Dominique takes up another tall order

Larry Dominique has another difficult mission.

The PSA North America CEO, who was tasked with creating a business model for the French automaker’s potential return to the U.S., was appointed North American boss for Alfa Romeo last week.

Dominique, 58, had been preparing for the Peugeot brand’s U.S. comeback for more than four years, with a focus on creating a distribution channel that shunned expensive stores and used technology to offload consumer-facing services such as scheduling vehicle delivery and pickup.

But his appointment marks the end of Peugeot's planned U.S. comeback. The project became more complicated by PSA Group’s merger with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles this year, which wasn’t in the cards when the plan emerged. 

During a January interview with Automotive News, then PSA Group CEO Carlos Tavares alluded to a potential shift in the Peugeot U.S. project. He said the "FCA part of the family" has been doing a stellar job in the U.S., and that it made more sense to focus on the existing American brands than to spend too much capital on a new venture.

A spokesperson for Stellantis confirmed on Saturday, March 6, the Peugeot effort had ended. The "new context of Stellantis with a strong presence on U.S. market, lead us to focus on existing brands,” the spokesperson said. “This is why Larry will develop Alfa Romeo on this market.”

Dominique will go from trying to relaunch one overseas brand in the U.S. to igniting another.

Alfa Romeo has been showing glimmers of life in the U.S. The Italian brand’s sales rose 1.6 percent in a down market last year, but volumes are low for the Giulia sedan and Stelvio crossover. Two new crossovers soon are expected to boost the lineup.

Dominique’s work to reestablish Peugeot were praised by Tavares, now CEO of Stellantis, the company formed from the merged automakers.

He said Dominique’s efforts to create an asset-light network have been helpful and that the vision appealed to dealers.

“This is something that, most probably, we are going to use, not specifically in the U.S. market, but maybe in another region of the world,” Tavares told Automotive News just days before the merger. “But I think that innovative thinking of that project has been very helpful.”