Honda and Nissan join

[biggs682]

Isn't the Honda one closing (if not already closed)?

It might well be actually

 

[bonzobanana]

Lots of European, Japanese and US brands are leaving China and its costing them huge money. The German car brands have huge debts but they seem to be constantly supported by the German government with loan guarantees or other financial help. VW group will owe about a third of a trillion dollars I think by the time its left China going by various reports. I wonder if these companies are looking for partnerships and cost savings now before the debts caused by the China exodus hit their accounts fully. Cars are big money and most developed countries want a slice of this pie as its the second biggest purchase after property and can on its own be the difference between a successful economy and failing economy when you have a reasonable slice of the world market. In the 60s a million people were employed in the UK manufacturing vehicles directly and many more jobs were in the supply component side. We were 2nd biggest car manufacturer in the world. One in every 20 people in the workforce were working in car factories.

 

[cyberknight]

Lots of European, Japanese and US brands are leaving China and its costing them huge money. The German car brands have huge debts but they seem to be constantly supported by the German government with loan guarantees or other financial help. VW group will owe about a third of a trillion dollars I think by the time its left China going by various reports. I wonder if these companies are looking for partnerships and cost savings now before the debts caused by the China exodus hit their accounts fully. Cars are big money and most developed countries want a slice of this pie as its the second biggest purchase after property and can on its own be the difference between a successful economy and failing economy when you have a reasonable slice of the world market. In the 60s a million people were employed in the UK manufacturing vehicles directly and many more jobs were in the supply component side. We were 2nd biggest car manufacturer in the world. One in every 20 people in the workforce were working in car factories.

easy googling
hi-lux hydrogen project got over 11 million in funding from the government and overall uk automotive sector 2 billion

 

[presta]

It will be interesting to see what happens to the two UK factories honda and Nissan have.

Honda pulled out of Swindon in July 2021. Remember the incident when a shipload of plant to upgrade the factory was on it's way here when the management got fed up with the Brexit fiasco, and recalled it back to Japan?

 

[bonzobanana]

Honda pulled out of Swindon in July 2021. Remember the incident when a shipload of plant to upgrade the factory was on it's way here when the management got fed up with the Brexit fiasco, and recalled it back to Japan?

That may be true but it would be unfair to just leave it like that when joining the EU was pretty much the only reason we went from being 2nd in the world to insignificant in car production. We joined a single market we couldn't compete in because of the high price of sterling and so our cars became uncompetitive then of course car factories owned by foreign companies like General Motors, Ford, Peugeot etc all moved out of the UK and went to cheaper locations in Europe. No reason to manufacture in the UK when you are in a single market and there are cheaper countries. When we were outside the EU we had a series of trade barriers and other mechanisms to protect our own industries and make importing more difficult just like many independent countries do today. In fact we are likely to need to get a IMF bailout at some point when we default on our interest payments and then apart from huge budget cuts, tariffs maybe necessary to allow for the IMF bailout. It was always utter madness to join the EU but when we left the huge debts didn't just disappear and the factories suddenly puff back into existence. There is about £190k of government debt and liabilites for every single person in this country. The point is there are 10s of thousands of factories closing you can put down to joining the EU from small to large. Labour has recently added huge costs to businesses partly because of the huge level of legacy debt caused by the EU but by doing this they have made us even more expensive to manufacture in. At the time we joined we were warned by Labour politicians and Union leaders the damage this would cause and many economists stated back then not to do it but we did anyway. Even today there are people that deny reality and still see joining the EU as a good thing and wanted to maintain membership. When it has it ever been sensible to give away money, give away control and then borrow and sell assets to pay for a shortfall in money in the economy?