Honda to close UK car plant in 2022, risking 3,500 jobs

Thrugelmir

phillw wrote: »

And we're pursuing a plan that involves taking us completely out of the service market and competing purely on goods.

Tourists wil always travel to the UK for heritage.

Likewise the City of London is far more complex than a few banks on Canary Wharf. Global banking is restructuring going to be a huge fall out in the years to come.

Thrugelmir

mayonnaise wrote: »

This Leave.EU advert didn't age very well....

Shame Ford stopped producing cars in the UK in 2013.

Likewise the heavy investment that Bentley (VW owned) put into ramping up diesel production for the Chinese market is going to backfire.

BobQ

Carl31 wrote: »

lol @ Brexit comments

Any company knowingly taking such actions now without knowing the outcome of the negotiations would have done so anyway. Its not closing for 2/3 years, they couldnt possibly know where their business would be at that point unless something else drove their decision

The big driver was the fact that producing cars in Japan is now more cost effective than the EU because of the EU-Japan trade deal. Of course the prospect of UK exiting on WTO terms has not helped.

Making a decision now makes sense but you can also argue that if there was a major change (say UK did not leave or had a permanent Customs Union with the EU) they will not have taken the plan very far so could reverse the decision.

Thrugelmir

BobQ wrote: »

The big driver was the fact that producing cars in Japan is now more cost effective than the EU because of the EU-Japan trade deal.

50% of Swindon's current production is shipped outside of the EU

Cost effective for the next generation of vehicles. Large investment in GM's self driving unit. Suggests the future direction of the industry lies elsewhere. North America and China are Honda's largest markets.

phillw

Thrugelmir wrote: »

50% of Swindon's current production is shipped outside of the EU

Right, but that 50% is probably neutral (shipping may differ, US seem twitchy about Japanese car imports) where they are made.

50% of the production benefits from 0% tariffs when exported from the UK to the rest of the EU. Japan is moving to 0%. With that benefit being lost, they may as well consolidate manufacturing now rather than risk further investment in the UK.

Thrugelmir

phillw wrote: »

With that benefit being lost, they may as well consolidate manufacturing now rather than risk further investment in the UK.

Honda is investing into GM. New technology is expensive to develope. Collaboration is the way forward. As has been the increasing case over the past decade or so.

Arklight

kabayiri wrote: »

With the EV revolution, I suspect we will see some new players into the market, and these players will not operate by the old rules ... producing tin boxes in France; Spain; UK; Germany etc.

The car producers have woken up to this. The growth market will be out in the Far East, and I expect more production to shift out there.

But...you don't really care do you. This is MSE ... and it is ALL about price.

Yes. It's impossible to export products to countries that are too far away. That's why we're leaving Europe, the world's biggest global trading bloc right on our doorstep... Oh wait.

phillw

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Honda is investing into GM. New technology is expensive to develope. Collaboration is the way forward. As has been the increasing case over the past decade or so.

Sure, if car manufacturers weren't all rushing to ditch the UK after brexit then they could have collaborated here.

GreatApe

It is much more significant than 3,500 jobs. You can get a pretty good idea of the economic impact as follows

200,000 cars x £25k average price x 70% value added in the UK / £40,000 = 87,500 jobs throughout the supply chains

and of course it is double important due to it impacting the balance of trade significantly too.
It will worsen by about £4billion annually in less exports and more imports

GreatApe

Arklight wrote: »

We lost manufacturing because Thatcher closed half of it down then sold the rest of it off in an ideological war against the unions.

I presume you are writing from the South, not Wales or the North where their industries were decimated overnight because the Tories wouldn't tolerate the unions and they surmised the best way to get rid of unionised political representation is to make sure their members are jobless.

Many of those areas have never recovered. There is a reason why you can talk to people in the North or ex Welsh mining towns who viscerally despise the Tory party even now.

It was progress what done it, not the tories

I used to work in a town which employed 30,000 men in a steel works.
By the time I left that figure had gone down to 4,000 men
That decimated the town

But guess what? Production actually more than doubled

What does that mean?
It means when the company was state owned as British steel some 2,000 worked while 28,000 sat around doing nowt. Some of my older colleges would say man staff would come in for their shift just to sleep then go home.

The country got more productive thanks to thatchers reforms
And we enjoy a higher living of standing thanks to this

And yes there are still very very bitter people in that town who hate thatcher and the tories
I mean if I had a job that paid more than the national average for me to come in and sleep and thatcher took that away I guess I would be quite bitter too