Car News-Global and Domestic

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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

Post by bobins »

They already have found another use for it....

Honda's Swindon car plant sold to logistics firm.

"Panattoni will take over the 370-acre site in Swindon which is being closed down by the Japanese firm in July.
Honda said the closure, announced in 2019, was due to global changes in the car industry and the need to launch electric vehicles.
It will be handed over in spring 2022 and the logistics firm has pledged to make a £700m investment to regenerate the site in Wiltshire."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-w ... e-56538151
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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

myglaren wrote: 27 Mar 2021, 08:42 Honda bin the UK
Autocar
No more Civics being bolted together by good old British workers. Altogether a much bigger deal in terms of jobs and production capacity than Stellantis' presence in the UK, but Stellantis have the same problems and the same lack of ambition for EV manufacturing in the UK, and have current factories making an unsustainable product. Surely creates an opportunity for UK factories making the new generation of products. Nissan could walk through that open door, if they start getting their act together. Let's face it with the sorry state of the rest of UK Automotive manufacturing, the competition for now is virtually non-existent until the Chinese or South Koreans arrive, (or less likely the Californians :-D ).

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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

Post by mickthemaverick »

As much as I hate to say I think it is unlikely that any major manufacturer will want to manufacture in the UK now. There is no advantage regarding exporting to the EU members and UK labour is considerably more expensive than elsewhere. Add to that the higher costs of business rates, fuel supply etc and there really is no incentive for a major manufacturer to subject themselves to Britain's historical labour market jeopardies in the car industry. :( :( :(
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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

This is the UK Car Industry in a nutshell, there are others but these are the main players, the main employers.
Feel free to add to it the good news start ups.....or any missed out. The only one I can think of is Arrival in the Commercial vehicle sector. Listed on the NASDAQ as opposed to the LSE, and setting up HQ in Charlotte North Carolina. It does have a "microfactory" in Bicester :-D
NewcastleFalcon wrote: 04 Feb 2020, 11:05 ...Its from Wiki cant guarantee its 100% accurate.
Aston Martin Lagonda Gaydon /South Wales (head mostly in the sand until 2025)
Bentley Motors(VW) Crewe
Stellantis Vauxhall Ellesmere Port, Luton
Honda Swindon (confirmed disappearing July 2021)
Jaguar Land Rover (Tata Motors) Castle Bromwich, Halewood, Solihull, South Wales
LEVC (Geely China) Coventry
MG Motor (SAIC Motor China) Longbridge (no current vehicle production)
Mini (BMW ) Plant Oxford
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars(BMW) Goodwood
Nissan UK Sunderland
Toyota Manufacturing UK Burnaston
Morgan Motor Company (Invest Industrial (Italy)) also make a few cars in Malvern
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Arrival

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Who are Arrival....this lot....significant backing from Hyundai, and now listed on the Nasdaq.
NewcastleFalcon wrote: 21 Feb 2020, 10:45 The contribution of UK Unicorns may well be more significant than the contribution of traditional car makers operating in the United Kingdom.

Arrival are a case in point.



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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

Post by mickthemaverick »

I looked with interest at the list and wondered how many of the bigger mainstream names are producing electric vehicles:

Toyota: https://www.toyotauk.com/files/Dec_2020.pdf

BMW -Mini: https://www.mini.co.uk/en_GB/home/why-m ... alues.html

Nissan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf

PSA Vauxhall: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/car ... -deal.html

Jaguar Land Rover: https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/car-m ... l-engines/

So from them only Nissan and Jaguar make or will make EV's in the UK. The others are non committed at the moment and with Kia, Mitsubishi, Seat, VW, Audi, Mercedes, Suzuki and a few others not yet here I cannot see what might attract them. I wish it were different but sadly, like so much of our world, economics seems to be the sole governing aspect of company's decision making. Our best shot will be in the form of new entrepreneurial start ups in the car industry which have in our history either blossomed, Morgan, or crashed, TVR, largely due to a diference of approach to car building. The market suited to that type of business tends to be specialist and relied a lot on the values of the traditional motorist, or petrol head, to enable them to make a success of niche products.

As the vehicles we use continue on the trend of CAD they all become much of a muchness and fall into the background in our lives rather than being a prominent part of our interest. Just look around any supermarket car park at the 50 shades of grey roofs all sporting similar lines and look for the yellow or green or orange rays of sunshine that used to shine forth on our roads. I fear for the generations to come embedded in their Zoom meetings and PC games, travelling between them in their square grey electric boxes and wonder whether the youngsters of 2040 will ever get to climb a tree let alone drive a real car or ride behind a steam locomotive!! :( :( :(

I fear I have wondered off the topic but I make no apology, it's good to get it down on paper ........oh alright on another screen!! :-D
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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

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The only Ev's currently in production in the UK I can work out are the Nissan Leaf and Mini Electric. LEVC produce electric Taxis in Coventry. The mini electric is also to be produced in China.
NewcastleFalcon wrote: 14 Mar 2021, 00:33 One of only 2 EV's models currently rolling off UK Production lines, The Mini Electric, made by BMW at Cowley, Oxford, is also to be made in China in a joint venture between BMW and Great Wall.

