The U.K. vehicle industry is in sharp decline. Honda pulled out of Swindon and announced all of Europe will be supplied from Japan given falling volumes. Ford quit assembling vehicles here sometime ago and is now cutting jobs in its component manufacture. Vauxhall is closing one of its two van making factories. Jaguar has lost a lot sales and is now rebranding with a policy of shedding up to 85% of its remaining customers and doubling typical prices. This is not likely to add volume.
The remaining car makers are lobbying hard to get a change in the deeply damaging battery car mandate. The last government put in fines up to 2030 for selling too many petrol and diesel cars as a percentage of the total. The targets Ā are unrealistic so the companies face a Ā£15,000 a vehicle charge.Labour came into office and took five years off the time to go all electric making it impossible.
The Industry Secretary says he feels their pain and will make changes. However he is talking about change in January, after the end of the first year where the current law imposes these fines if they sold less than 22% battery vehicles. He also says he will not change the steep path of battery sales to reach 100% by 2030, which looks unlikely given consumer resistance unless the market is swamped with much cheaper Chinese imports.
This crisis is now. They have lost one plant Ā this week. Other plants are at risk if they fail to change rapidly. It is no good pretending everyone will switch to a U.K. produced battery car when more than four fifths of consumers say they want petrol or diesel. Keir Starmer said he would not tell us how to lead our lives,yet when it comes to the very important decision of what personal transport to have that is exactly what he is doing.
November 28, 2024
The only sensible option for a UK manufacturer is to wind down UK operations. It is impossible to run a business of the complexity, scale and financial commitment needed to engineer, design and make cars in volume when governments chop and change the boundaries of the playing field and keep changing the rules of the game. The industry will go the way of the many others that have quit the UK.
November 28, 2024
You are dealing with a religion John
It’s not in the governments gift to abolish these targets. Responsibility has been passed to the unelected Climate Change Committee which has the full backing of our left wing lawyers.
We are reaching the end of the current 5 year plan for cutting emissions and all the low hanging fruit has been consumed. Shutting down steep, aluminium, fertiliser and swathes of other industries
The next 5 year plan involves the decarbonisation of the electricity grid and as the CCC says ripping up the gas distribution network
The electorate are slowly wakening up to the destruction being wrought upon us by the lying cheating uniparty.
There are no skilled well paid jobs in the green industries only endless subsidies
The loss of Vauxhall is but the latest manifestation of the damage being caused by a handful of WEF zealots.
Repealing the Climate change act is the only sensible thing but this will never happen with this bunch of cowboys except for Reform in parliament.
You are quite aware of this.
It’s deliberate destruction of our lifestyle.
November 28, 2024
So early in the morning and we are Importing 14% of our electricity at circa Ā£112 per mwh.
The wind has vanished and gas and nuclear are providing 64% of demand. Just where does Milibrain think this 64% is going to come from when the gas and nuclear plants are shutdown in the next few years.
November 28, 2024
The price has just increased to Ā£134 per mwh there being a shortage of wind all over Europe. We’re having to bid up the price to maintain the grid.
November 28, 2024
@Ian Wragg; Re today’s price of energy on the world market, Arthur Scargill might have had a point it seems, or it makes the price of new nuclear back in the 1980/90s look cheap.
Nothing like being a self reliant nation, but we make our ill-informed choices as electors and then grumble when wa have to pay the price – lead by donkeys that were elected by fools…
November 28, 2024
IW :
NESO’s “Clean Power 2030” report suggests retaining 35 GW of unabated gas to cope with renewable unreliability. My modelling suggests this needs to be at least 40 GW so the additional power will need to come from interconnectors and DSR (aka energy rationing). Note that if DESNZ wish to limit the unabated gas to the 5% or less of the total energy requirement then the power from interconnectors/DSR will need to be increased to 10 GW, which is why the report suggests increasing interconnector capacity from 8.4 GW to 12.5 GW. Interconnectors also have the additional advantages that they are 1/5th of the cost to build than fixed offshore wind per usable GW and all CO2 emissions are ex territorial, which is more important to DESNZ than the price of the imported electricity.
November 28, 2024
PS : I’m not an electrical engineer or an economist but I would think that having 35 GW of gas generation on standby to provide less than 5% of the electricity would make their electricity rather expensive….
