UK Sells Vauxhall Workers Short

Over recent weeks we have seen the German government get massively involved in the negotiations with Magna and the other interested parties at the time to ensure that the maximum number of jobs went to Germany.
Where was Lord Mandelson, nowhere. Now it seems like a done deal Mandy is crying foul. Why is it that British Governments down the years have failed so spectacularly in negotiations wo save what little bit of industry we have left.

Mandy and Gordon Brown seen driven to make the UK as the centre of manufacturing for electric vehicles.

Whilst that is commendable, that is for the future, what we need is action for now, without that there is no future.

 

Kit Cars

Having spent the day at Stafford Kit Car show I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by the standard of some of the cars on offer.

There seems to be an ever growing number of Seven lookalikes, but it’s interesting to see Tiger Racing have produced a variation on the theme. Called the Aviator it basis lies in one of the companies Seven lookalikes, but the bodywork has been updated. Viewed in plan it possesses an arrow head shape meaning that the barn door rear arches on the usual Seven are gone. The show car was fitted with a 180 BHP Duratec engine. Nice looking car

 

MG Rover report to highlight ‘questionable’ business practices

The report into the collapse of MG Rover will highlight ‘questionable’ business practices by the so-called Phoenix Four who were directors of the business, but contains no ’smoking gun’ on the conduct of the Government, it is understood.

The report will be published on Friday (September 11) after the Serious Fraud Office decided not to pursue a fraud investigation into the demise of the carmaker in 2005.

According to sources, the report makes uncomfortable reading for the Government – especially over what happened to a £100 million bridging loan designed to rescue MG Rover – but suggests that Labour did try to save the carmaker and there was no deliberate plan to pull the plug on the business.

The report, which has cost the taxpayer £16.3m and has taken four years to compile, contains numerous details of complex financial transactions.

However, the SFO has said that there is no evidence of fraud after analysing the 850 pages and two volumes that make-up the report, which examines the events leading up to the collapse of the car company.

Nevertheless, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is believed to be consulting lawyers about banning the Phoenix Four, John Towers, Nick Stephenson, Peter Beale and John Edwards, who bought MG Rover in 2000, from being company directors.

Business secretary Lord Mandelson is expected to make a statement when the report is published. The Financial Reporting Review Panel will also publish its own report into MG Rover on Friday. (Sunday Telegraph/The Observer)

 

The head of private equity group Alchemy Partners, Jon Moulton, has left the company saying it is “not what it was”.

In a letter to investors, Mr Moulton said he disagreed with plans by other partners to turn Alchemy into a specialist financial services firm.
Mr Moulton founded Alchemy in 1997 and is one of the UK’s most high-profile businessmen.
He led an attempt to buy Rover from BMW in 2000, but was unsuccessful when rival bidder Phoenix got the Government behind its bid.

Alchemy you will recall were involved in the negotiations to buy Rover from BMW, until the government intervened and placed it’s weight behind the Phoenix bid. The Phoenix bid was preferable because it saved (at the time) nearly all of the employees, Alchemy were to make a number of people redundant but continue making sports cars at Longbridge. Interestingly BMW were willing to put more money behind Alchemy then they were the Phoenix bid.
As it transpired, the Phoenix Four took millions out of Rover and left most unemployed. The Chinese ended up moving into Longbridge, making sports cars anyway and have raped the business of all the best bits

 

PSA to sell Mitsubishi electric vehicle in Europe

PSA Peugeot-Citroen and Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors have finalised a deal to allow the French car maker to start selling electric vehicles in Europe, including the UK, before the end of 2010.

The news came as a Paris newspaper said the two automakers were considering an alliance.

The new agreement calls for Peugeot-Citroen to buy 25,000 electric vehicles based on Mitsubishi’s i-MiEV electric city car. The cars will be sold under the Peugeot and Citroen badges.

The agreement signed in Paris by Peugeot-Citroen chief executive Philippe Varin and Mitsubishi Motors’ chairman Osamu Masuko follows on from a memorandum of understanding signed in March between the two companies. Under that preliminary agreement, signed before Mr Varin took up his post, the cars were to added only to the Peugeot brand’s line-up.

Peugeot-Citroen will be the first European volume car maker to offer electric vehicles to the general public, rather than just to fleet operators.

The Peugeot and Citroen cars will be sold in the 27 European Union countries, a spokesman for the French company said.

The i-MiEV cars that Mitsubishi has been making in its Japanese plant are right-hand drive vehicles, and Peugeot-Citroen is helping Mitsubishi to adapt them to left-hand drive for continental Europe.

The cars will also be adapted to European Unions safety standards that are different from those in Japan, said the Peugeot spokesman.

The cars will be full plug-in models capable of being 80 per cent recharged in 30 minutes with a rapid-charge system, or in six hours using a domestic 220-volt power supply.

Mitsubishi first launched the new-generation i-MiEV in Japan in June and will begin global sales of the right-hand drive vehicle this year. Mitsubishi has plans to expand rollout of the i-MiEV in left-hand drive markets in 2010.

By mid-2010, Mitsubishi aims to sell a total of more than 50,000 electric cars through this tie-up, half of which will be sold by Peugeot-Citroen, a Mitsubishi spokesman said.

