- Stellantis just filed a lawsuit against one of its own fuel tank suppliers.
- The supplier threatens to withhold product unless Stellantis agrees to higher prices.
- This is the fourth lawsuit Stellantis has filed against its own suppliers.
Automakers are always looking for new ways to increase profits and part of that work is securing lucrative supplier partnerships. According to Stellantis, one of its suppliers, Spectra Premium Mobility Solutions is now making profits even harder to come by. That’s because Spectra is evidently demanding a higher price for the fuel tanks that it supplies to Stellantis. The automaker just filed a lawsuit over the situation.
In the suit, Stellantis claims that Spectra is threatening production of the Pacifica at its Windsor Assembly Plant. The supplier is demanding a 12.5-percent price bump retroactive to January 1 of this year. If it doesn’t get it, Stellantis won’t get any more fuel tanks for the minivan which could halt production.
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“Defendant has admitted to FCA that it has already manufactured approximately 400 fuel tanks that are finished and ready to be delivered to FCA — but it simply won’t ship them in order to try to extract massive price increases out of FCA,” the lawsuit says.
In an effort to force Spectra to continue shipping the tanks at the contract price, Stellantis filed a request for a temporary restraining order, says Crainsdetroit. An Oakland County Judge denied that request though and so Stellantis will either need to pay up or get ready to shut down production for the time being. That’s the same situation it’s faced with other suppliers too.
It’s already entered into a dispute with MacLean-Fogg and is currently paying the supplier under protest to keep production running. In other cases, it’s won injunctive relief from the courts to keep parts coming in at the agreed-upon contract price. Interestingly, the judge who denied this request from Stellantis is the same one who granted it in other cases with suppliers Kamax and Yanfeng.
It’s unclear at this stage whether or not this conflict has affected production of the Pacifica. Chrysler makes roughly 350 per week and is hoping to increase that production rate to 750 units before the end of the year.
