End of the line for Vauxhall if the government refuse to bail them out.

mbga9pgf

any chance of a cheap new Vauxhall insignia?

Alan_M_2

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Big business, big headlines I'm afraid.

You're too small to be saved

Whilst I'm not too naive to understand that is the case, it doesn't make it any less galling.

robin_banks

The car industry has been ****ed for a long time, can anyone tell me what the economic advantage is of bailing out a company that cannot sell what it produces because such items were purchased with credit or MEW.

themanbearpig

They make rubbish cars, and have been doing so for years, so they don't deserve a bailed out. Simply as that really. Just wish the government had the balls to let them fall, and set a precedent for other multinationals that think they can put their hands in the tax payers pocket.
Yes people will become unemployed, but thats what needs to happen for the greater good really.

I don't really see why there is so much fuss about the car industry. Its almost as if they don't realise they are manufacturing luxury goods, not necessities. If every british car manufacture falls, better, international manufactures will take their place.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

This Govt decided that MG Rover were not worth saving, what is different here?

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The Government pumped in cash to MG Rover just before a general election to keep it running.

Then the truth came out that the directors had stripped all the assets of Rover & were walking away with millions for a £1.00 investment between them

No wonder they decided it wasnt worth saving...

chewmylegoff

i don't know if this is a good way to look at this or not, but £1.5bn is equivalent to £3,750,000 for each of those 4,000 jobs. even if you assume another 4,000 people are employed on the back of vauxhall and they will all be made redundant, it's still £1.9m.

one has to assume that vauxhall will still sack people even if it gets a bailout.

then you need to consider that the car market has finite demand. if vauxhall goes bust, the other players in the market will sell more cars - thus they will have to make fewer people redundant. hence a bailout of vauxhall may cause redundancies elsewhere that may not have happened if it was not bailed out.

StevieJ

itsnever2lateisit? wrote: »

It's a shame, but Vauxhall hasnt been a 'proper' car company for 30 years, they are rebadged Opels, just like Saab. As it has no IPR it would not be able to stand alone. The last time we helped an American car manufacturer they took our money and cleared off.

This Govt decided that MG Rover were not worth saving, what is different here?

The best way to help home based manufacturer is to raise VAT (perhaps to 25%) and reduce NI which is a tax on UK jobs which isn't applicable to imported goods

I am sure the pensioners will love that one

mbga9pgf

its about to get worse....


http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/engineering/article5839556.ece

General Motors’ European operations will run out of cash within weeks unless they get government support, the US carmaker warned today, saying that a collapse would put up to 300,000 jobs at risk.
Fritz Henderson, the chief operating officer, said that the division, which includes Germany’s Opel and Britain’s Vauxhall, will hit liquidity problems early in the second quarter.
At the Geneva motor show, he said: “We will try to stay alive but there is no reassurance that we could stay alive and we would become insolvent then.”
GM is looking for €3.3 billion (£3 billion) from European governments to keep the division going.
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It has already said that it will partially spin off the European operations but retain a strong link with GM, unlike its decision to cut off its Swedish Saab unit.
Today Mr Henderson said that GM could keep only a minority stake in GM Europe if other investors were prepared to buy the bulk of the business. He said: “We have to be prepared to consider all options and I haven’t taken anything off the table.”

we are looking at Opel and Saab going under as well...

chopperharris

Its a pity there is no "real" 100 percent british car manufacturer left....apart from specialist makers.

Vauxhall make good cars , thats probably because they are originally german , well that used to be the case.A sizeable chunk of german cars arent even german made anymore , they are made in places like mexico where labour is cheap , and badges that were once marques and were rare are now mainstream....BMW for example is as popular as ford to my road eye.

What hmg will do is right.If they could not save rover when it was beginning to propser after years of ineptitude , or Jaguar landrover which was on the cusp of something to take on the big boys again...then why save vauxhall/gm.opel here? Sure the jobs matter , but if theres nothing selling , then theres no work anyway....it would be insanity to pay someone not to work , thats called the benefits system .

Perhaps the way of the french is workable , the govt part own the manufacturers and even the tyre and brake makers if I am right.They share platform and parts across the range , as do gm/opel/ and VAG.By doing that it reduces production costs and the overall research , for example the new beetle , audi a3 , and golf are essentially the same car.....and as was the beetle and the 911.

This can go two ways , protectionism , and all the countries will adopt their own version of "buy british" or it will remain at the status quo and eveyone will either buy cheap or showoff with a beemer instead.Its worth noting that there is strict laws within the eu to promote free trade which is "skirted" by both the french and german auto makers both at home and exporting to neighbours on the continent.

Before the end of the recession there will be plenty of makers on the floor for any venture capitalist to scoop up at least the badges and rights.No doubt given handouts by hmg which will be cheaper in the long run than bailing them out now.

It is quite impractical to make cars here in the uk if no one buys them , the end price makes them equally useless to export them too.

What car manufacturers need to do now is outsource development to another company for "platform work".Standardising the chasiss is the way to go , when you look all cars look the same these days anyway so it shouldnt be too hard a thing to set up an iso standard more than they have already between them.

As I mentioned before , various cars are already shared across brands ,from micro to people carriers.If they want to survive at all then make the chassis in a poor country in europe thats "stackable for transport" en masse , and help themselves by helping their poorer neighbours to be become more affleuent enough to buy korean cars too.

Rochdale_Pioneers

We face a simple choice. Bail out Vauxhall and keep manufacturing their cars here. Or don't bail out Vauxhall, watch it close whilst subsidised Opel keeps going, then when the market picks up again find ourselves driving Vauxhall or Opel badged cars made in Germany. THEN you lot complaining about a lack of british industry will complain about a lack of british industry.

Yes, there was overcapacity in the car industry - thats not the debate. The question is are you willing to provide the subsidies needed to keep manufacturing in the UK? The French and germans will, so either we do as well or we watch every car plant in the UK close and spend the rest of our lives driving imported cars.