November 28, 2024
Seems so, and now, we get a question in parliament yesterday to Starmer about having a new blasphemy law wanting protect ā¦ā¦ belief systems. Starmer made no objection or case against this appalling proposal. I assume it would soon be extended to protect the net zero religion. This so the climate realists and sensible rational scientists would soon not be legally aloud able to point out the lunacy of net zero and climate alarmism. Or indeed to point out the vast harms done by the Covid vaccines.
Trump picks Jay Bhattacharya to lead National Institutes of Health. A great choice.
November 28, 2024
Correct; it’s deliberate. The temperature of the water has been slowly increasing and “the frog” is now feeling the heat.
The Eco Zealots are creating their vision of a de-industrialised UK …. it’s spelled out on the UK Fires Website.
November 28, 2024
until the National Grid fail to manage and we have random power outages, these ‘green’ wind and solar idiots will never learn about reality.
November 28, 2024
+1
November 28, 2024
Thats when the control of the smart-meter will kick-in
November 28, 2024
+1 All true.
November 28, 2024
IW :
Completely agree. The Net Zero policy will not be cancelled by industrial decline, poverty, or the rationing of energy, food and travel or any anti democracy restrictions as this is the ultimate goal of the CAGW hoax.
Unfortunately almost the whole of our Parliament is fully signed up to this fraud. Especially the Conservative Party whose PM May made Net Zero by 2050 into law without a proper debate, no vote and no costing, and thus handed all the Net Zero power to destroy our economy and quality of life to the unelected but tax-payer funded activists, the unelected CCC and unelected judiciary. The Conservative Environmental Network, CEN, who support Net Zero by 2050 is still a thriving organisation even though it has been unable to update its list of Conservative Parliamentarians since the last GE 4 months ago.
BTW, what is the anthropogenic emissions of CO2 global warming explanation for retreating glaciers in BC, Canada revealing 7000 year old tree stumps?
November 28, 2024
Ian W
I agree with you… it’s all part of the great reset… along with unfettered immigration from a lot of third world countries.
The government think globally… it’s part of levelling the world! But downwards, not upwards!
November 28, 2024
Communist Climate Change Committee CCCC
November 28, 2024
well said Ian, I will be following the Cuba example – home engineering to keep my Subaru Outback on the road! The electric trolleys could not do a fraction of the job the Scubie does for me! I need a vehicle that pulls heavy farm trailers and caravan for holidays, I do not fly or leave Great Britain!
unlike our PM lowlife?
November 28, 2024
@David Andrews – certainly the UK Governments have are encouraging the off-shoring of all UK Industry and Commerce. UK Laws and Energy pricing has enforced the Import of the bare necessities, food is next. Parliament will be glad when its all gone, which seems to confirm it has be the desire of their leadership in the Socialist World of the WEF they all kowtow too
November 28, 2024
@Ian B; Yes, blame all the UK ills on Socialist doctrines and/or the WEF, not simple gross incompetence so often found in UK boardrooms, or the governments we elect, nothing like sticking ones head in the sand, whilst knowing the value of everything but the worth of nothing!
In the 1970s it was called “The British disease”, the country being described as the “sick man of Europe”, back then we also blamed our ills on Socialist doctrines and Trade Unionism, yet our European competitors coped with much stronger pulls towards Socialism and Trade Unionism, and the infant WEF…
November 28, 2024
Jerry
But with the Euro bank, the UK and Germany funding such polices, they all thought going left was OK.
Now that funding is under pressure or has stopped, Europe is starting to turn its back on socialism, as they can no longer afford it !
November 28, 2024
@BA; I think you need to take a close look at recent election results in the EU, it is far from clear voters are moving their opinions to the right, in Poland the electorate moved away from the right, in France when the choice was clear-cut the left wing alliance Parties came top (which President Macron then chose to ignore). It will be interesting what happens in the up-coming snap German federal elections due by the end of March 2025, in recent regional elections one of the biggest gains was by the left leaning BSW Party, this was in the east (ex GDR) areas of the country were we were told to expect a surge by the AfD.
I might be mistaken, and I hope I am, but some of POTUS elect Trump’s polices appear at odds with post 1940s era economic norms, yes his opinions on immigration and family planning are to the political right but some of his *apparent* economic polices could have been written for FDR era and the Great Depression, a time when the USA probably came the closest to adopting (small “S”) socialism!
November 28, 2024
@jerry – ‘certainly the UK Governments have are encouraging the off-shoring of all UK Industry and Commerce.’ The electorate has been effectively disenfranchised, roughly 4 times more people abstained, than voted for any of the UK’s Socialist parties.
