Land Rover...

cocktail

wymondham wrote: »

Now I'm really losing the plot ... why is the UK Governement (ie us) providing funding for an Indian owned car manufacturer to develop a new car?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7937196.stm

i think its to keep british jobs (us) for british people. rather the jobs stay here than manufacturing getting transferred over to places where the labour would be cheaper.

nickmason

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

I'm sure they are. Thats never stopped the French doing it though.

I brought this question - legitimacy of state subsidy - up a couple of weeks ago. No one has a "good clean answer", ie - " on Thursday xth of yyy, the EU decided that it would now be okay".

Bluntly it seems that in this crisis, all the EU rules are being even more summarily ignored than before.

I suppose the interesting question is whether all this pragmatic flexibility with regards rules is likely to make the EU more resilient!

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Indian jobs for British Workers!!!

tomterm8

dealsearcher wrote: »

Why would anyone want to buy a new car now when they depreciate so fast when they have a perfectly good car already?

Not everyone has a perfectly good car already. I would quite like a new(ish) car, but I don't want a loan to go with it. Hence, being on a "money saving" web site.

Pennywise wrote: »

I thought state subsidies were banned by the EU?

State subsidies are not banned by the EU, the EU regulates them.

a_rather_tall_man

Judging by most of the comments people just haven't bothered to read the article posted by the OP. Its a £27m grant towards developing a new car (which will cost around £400m in total to develop) and it says the money was applied for months ago which inidicates to me before the economic turmoil.

The only relevant point to me as someone previously said is the fact the government has very recently become keen to milk the owners of these vehicles for more tax under the guise of 'enviromental concerns' but at the same time now want to fund creation of more of them. It does say funding for a smaller, lighter more efficient model but unless LR are suddenly going to be producing a competitor for the 3 cylinder VW Polo then it shouldn't getting government cash....unless of course all the bluster about concern for the enviroment we've had shoved down our throats is a was total lie..what do you think?

JasonLVC

I did read the article (honest!) and the other view to take from this is that if the grant was applied for months ago (pre-crisis), then why are the government trumpeting this grant as them helping the car industry? (as they were going to get it anyway)

Yes the grants are helping - what I mean is that Mandelson is supposed to be giving extra help to the industry (and the government are making a big hoo-har about this) and so this announcement seems like the old "repeating of previously announced" initiatives as new iniatives to me.

So is this £x million grant seperate to any additonal aid that LR may now apply for like all the other car makers, or have LR now froze themselves out of further help by having this grant?.