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Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares is leading the brand-rich automaker into electrification and looking to revamp the ownership experience. 

The 2021 merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group that created Stellantis melded 14 brands with varying degrees of market success. Tavares, 64, is affording each of them a decade to succeed under the Stellantis umbrella.

He has given the U.S. side of the automaker’s operations more urgency and resources. Stellantis’ North American profits topped General Motors and Ford Motor Co. last year, resulting in the largest profit-sharing checks that the company or any of its predecessors had paid out in 35 years.

Under Tavares, Stellantis has committed tens of billions of dollars toward electric vehicles — an area where FCA had been lagging. Chrysler and Alfa Romeo have announced plans to drop internal combustion engines later this decade, and even Dodge is preparing to reinvent itself with battery-powered muscle.

The company is working with partners to build battery plants for its upcoming rush of electric vehicles, establishing a captive finance arm in the U.S. and building diverse revenue streams. One of those streams is its circular economy business unit that the company says will generate more than $2 billion by 2030.

The circular business is part of the automaker’s Dare Forward 2030 plan centered on environmental stewardship as Stellantis seeks to be a champion in the climate change fight. The company plans to achieve carbon net-zero status by 2038. 

“We are ready to do our part in protecting humans from the negative effects we are already seeing from climate change,” Tavares said during the March unveiling of the Dare Forward plan. “This is our promise to society. Reaching the carbon net zero objective by 2038 is a daring challenge; a daring challenge we are proud to lead.”