Due to a mass shortage of truck drivers in Europe, Stellantis and Renault are looking inward to its factory workers to become truck drivers and deliver cars to dealerships. According to Automotive News Europe, Stellantis-owned companies Fiat and Peugeot have sent out emails and put up posters to recruit factory workers to get behind the wheel.

According to Stellantis, around 140 workers from France, Spain, and Italy have already stepped up. Stellantis is covering fees and training to get the licenses required to drive the trucks. The automaker is even considering buying its own fleet of trucks to help iron out the logistics.

This all follows an episode caused by driver shortages that left thousands of its Toyota RAV4 competitor, the Peugeot 3008 SUV, stuck at Stellantis's Sochaux plant in France. The company had to store the vehicles in a nearby abandoned airfield

There's a long recipe for the shortage in Europe that starts with low pay and bad working conditions before COVID hit. The difference between drivers retiring versus the amount being hired has widened, particularly as trucking companies go out of business as they lose drivers. Then the war in Ukraine started, which led to Ukrainian truckers leaving work to go home and few to become truckers. The most common number currently reported is a shortage of around 380,000 drivers.

Other automakers are facing similar problems, and Renault has gone for the same solution as Stellantis but using the recruitment and staffing company Adecco Group for training.

Many forecasts of the trucking industry suggest the problem is only going to get worse unless a solution is found and implemented. The problem, it appears, is that being a truck driver in Europe simply isn't an attractive proposition, and companies are going to have to pay more. It's as simple as that.

It's likely that Stellantis and Renault are doing so, with Stellantis thinking seriously about going a step further and as well as employing its own drivers and providing its own fleet of trucks rather than using separate logistic companies.