What UK Boardrooms? What is left of any substance has been sold off. Just name one UK owned Car Company.
November 28, 2024
Make your mind up Jerry.
Do you have opinions of your own or is your role on here to just continually argue the opposite of what others post.
November 28, 2024
The fact is there are too many car manufacturers in Europe. Some are going to go to the wall and I very much doubt that the German Government (and therefore the EU) is going to allow it to be VW, BMW and Mercedes.
Meloni is going to do everything she can to protect Fiat and Alfa Romeo and Macron will try to save Peugeot and Renault.
So I guess the casualties will have to be in the UK and Keir-Ching! will do nothing to prevent it. After all, the EU had no problem effectively closing down Ford Transit in Southampton and paying with OUR money for production to move to Turkey (not even in the EU). Cameron did nothing to stop that, so why would Two-Tier-Free-Gear-No-Idea-Never-Here-Keir lift a finger to save car manufacturing in the UK?
November 28, 2024
VW, BMW and Mercedes are in Godās waiting room. I know Italians prefer driving Fiats to cars, but that will not save it, Macron canāt even save himself.
If we used the energy we have it could be resurgence time for proper British designed and built cars.
November 28, 2024
@DA; ” It is impossible to run a business of the complexity, scale and financial commitment needed ..//.. when governments chop and change the boundaries of the playing field and keep changing the rules of the game.”
Yet our competitors in the RotW manage to do just that, but then such industries are either (effectively) controlled by their Governments (in the case of a ‘Planned Economy’) or at least work with politicians and the trade unions, especially in the EU, even the USA!
November 28, 2024
Jerry
What like the mighty VW in Germany closing 3 plants.
The European disruption of the car industry to meet the aim of net zero is leading the industry towards disaster.
November 28, 2024
@MiB; What you forget is that VW are only now looking to close those factories, and much of VW troubles are not connected with the transition to EVs anyway, remember the so called “Dieselgate” scandal?
Nor is anyone suggesting EVs are not going to cause a shake-down in the industry (and not just manufacturing, I expect there will be less choice when it comes to getting EVs serviced/repaired.
The point I was making is that companies, in this case the likes of BMW, VW, Renault, Stellantis, have IN THE PAST always been able to talk with, work with, and thus influence Governments and Trad Unions better than British industry has, and there is no reason to think anything has or will changed – in fact is the EU not considering altering the hydrocarbon to EV cut off date, due to direct contacts with the ‘Stakeholder’ motor industry, if they do it will have implications for UK policy too, due to manufacturing logistics.
November 29, 2024
You said ” our competitors in the rest of the world manage to…”
My example…and it was just one example…showed that European car makers are finding government net zero policies and other anti car tax policies difficult to manage.
We, especially in Europe, are playing into the hands of China’s car industry.
November 30, 2024
@MiB; “You said ā our competitors in the rest of the world manage toā¦ā”
Yes and I stand by that, I did not say our (manufacturing/assembly) competitors do not have problems, which seem to be what you have taken my comment to mean.
It is a worldwide problem, the slow uptake of EV sales, the facts you ignore are; Joe Biden has just announced a $6.6B loan to EV maker Rivian; China is also actively supporting their EV industry; the EU is listening to the concerns of EU based car companies (but not the consumer). Of course the UK government isn’t doing anything, because there is no distinct UK vehicle industry, other than very low volume car marques, or construction vesicles, for the government to rescue, so whatever the EU decides the UK will need to follow in Lockstep due to the supply chain logistics, and that includes the far eastern makes that sell into the European market.
“We, especially in Europe, are playing into the hands of Chinaās car industry.”
Had you said playing into the hands of China’s *bicycle* industry you might have a point! Again, the EV problem is not one of manufacture but of sales, as I understand it my local MG dealer is also having problems selling the required % of Chinese made EVs.
Whatever…
Reply There is a good sized British based industry with U.K. jobs and plants. This is at risk through bad pro EV policies
November 28, 2024
Good morning.
First off, I do not believe anything this PM or government says, nto that I believed any of the previous ones either.
One area where this government may help is by :
a) abolishing / raising the level / reducing the luxury Car Tax introduced by the last govenment in 2017.
b) making offering a company car a better deal for companies and company car drivers. This will help increase demand.
With the reduced amounts of energy we will be producing each year the attractiveness of BEV’s will rapidly decline. Speaking from my own experience after running a Hybrid for over a year, they are much better.
