At the Termoli engine factory, another year of solidarity and falling output

The main problem for the Termoli engine plant – a factory with 1,700 employees and burdened by a far-reaching solidarity agreement affecting over 90 per cent of its workforce – is not merely its industrial future, following the definitive abandonment of the Gigafactory project, but the production volumes on the three engine lines historically assigned to the plant. Today, the company and the trade unions will sign a new agreement to extend the solidarity contract by one year; this follows a period from 2025 to 2026 that will, in any case, be on a reduced scale, and comes in the wake of a plan to encourage the departure of around 60 employees by December.

Mario Laviano of Fim in Termoli sums up the situation: “The new production line for electrified gearboxes for hybrid models and the current engine production are not sufficient to guarantee an industrial future for this plant.” The area designated for the production of eDCT (Electrified Dual Clutch Transmission) gearboxes is already operational but is not expected to reach full capacity and achieve substantial production volumes until 2027, partly because the operational mandate assigned by the Group led by Antonio Filosa to Termoli is to support production at Mirafiori and the French site in Metz. This means having to align production volumes with market trends and the growing share of hybrid models in total registrations, with the aim of reaching full production capacity next year. The final quarter of the year should be regarded as a sort of trial run.

Following the closure of the historic Fire engine production line, there are now three models being manufactured in Termoli: the GSE, which is fitted to the Pandina and the Fiat 500 – which will meet Euro 7 standards following an update and is expected to reach around 300,000 units this year, compared with half a million in previous years – to the GME, the petrol-powered 2000, set to see volumes fall to between 70,000 and 80,000 by 2027 compared to the 250,000 engines of the past, in favour of American production, a region where there is still a significant market for this type of fuel. The third line comprises the V6 associated with Alfa Romeo (Quadrifoglio) and Maserati, brands for which the relaunch strategy has yet to be defined.

“The Termoli factory is a blurred snapshot of what it once was,” the workers say through gritted teeth. There are no new specifications for the engines currently in production, which are set to run out by 2028–2030. “The Group,” Laviano explains, “needs to plan a transition phase for the engines manufactured in Termoli, to safeguard production volumes and jobs. Those currently in production are set to be scaled back. We need a political focus on engine production in Italia and on Termoli, to discuss reconversion and reindustrialisation.”