It’s been a wild two weeks in various Stellantis boardrooms. Carlos Tavares shocked the business community by resigning his position as CEO of the conglomerate on December 1. In what’s certainly a related outcome of the big boss stepping down, recently retired Dodge CEO, Tim Kuniskis, announced his return to the helm of Ram just eight days later.
Conveniently, Ram had already scheduled a press backgrounder yesterday, December 10, to announce the details of the upcoming 2025 Ram HD and Chassis Cab trucks. While we’re still under embargo with the truck info, I am free to share that Kuniskis used the event (with an in-person audience of mostly Detroit-based journalists) to kickstart his second stint as a Stellantis brand CEO in a major way.
Why Tim Kuniskis Took The Helm Of Ram
Walking out to Eminem’s “Houdini,” Kuniskis said that he was “bored” after his rather brief 8-month retirement – the CEO shared that the longest vacation he managed in his 32-year career was a single week-long… a cutdown version of a planned two-week honeymoon – and that he “missed the fight.”
Doubling down on his reasoning and the plight of Ram, Kuniskis said he was promoted to take the job, “…because we’re getting our ass kicked. You’ve seen all the numbers and we’re getting our ass kicked”
While truckmakers tend not to break out sales figures by specific trim, the macro sales story around Ram’s light- and heavy-duty offerings, compared with figures for Ford’s F-Series and Chevy Silverado, are indeed damning. Aggregate reports indicate that Ram sold just under 90,000 trucks in the U.S. for Q3 2024, compared to 267K for Ford and 131K for Silverado.
Ram was still in third place in the third quarter of 2023, but was much closer to the top of the pack with around 110K Ram trucks sold.
Kuniskis copped to the fact that “…it’s all light duty dragging us down,” admitting that the company has been experiencing severe production delays in getting the next Ram LD to market. The newly minted CEO also expressed frustration of a personal nature, confiding “I don’t even have my RHO yet.”
Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom from the new leader of the truckmaker. Kuniskis is quite bullish on the prospects for the new Ram HD that we were there to see, saying that Ram is up year over year on HD sales, and that, “We have the new product that will put us on the trajectory of where we need to go.”
In addition to new HD and LD trucks, Kuniskis called the upcoming Ram Ramcharger – a range-extended, electrically driven hybrid pickup – the “Goldilocks” offering for bridging the gap between ICE and EV products.
We can also expect, well, the unexpected from a fired-up Kuniskis. The CEO ended his energetic remarks by saying “There’s more to come,” and that he “…Did not get off the bench to come in here and not call some audibles.”
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