November 28, 2024
@Mark B – you are making suggestions where Government may help, but there has not been a UK Government this century that has put the UK ahead of personal self-esteem
November 28, 2024
Plug in hybrids sound like a good compromise they can do the city miles say 20 miles on battery but then do not have the range limitations, slow refill or weight of full BEVs. by having a petrol engine too. They are however more complex than a pure petrol car and a bit heavier to. Each time you charge them you probably save only about Ā£50p to Ā£1 on fuel costs. So is it even worth you effort or time every day and the extra cost to buy, finance, maintains, buy the charger? Look closely at the battery guarantee small print. They tend to last less time as the smaller battery is used in more cycles than a full EV battery. Work on Ā£6,000 for a new battery, after say 6 years or so for replacement. Which is about Ā£4 a day depreciation – so far more than any fuel saving.
November 28, 2024
LL
I am getting between 50-60mpg on an urban cycle using a combination of petrol and electric. I am paying the same pence per mile as I was in the late 90’s.
November 28, 2024
Was a hybrid that did for Luton Airport parking lot.
November 28, 2024
Plug-in hybrids would make more sense for many people I feel. Enough battery power for local trips (<30 miles) and engine backup for longer ones. However, they also add a lot of extra things to go wrong, as well as extra costs of course. I'm taking good care of my ICE and we'll see what is available in 8-10 years time…
November 28, 2024
The only thing thats missing is ….freedom of choice
November 28, 2024
I saw an advert on the TV yesterday for a car made by BYD. Iām fairly sure it claimed some fairly immense range – 470 miles I think (might have been 420, not sure, it was in that area).. Unusually for car adverts these days, it mentioned a price – starting from Ā£33k. So, still not cheap. And from a brand that is new to the U.K. and which, as yet, I have no reason to trust.
November 28, 2024
@Mike Wilson – BYD ‘Beyond Your Dreams’ as a massive company receiving massive support from the Chinese Government, last report shows it received Ā£1.7bn in 2022 alone . In the fourth quarter of 2023, it was the top-selling battery electric vehicle manufacturer in the world.
The UK let alone the World can’t compete with a company receiving that amount of State support. Lets not forget thanks to May, Johnson, Sunak and now Starmer they are virtually alone certainly amongst our competitor nations in their desire to send the UK’s Taxpayer Money, its wealth to China. Even little Red Ed and his Cohorts are running around looking for way to send China the UK’s Taxpayer money.
We have to ask who do those in Parliament work for it is certainly not the Country or the UK People otherwise they would have thought through what they were proposing. Or are we to keep believing they are just dumb?
November 28, 2024
But we know who those in Parliament work for, Ian. They work for themselves. That is, their only concern is keeping in with the orthodox agendas of the day, in order to bolster their future career prospects, either reselection as an MP, or post-Parliament a seat on the board of a big corporation. Or a think tank, or an NGO, or whatever. If not, elevation to the Lords. Asking awkward questions about policy agendas won’t help them towards their careeer goals.
There have been some honourable exceptions over the years, but in my view that’s what most of them are like, especially now.
November 28, 2024
Given that it’s Chinese, I would expect it to last just about as long as its warranty, after which it breaks down and you have to buy a new one.
November 28, 2024
I will stick with my three old cars worth perhaps Ā£6,000 for the three. No finance cost and little depreciation. About 30p a miles. EVs cost about Ā£1 just in finance costs and depreciation.
November 28, 2024
The 33k one will have a smaller battery the one that does 470 miles will have a large heavy and expensive battery. Likely to cost over Ā£1 a mile this just in depreciation and finance costs and worth next to nothing after 6 years.
November 28, 2024
Build Your Dreams (BYD) is a huge chinese vehicle manufacturer ….and everyone WILL have one soon
November 28, 2024
well Glen, you do not realise how stubborn I am!
November 28, 2024
Milliband will enact a new law, that automatically delivers (and chargers) an BYD EV to the home of MFD …there’s no escape
November 28, 2024
Good Morning,
Perhaps the automotive industry is, in the words of a Labour adviser, ‘an industry we can do without’? How many other industries has Starmer been told to destroy in our Nation….
Every major economic action this government has taken since coming into office has been damaging to our productivity; what is going on?
Reply Deliberate deindustrialisation through dear energy and forced transition away from fossil fuels
November 28, 2024
Reply to reply – started by The Climate Change Act and enhanced and reinforced by Cameron, May, Johnson and Sunak administrations.