New BMW Group and Great Wall plant will produce Mini EVs – but Oxford will "remain the heart" of operations

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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

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https://mg.co.uk/media-centre/press-rel ... ghai-show/

MG Cyberster............the MGB roadster on its way back :?:

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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

The CEO of Renault Groupe gives the impression that he knows his stuff, and knows what needs doing to transform Renault, while admitting failures of strategy in recent years in terms of going for volume and market share, at the expense of value and profit. Interesting that unit profit on electric vehicles and hybrids for Renault, already exceeds unit profit on ICE. (perhaps unsurprising as EV's are purposely "overpriced" by an unwritten cartel of OEM manufacturers.)

While 2/3 of Renault Sales were made in the B segment of small cars, profit margins in this sector are lower than for C-Segment family cars, and a sector in which Renault in recent years has lost ground.

No one will watch this, not even me :-D An enormous amount of talk in front of a few slide charts and pictures, mostly business talk rather than too much inspiration. If nothing else it has a nice pic of the new electric Renault 5 due 2023/2024.



Dacia and LADA brands have an important part to play but high volume low profit A and B segment aren't really where Renault Groupe are going. The Dacia spring is a bit of an odd product in this new strategy....do they really want to sell it and make a large quantity of them when their stated goal is profitability not volume.

Class A: Mini cars
Class B: Small cars
Class C: Medium-sized cars
Class D: Large cars
Class E: Top class cars
Class F: Luxury cars
Class J: SUV Vehicles with sports equipment
M-Class: MPV Multi-purpose vehicles
Class S: Sports Vehicles

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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Logo-Watch

You can feel the wind of change is blowing through the car industry, recent logo watch confirms it :-D

VW have a New Logo, GM have a New Logo, KIA have a new logo,

Renault Have a New Logo

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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

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Tesla and China, move at a pace previously unheard of in the Auto Industry, I wouldn't normally sit through a 10 minute video of someone speaking in Chinese and following the subtitles, but I was interested to find out from Tesla's Chinese President Tom Zhu, about the next truly disruptive model likely to come out of the Tesla China Pipeline the Tesla Model 2. The move into the more affordable market.

Clearly the biggest market by far in the Automotive world is China, it dwarfs the rest. The plan is for the car to be designed and made in China, and supplied to the Chinese market and global market.

Meanwhile over in Germany, Talk is that the Berlin Gigafactory is facing bureaucratic delays to getting on with the job, and Tesla have perhaps indelicately stated...
https://www.thelocal.de/20210408/electr ... reaucracy/
“Tesla has experienced first hand how obstacles in German authorisation procedures slow down industrial transformation,” the company wrote in a letter to Berlin’s highest administrative court seen by AFP.

“If these obstacles are not dealt with quickly, there is a high risk that Germany will miss its climate targets,” the company added, as it backed a legal case against the government by German environmentalist group DUH.

Arguing that its own experiences with German bureaucracy would be relevant to the case, Tesla said that Germany needed to “modernise itself” if it were to meet its target of reducing emissions to 55 percent of 1990 levels by 2030.
Anyway back to our subtitles and the words from Tesla's horse's mouth in China.



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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

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It can be reported now that SKI and LG Energy Solutions have come to an agreement after a ruling by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to ban SKI batteries for 10 years in the USA following a judgement in favour of LG Chem and against SKI for theft of LG Chem trade secrets

Battery Intellectualpropertygate

The effect is that SKI pay considerable compensation and continuing royalties to LG Energy Solutions, and SKI's big factory at Georgia goes ahead, and SKI can operate in the USA much to the relief of Ford and Volkswagen's interests in the USA.
https://www.electrive.com/2021/04/12/sk ... al-battle/
Under the settlement, SKI will pay LG Energy Solution 2 trillion won (just under 1.5 billion euros), divided into lump-sum payments and ongoing royalties. This means that the import restrictions on SK Innovation in the USA imposed by the US Federal Trade Commission in February, including the possible effects on customers Volkswagen and Ford, are off the table, as is SKI’s threatened withdrawal from the US battery business.
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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

There's a new brand in town. You maybe have heard of them for such things as the magical car that works on two sources of energy petrol and electric, and the BS description "Self-Charging Hybrid".

Their New brand is not BS but BZ......"Beyond Zero" and this is the first of the new BZ products due to hit the customers in 2022. Just a small view of the rear. I'm not a car designer but you can imagine what the rest of it looks like, you will not be surprised more pics here... https://electrek.co/2021/04/19/toyota-b ... ctric-suv/

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Toyota reluctantly swimming with the tide :?:

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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

Post by Gibbo2286 »

I was watching one of the cops programmes, they were looking for a stolen sixty grand Beemer, it was said that they're worth more to the thieves broken for spares.

I wonder if the EVs will have a ready market among the thievery community for stolen batteries.
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Re: Car News-Global and Domestic

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Maybe a hint as to why Toyota have begun to swim more with the tide.....

Toyota to review its lobbying against climate and electric cars after pressure from investors

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