Stellantis said on Monday that a shortage of an electronic component used in an engine control unit was causing significant disruption to production of some Fiat models in Italy, and that the disruption could continue through November and December.
The shortage, involving a chip from a supplier, has already weighed on October sales, particularly of the Fiat Pandina small car, one of the brand’s best-selling models. The Pandina is built at the Pomigliano plant, and Stellantis warned that the shortage could lead to further issues, including production halts, in November and December both there and at Mirafiori, where the Fiat 500 is produced.
The disruption could also affect Stellantis plants in Italy that make engine components, including Termoli, where the N3 GSE engine used in both the Pandina and the 500 is assembled. That widening footprint is what makes a single-component shortage so consequential: a missing part at one stage of the chain can idle assembly lines and component plants alike.
Mirafiori is already under strain. The plant is in the middle of a three-week production halt that began in mid-October because of a separate component shortage, with unions pointing to weak demand for the Fiat 500 as one of the factors behind the stoppage. The new chip shortage is therefore landing on a factory that was already paused, rather than on a plant running at full pace.
Stellantis said it and Fiat were working with the highest priority to identify alternative solutions and gradually restore normal operations. The company has not, in the report, named the supplier involved or quantified how many vehicles will be lost, so the scale of the hit to year-end output remains unclear for now.
The timing matters because the Pandina and the 500 are volume models, and a disruption running into December risks leaving dealers short of stock in the final weeks of the year. Carmakers have rebuilt much of their supply chain since the pandemic-era chip crisis, but the episode is a reminder that production still depends on a long chain of specialised parts, any one of which can become a bottleneck.
Note: the featured image is a file photo of a 2025 Fiat 500e, not a photograph of the affected plants.
Sources: Reuters, “Stellantis chip shortage disrupts Fiat output in Italy, may last through December”, 2 November 2026, https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/stellantis-chip-shortage-disrupts-fiat-output-italy-may-last-through-december-2026-11-02/
