hyperdrive, Bloomberg's newsletter on the future of the auto world. Stellantis is increasingly getting pushback from investors, dealers and unions alike over what they view as efforts by management to cost-cut their way to better earnings. The maker of Peugeot sedans, Jeep SUVs and Ram pickups has so far responded by continuing to squeeze its workforce for more savings. Just this week, Stellantis invited its employees in Poissy, a Paris suburb, to meet recruiters for companies including the French utility Engie and aircraft-equipment manufacturer Safran. In the weeks leading up to the forum, Stellantis offered webinars on hunting for roles elsewhere, polishing one's résumé and preparing for job interviews. This is nothing new for CEO Carlos Tavares, a self-described "performance psychopath." Bloomberg first reported on Stellantis routinely sending these alerts about career fairs and services to its employees back in early 2022, roughly a year after the company was formed via the merger between Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group.  Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares. Photographer: Oliver Bunic/Bloomberg What worries countless people I've spoken to within the company is that the years of pressure Tavares has applied to Stellantis has gone too far and been detrimental to the business. Managers are exasperated to see valuable members of their teams repeatedly getting nudged to accept supposedly voluntary departure packages. "You get an email, then you get another email, then another one," Laurent Oechsel, a Stellantis representative for the white-collar employees' group CFE-CGC, said in a phone interview. "Then you can get multiple phone calls if you persist in wanting to stay with the company. I call this harassment, and it's leading to massive loss of skills." Scrutiny of Tavares has been mounting after waves of executive departures, plummeting first-half profit and delays of crucial new models. Some blame the blown deadlines on continuous rounds of budget cuts and a push to employ more engineers in lower-cost countries like Morocco, India and Brazil, while paring back in pricier locales, such as Paris or Detroit. A Stellantis spokesperson said the automaker is transforming to achieve objectives with respect to electrification and facing Chinese competitors. The company has recruited almost 820 people since the start of the year in France, according to the spokesperson, who didn't immediately provide figures on how many jobs have been eliminated or outsourced. Last week, Oechsel was among union representatives in France who confronted local human resources head Bruno Bertin about the difficulties their members have faced. "Month after month, we've been alerting you on the negative impacts of organizational re-engineering at the executive level, but also within the procurement, engineering and software divisions," one representative said, according to prepared remarks seen by Bloomberg. "This hunt for white-collar positions in plants, this obstinacy in wanting to externalize projects and reduce headcount, is shocking." The CFE-CGC blames the holdup in introducing Citroën's new €23,300 electric car, called the ë-C3, on Stellantis outsourcing development of the platform underpinning the vehicle. The automaker has been rushing to get the car to French customers who ordered the model to take advantage of a government-subsidized EV-leasing program expiring this month. "It seems that anything is permitted" to preserve double-digit profit margins, the CFE-CGC representatives said in the document seen by Bloomberg. "No longer investing in the future, reducing payroll, no longer allowing current expenses, no longer paying your suppliers, no longer compensating customers who have problems." Stellantis CFO Natalie Knight acknowledged during a conference this week that the introductions of several EV models in Europe, including the ë-C3, have been delayed this year due to software glitches that required "tinkering." "You have seen several of our products that have had a bit of a lag, but I do feel like we are in a much better place than we were in terms of the first half, where you had seen a couple of things slip," she said. Looking ahead, Knight said that over the next few years, investors "will continue to see restructurings going on in the business." "There are going to continue to be places where you say, do we have the right capacities, do we have the right setups?" she said, without offering specifics. The overseer of those restructurings may be someone other than Tavares. Bloomberg was first to report this week that Chairman John Elkann has started looking for a successor to the CEO, whose contract ends in early 2026. — By Albertina Torsoli  Deserae Powell, a graduate of the Goodwill Clean Tech Accelerator EV Service Equipment Program. Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg The green energy transition is expected to create millions of new jobs in the US and supporters say it will lift many Americans into the middle class. But an early pilot program raises questions about how much low-skilled workers will share in the boom. Consulting giant Accenture and nonprofit Goodwill Industries International launched a green jobs accelerator in four major cities early this year to train people from marginalized groups in repairing EV charging stations and installing solar panels and heat pumps. Participants were initially told they could expect a salary of around $62,000 after completion. But several months after the pilot began, more than 60% of participants have yet to find work in the fields they trained in.  Great Wall Motor's Ora 03 in London. Photographer: Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg While auto executives are tapping the brakes on battery-powered cars in many parts of the world, car companies are still smashing the accelerator on electric vehicles in the UK. There are now 95 electric models available, almost twice as many as in the US market and one-third more than a year ago. The choices for EV-curious shoppers have surged since Bloomberg Green started tracking the UK market last year. | 
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