Under Carlos Tavares, Stellantis remains on the winning track.

The Opel parent company, created a year and a half ago from the merger of Peugeot-Citroen and Fiat-Chrysler, recorded a sales increase of 17 percent to 88 billion euros in the first half of the year.

At 34 percent, net profit increased twice as much to 8 billion euros.

The return on sales climbed to 14.1 percent - more than any of the 14 manufacturers that Stellantis brings together under one roof have ever achieved.

In North America, the group even achieved an 18.1 percent return on sales with brands such as Jeep and Dodge.

Niklas Zaboji

Economic correspondent in Paris

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Like other competitors, Stellantis is concentrating on high-priced models instead of small and medium-sized cars, including electric cars, in view of the shortage of semiconductors and increased raw material prices.

This is reflected in the sales forecast in the two most important markets - instead of 2, Stellantis now expects a minus of 12 percent in Europe and in North America instead of stagnation a minus of 8 percent this year - and in the sale of fully electric vehicles, which will increase by 50 percent rose 136,000 globally.

The all-electric Fiat 500 was particularly successful in Germany, and the Peugeot 208 in France. Stellantis currently has 20 such models in its range.

Another 28 are to be added by 2024.

There is currently a "significant imbalance" between supply and demand for cars, Tavares said in an interview with journalists on Thursday.

On the one hand, manufacturers could achieve higher earnings, on the other hand, the price increases for steel and energy weighed on earnings.

In addition, of course, it leads to tensions in the group to use the scarce chips for high-priced and electric models and to throttle production elsewhere.

In terms of semiconductor bottlenecks, the Stellantis boss sees an improvement, but only very slightly.

Car production runs a little smoother and there are fewer interruptions.

The slowing world market demand for consumer electronics could help the auto industry.

However, Tavares does not expect the tense semiconductor market to calm down before the end of 2023.

"You have to decide"

The Stellantis boss called the fact that the price of steel is currently falling a good thing.

The markets were evidently anticipating a slowdown in the global economy.

Energy prices, on the other hand, continued to rise, especially in Europe.

"Europe is currently the world's greatest risk of recession," said Tavares, and that applies particularly to Germany.

For Stellantis, the Opel factories were not very important and accounted for only 3 percent of the group's production, in contrast to competitors such as Volkswagen.

Nevertheless, Tavares announced an energy saving plan for Germany for September, which, among other things, is intended to reduce gas dependency by 50 to 90 percent by generating its own renewable electricity.

This dampens the effect of inflation and is "good for the planet, good for society and good for the company".

The group did not want to reveal any further details for the time being.

When asked about China, Tavares downplayed the prospect of strong business growth.

"Western companies are having more and more problems in their Chinese operations," he said frankly.

Political influence has steadily increased over the past five years.

The Stellantis boss did not want to confirm whether, as announced at the beginning of March, sales in China would still reach 20 billion euros in 2030.

"If we look at what happened in Iran and in Russia, when political sanctions increase and end in mutual sanctions, you have to make a decision," Tavares said - which he has already done.

"We are a Western company," he clarified.