Hold on a minute, don’t we require a re-charging infrastructure to be set up before Electric cars become practical, and aren’t we facing an energy gap even based on current demand let alone the increased requirements of recharging loads of cars. We have a lot of work to do before we can even consider selling electric cars in the large numbers that governments, looking through their rose coloured spectacles want, and that is not even taking into account that the range on electric cars is woefully inadequate.

 

Car scrappage pushes up new car sales in August

‘With car sales continuing to grow as a result of the vehicle scrappage scheme, Government must consider an extension to enable consumers and business to gain full benefit from the initiative,’ says Sue Robinson, Director of the Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMIF), representing the UK’s new car dealers, commenting on new car sales figures for August 2009.

New car sales for August 2009, announced today (Friday 4 September 2009) show that 67,006 new cars were sold in August, 6 per cent up on August 2008.*

According to Robinson, the scrappage scheme is having a positive effect on the whole market: ‘Car dealers are reporting that the scheme is continuing to provide a halo effect for overall car sales, and is helping increase footfall into showrooms by general buyers as well as scrappage buyers.’

Latest Government figures show that 185,273 cars and light vans have been ordered through the scrappage scheme since it went live on 18 May 2009. With sales continuing to grow, the Government’s £300m funding for the scheme is expected to be exhausted before the end of the year.

Robinson adds: ‘The scheme has been highly successful, but with the retail economic climate still fragile, demand still growing, and an increase in VAT scheduled for 1 January 2010, an extension of the initiative is vital. ‘

 

German car scrappage scheme ends

Government funding for the German car scrappage scheme has run out, marking an end to a scheme that has provided a much-needed boost to car sales.

The 5bn-euro ($7.1bn; £4.4bn) scheme has encouraged almost two million motorists to scrap their old car and exchange it for a new one.

The scheme helped boost car sales by 28% in August compared with a year ago.

There are concerns that car sales will now fall sharply without the government funded incentives.

Many major economies have introduced scrappage schemes to boost sales, including the US, France and the UK.

Last week, the “cash for clunkers” scheme in the US also ran out of cash after the government spent $3bn in a matter of weeks.

In the UK, more than half of the £300m set aside by the government has been spent.

Waiting list

The German scheme has been so successful that analysts have said increased car sales played a part in the economy’s exit from recession in the second quarter.

“The car-scrapping programme developed into an effective support and stabiliser for the German economy,” said Arnold Wallraff at the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA).

Under the car-scrapping scheme, German motorists were paid 2,500 euros for turning in a car which was at least nine years old in exchange for a vehicle that was no more than a year old.

Car sales rose to 10-year highs earlier this year, which spurred the government to increase funding from the original 1.5bn euros to 5bn euros in April.

BAFA said it had set up a waiting list for 15,000 people if existing applications were turned down.

The German car industry, like those in other countries across the world, has been struggling to cope with a dramatic slump in sales during the economic downturn.

“The most expensive arrangement imaginable would have been to do nothing,” said Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who championed the plan.

But he ruled out any further extension to the scheme, saying that it was not possible “to carry on endlessly using the same instrument”. (bbc.co.uk)

 

Audi has subtly refreshed its logo for the first time since 1990.

Audi says the logo has been given a more “imposing 3D treatment” and dealers are expected to adopt the version of the logo eventually to meet corporate identity standards.
A spokesman from Audi told AM: “We will not be expecting dealers to immediately jettison their existing fixtures and completely overhaul in one fell swoop.”
Audi said there would be cost implications in updating the branding but could not disclose further details.

In these exceedingly difficult times for manufacturers and dealers seeing reduced sales and reduced margins on those units they do sell it seems downright foolhardy to waste time and money developing a new logo with all of the cost implications that carries. Talk about shifting the chairs on the Titanic.

 

Toyota pulls plug on US factory

Toyota is pulling out of a production plant in the US it jointly owns with General Motors (GM), the first time it has abandoned a factory.

The world’s largest carmaker will stop production at the Fremont, California-based New United Motor Manufacturing plant in March 2010.

GM announced earlier this year that it would withdraw from the venture.

Toyota said: “Over the mid to long-term, it just would not be economically viable to continue production.”

The firm will move production to its other plants in the US and in Japan.

‘Sad day’

“This is most unfortunate and we deeply regret having to take this action,” the carmaker said.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said: “Today is a sad day in the history of Fremont as California joins the ranks of states adversely affected by the worldwide collapse in demand for automobiles.”

Earlier this week, Toyota announced plans to suspend production for more than a year at one of its plants in Japan – another first for the company.

It also confirmed it was considering suspending one of its production lines at Burnaston in Derbyshire in the UK, but said that no decision had been taken.

Toyota has reported operating losses for the past three quarters as recessions around the world have hit demand for its vehicles. (bbc.co.uk)

 

Toyota is considering whether to cut one of its production lines at its Burnaston plant in Derbyshire.

No decision has been taken yet, but the suggestion follows on from Toyota suspending a production line for more than a year at its Takaoka plant in Japan.
Toyota employs 4,100 workers at the Burnaston plant and said it was considering halting a line that just makes Auris models and moving all production onto one line that builds Auris and Avensis models. There would be no job cuts as all of the Auris workers would transfer over to the new line.