Stellantis Kragujevac targets 150,000 vehicles, weekend shifts from June

Stellantis’s Kragujevac plant will introduce weekend shifts on Fiat Grande Panda production from 7 June, according to a company statement issued on 27 May. The target is to scale annual output to 150,000 vehicles by the end of 2026.

Current production, annualised from the first five months, runs between 119,000 and 124,000 vehicles. The planned increase represents a step-up of 20 to 26 percent.

Weekend shifts and headcount

Weekend shifts will run as two 36-hour cycles on Saturdays and Sundays, with approximately 750 additional workers brought on.

Roles for new hires:

• Assembly
• Quality control
• Logistics
• Vehicle packaging

Stellantis Serbia operations director Antonio Felis explained the rationale to the Kragujevac daily Pobeda.

Demand for the Grande Panda E and Grande Panda Hybrid in Italy, France and Germany is outpacing production capacity by an average of 4,300 vehicles per month, which is the main reason for adding the sixth shift cycle.

Market position in 2026

According to European Automobile Manufacturers Association ACEA data, the Fiat Grande Panda ranked third in the B-segment compact car bracket in the European market in the first quarter of 2026, with sales of 87,412 units. Year-on-year growth on Q1 2025 stands at 41 percent.

B-segment Q1 2026 ranking:

• 1. Volkswagen Polo
• 2. Fiat Grande Panda
• 3. Renault Clio
• 4. Peugeot 208

Italy and France together account for 38 percent of model sales. More than 90 percent of Kragujevac output goes to the EU market. The remainder is exported to North Africa, Southeast Asia and the Western Balkans.

Stellantis intelligence in the same report suggests the Serbian and surrounding market could absorb between 4,800 and 6,200 Grande Panda units a year, less than 5 percent of planned output.

Contribution to the Serbian economy in numbers

Stellantis exported vehicles worth €1.52 billion (around 178.4 billion RSD) in 2025, according to data from the Development Agency of Serbia RAS. That makes it Serbia’s second-largest industrial exporter.

Key indicators:

• GDP contribution (direct and indirect): 1.3 percent of GDP in 2025
• Local suppliers in Serbia: 43
• Local supplier share of component value: 27 percent
• Main sources of imported components: Italy, Slovakia, Turkey

Serbian Chamber of Commerce President Marko Cadez quantified the indirect effect in a 26 May interview with Politika.

The Stellantis expansion in Kragujevac is the largest single industrial investment in Serbia in 2026, which through domestic suppliers will create an additional 1,200 jobs outside the factory footprint.

Is 150,000 a year the ceiling

Hernan Fadul, Stellantis group head of electric mobility, told Reuters in a 21 May interview that a second model is on the table.

We are considering adding a second model in Kragujevac from 2028, which would lift production capacity to 200,000 units per year, with €320 to €400 million of investment in new assembly lines and robotic cells.

Will Kragujevac become Stellantis’s central electrification hub for southern Europe? A follow-up analysis of the strategic implications will be published shortly.