Ed Milliband’s new attack started from a high base because it had not been rowed back during 14 years of “Conservative” government.
All parties except one are the same in this (and many other) matters
November 28, 2024
Agree – net-zero is one policy where the tories & labour are in harmony
November 28, 2024
@Reply – certainly the UK high, very high energy prices are at the root of killing what Industry and Commerce is left in the UK, but so are the insane laws that the UK alone out of its competitor Nations has enshrined on the Nation
November 28, 2024
Reply- Reply
Agreed successive Governments for decades have shown they do not want what used to be called Blue collar industry, where millions of people worked in skilled or semi skilled jobs to research, develop and design and manufacture products the Country and the population needed.
Aware times move on and robots have taken over lots of these jobs, but who makes the Robots, the Steel, the Cement, the Aluminium, the Ceramics, the Computers, the micro chips.
Who builds our ships, our trains, our aircraft, machine tools, and yes our cars.
Who builds our windmills, our solar panels, and batteries.
It was accelerated by Blair with his ideals and fixation about Education and Universities, and with the closing of real Polytechnic colleges, that programme has been accelerated by successive governments over the years who now think they can and should actually run and manage our lives for us.
November 28, 2024
de-farming, de-food production and lots of frozen grannies too!
November 28, 2024
OK. de-industrialisation — to be replaced by….. don’t suppose those mythical ‘green jobs’ promised by this administration will take up many of those displaced. Starmer and Milibrain are just getting started, they presumably have a destination in mind? What is our society/economy going to look like in 4.5 years time?
November 28, 2024
To be replaced by emmigration.
November 28, 2024
@JR reply; “deindustrialisation”
All of which stared in the 1980s! How many factories did BL close, both sub and final assembly, the Triumph band and factories were lost entirely other than for a badge-engineered Honda made at the old Morris Cowley factory, the MG brand of iconic sports cars were also entirely lost. As for energy and eco policies, cheap Coal replaced by even less infinite home production of oil and natural gas that terms out to be just as much a (supposed) pollutant, that is priced in USD, what could have possibly gone wrong….
November 28, 2024
They lost lots of money! MG was losing cĀ£28m a year when it was shut down. There was no way to revive it, though attempts were made, because the Ā£:$ FX rate had moved decisively against lower priced UK products sold in the USA. At the time Jaguar survived in the USA because it had the pricing power do to so despite the strengthening Ā£, and it was supported by BL buying out the US owned distributors who accounted for about half the sales.
November 28, 2024
@DA; Nonsense, many car companies were loosing money, but their countries governments chose to support and restructure, as I’ve already point out Renault in France during the 1980s, but there is a more recent example, GM in the USA had to file for Chapter 11 protection and be bailed out via the Troubled Asset Relief Program in 2009, the US Treasury investing $49.5 billion in that bailout, eventually recovering $39bn.
November 28, 2024
Some decline Jerry…in 2018 the UK car industry had an Ā£82 billion turnover produced 1.5 million cars and 85,000 commercial vehicles
Employing 180.000 people with a further 168,000 people in automotive supply, retail and servicing jobs.
November 28, 2024
@MiB; What British car industry is that Martin? Not TVR or Aston Martin for sure, they can only dream of a combined Ā£82 billion turnover! What you call British are actually FOREIGN owned companies, with no guarantee those profits will remain here and be invested to further UK Plc.
As for the numbers of people in the industry, indeed, but that is a lot lower than it once was…
November 29, 2024
So what Jerry?
The UK also has huge investments in overseas businesses.
Would you only allow UK companies to operate in the UK?
That little England attitude would make us all poor.
November 30, 2024
@MiB; If company ownership structure, control, *were profits end up, are spent, decisions made* (such as whether to invest in new blast furnaces here in the UK for example), is so unimportant what was the point of Brexit, why do some get so upset whenever the WEF is mentioned, would it not be better to simply have World Governance.
“That little England attitude would make us all poor.”
Isn’t that what the anti Brexiteers said. I also take it you would have voted for Harris, not Trump had you a vote? š
Reply You always misunderstand Brexit. It was great to take back control. We now need a government that will use our powers in our interest. E.g. doing a trade deal with Trump, adding services deals into our existing EU inherited deals, not having to pay the EU Ā£12 bn plus each year, not having our debt increased by all that extra EU borrowing, not having to adopt so many new rules that make us uncompetitive with US/EM world. US GDP per capita twice the EU level. We can learn more from the US than EU
November 30, 2024
@JR reply; My reply to Martin was sarcasm, he appears to be the one who loves others telling the UK what to do, what to buy, how to make it, where to spend it, not even be allowed to keep the wealth from our own efforts for it to be re-invested here with any certainly.
