An executive with Stellantis made headlines last week when he said the carmaker was eliminating hexavalent chromium in its vehicles, a plan he termed the “Death of Chrome.”
Ralph GillesIn an interview, Ralph Gilles, Stellantis’s chief global designer, told CNN that the manufacturer was moving forward with its plans to rid its cars of hex chrome, something the car maker has been saying for years it will do.
Stellantis makes Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Fiat, and Maserati cars. Gilles says the automaker will replace functional and decorative chrome components with “badges and trim pieces,” which he says are “less dangerous” than using hex chrome.
“The problem is the luster isn’t as good. It has a more yellow kind of finish,” Gilles told CNN. “Whereas hexavalent is extremely good, very brilliant, very clear, and that’s why people have come to love it. They don’t realize what they’re looking at, but they’ve come to love it. We have to make them unlove it.”
Gilles says Stellantis has discovered that some car buyers like to replace decorative chrome with “blackout packages” for items such as badges and grilles.
“Sometimes people go and personally convert their cars to blackout packages,” Gilles told CNN. “They call it ‘murdered out’ on the street.”
The new Jeep Wagoneer S electric SUV will be one of the first Stellantis vehicles to have no chrome on the vehicle trim, and Gilles says other models will follow suit.
In 2023, Gilles told Reuters that Stellantis is trying to appeal to younger buyers, and therefore is hiring more designers who are in their 20s and 30s who Gillis says “don’t understand chrome.” Gilles also told the news agency that leather may also be removed from Stellantis vehicles because it “may be an anti-selling feature in the future” because of vegans and other environmental interests.
Stellantis’ plan to eliminate hex chrome goes back several years — the same as it has with other automakers — and has connected with the company’s environmental goals to “Eliminate four heavy metals: lead, mercury, cadmium, and hexavalent chromium which are regulated by the European Directive No 2000/53/EC on end-of-life vehicles and its exemptions list mentioned in Annex II,” which is included in Stellantis’ annual environmental reports.