When I used to suggest we leave the EU on WTO rules I was being serious! I would welcome a full FTA with the USA (Trump lead or otherwise) and have often said so, but every time a full FTA is suggested vestige interest groups here in the UK start objecting to the the thought of US medicines, beef, chicken etc. being imported – surely, so long as the labeling has country of origin etc. those who do not want the product do not have to purchase it?
It is not the destination we disagree on but the route.
November 28, 2024
PW : āPerhaps the automotive industry is, in the words of a Labour adviser, āan industry we can do withoutā?ā
I think this is very much the belief of the whole of our Parliament and itās not simply to assist the drive to Net Zero through de-industrialisation but more importantly because they want to eliminate the private car. They know evs are never going to replace ices because 80% or more of local grids can only support 1 in 7 houses to own an ev and there is no plan to upgrade these local grids or provide sufficient electrical power. As well of course as consumer reluctance to transition to expensive, impractical and dangerous evs. So they consider that the automotive industry is one which will not even be needed in the future apart from a providing some exclusive, expensive ābeastsā for a select few.
November 28, 2024
When they abandon the insane quest for the holly grail of nett zero. The last 20% of which is either unobtainable or only at enormous financial cost, including the cost to human evolution. The route to nett zero is to be littered with the bodies of progress, which includes the car and vehicle industry. It is not just a theoretical projection, it is bappening as we write. Of urgent necesity the heretics must be caste from the temples of power.
November 28, 2024
It was a Conservative idea to fine manufacturers for selling products to consumers so limited blame attaches to Labour for perpetuating this policy. So the car makers have to pay a fine if they sell too many petrol vehicles and the boiler manufacturers have to pay a fine if they sell too many gas boilers. Of course it is not the manufacturers who will pay the fine, it will be passed on to the buyers or the companies will simply leave the UK. Why the Conservatives thought this was a good policy is a mystery but it is a bit rich for any of them to complain about it now.
Off topic: I see many Conservative MPs are going to vote both in favour of assisted dying and in favour of banning adults from smoking. So freedom of choice seems to be a topic they don’t understand at all.
November 28, 2024
āWhen will the government rescue the vehicle industry?”
While the question is more than valid, I have a feeling the horse has bolted on this one. Under Mrs. May’s legislation that the whole of Parliaments agreed on, rather than look for replacements and viable alternatives āfirstā, the brains in her, then Johnsonās, into Sunakās and now Starmers Governments resorted to cancel, outlaw and punish. Import, import and import was all the big brains would allow them to digest. In doing so they ramped upped world emissions by another magnitude and made the rest of the World richer at the UK Taxpayers expense. They have achieved the very thing their ego and personal self-esteem tried to convince themselves they where against.
Now it looks like the UK Parliament has a vendetta against the UK and its People, more than solving what they hyped to be a World problem.
November 28, 2024
Quite obviously for this government and to some extent the last one, ideology trumps common sense. Thousands of jobs lost in Port Talbot steelworks and vehicle manufacture mean nothing when set against the insane drive to net zero. Workers thrown out are just colateral damage in a war against CO2 it is not necessary to fight. If the Tories had recognised this, and done something about it, they might not have lost so heavily. As a former engineer, I hope Kemi B. does recognise it and writes a revision of net zero into policy.
November 28, 2024
Not when, IF.
IF the EU permits it since we have to move in lockstep with “our friends we’re not allowed to compete with.”
And I think that will depend on whether the WEF revises its programme of economic destruction.
I AM looking forward to the New Year; in particular 6 January when the House of Commons will be debating the Petition for another General Election. What’s the betting Keir-Ching! finds a vital reason to be out of the country.
November 28, 2024
TTK/FGK/NHK will probably be in Davos. I wonder if he will declare his free ski lift pass, or how much he obtained for selling it on to someone else.
I was in Davos years ago when Major went there. What a pity that the Swiss police were there to guard them all.
November 28, 2024
Now at 2.85 million
November 28, 2024
@Donna; Indeed, the UK still in economic Lockstep with the EU, fancy that, our economic partner for the last 38+ years, much of that partnership created by way of the Single European Act; A “Divorce” is easy the easy bit…
November 28, 2024
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2021/30/section/74 If our kind host permits, here is a link to s.74 Environment Act 2021. The current farce may become even worse if Labour implements any statutory “recall” aka impounding and confiscation of vehicles deemed not to meet relevant environmental standards. This is a shocking power, inexplicably enacted without any obvious mandate by the previous Conservative government.
November 28, 2024
..and weāre told that we have the best of the best in parliament, the best MPs who propose and enact laws, the civil service that draft the laws and the Lords that review & amend laws ā¦.so how come they keep getting it wrong !
November 28, 2024
@David Cooper; Are there no Explanatory Notes (EN) for this legislation?
When Sec 74 says “recall”, what does “recall” explicitly mean, nowhere does that page mention either impounding and confiscation;
1/. Recall could mean the ability to seize someones private non complaint vehicle or property that was previously sold in good faith, or at a time when such “relevant environmental standards” did not exist, if so that would indeed be impounding and confiscation!
2/. Recall could mean the above, but only those vehicles that have been tampered with to remove such “relevant environmental standards” as should exist.
3/. Recall could simply mean the revocation of Type Approval, under the Construction and Use regulations, thus banning further sales, and at worst a recall of sold products for either modification (or refund/exchange), as can happen anyway for many other breaches of Type Approval or C&U regs.
Given the fact Parliament appears to have an All Party Group of members interested in historical vehicles I would be very surprised if they have inadvertently passed legislation (without loud protest) that could make every single VHI a museum pieces overnight, although they may well have welcomed legislation that stymie the boy racers…
November 28, 2024
This is what happens when whole swathes of political leades swallow the ‘climate change, net zero, Co2 is going to kill us’ narrative.
Our contribution to global Co2 is miniscule, yet they wish to destroy all our industries and import more, just so they can bathe in their own self-righteousness.
It’s all blithering nonsense. When will they wake up and see the truth?
November 28, 2024
+1
November 28, 2024
Not so much a government rescue the government just need to stop their deliberate and insane destruction. This was also the May, Boris, Sunak agenda. Coutinho still sitting on the fence! Supporting net zero but a bit more slowly!
November 28, 2024
After so many decades of supporting and subsidising car manufacturers, HMG, now following the rules of netzero, has determined that they have to make a U-turn.
Just look at what the IMF have said about climate change:
Our government is certainly following that advice all too eagerly. So letting car manufacturers go bust or abroad fits in the plan very well.
Also:
The IMF has produced a massive amount of misinformation and guidance on moving towards netzero – just one more quango jumping on the bandwagon and applying ever more pressure for us to commit Politically induced suicide.
November 28, 2024
Those who followed the teachings of Greta T, and helped enrich her family, will look back on their folly in years to come and feel humiliated as they try to explain to their children why life has become hell.
November 28, 2024
Those who followed the teachings of Greta T fools like English Grad Socialist Michael Gove or follow the BBC’s Saint David Attenborough (these daft deluded biologists/zoologists).
At least it looks like Lammy’s moronic Chagos “deal” will collapse thanks to Trump – time for daft as a brush Lammy to resign and take Zealot nutter Ed Miliband with him.
November 28, 2024
Labour is driving the UK to industrial collapse, economic suicide and motivation to survive on benefits owning nothing – all without vehicles.
November 28, 2024
Correct. But then so was the Not-a-Conservative-Party.
The policy originates with the UN and is intended to de-industrialise the West so it is “levelled down” with undeveloped/under-developed countries. It is being enforced by the WEF.
November 28, 2024
Not only economic suicide, either – they seem very keen on āassisted dyingā, which is, of course, assisted suicide.
November 28, 2024
Only. If you have agreed to it, if you have not agreed itās killing. Thatās why MPs are urged not to consider their religious teachings when voting.
āThou shalt NOT KILLā
November 28, 2024
…and Kemi hasn’t said that she’d change a thing …..a ZEV mandate or net-zero thing
November 28, 2024
I cannot see an anti-car anti-freedom administration wishing to save the British car industry. Once it has gone, it gives governments and local authorities the option of closing down our freedoms and travel options whilst hurting only foreign car makers (because we won’t have any of our own).
The spirit of the 4mph speed limit plus man with red flag has never gone away…..
November 28, 2024
ah ….15 minute cities next
November 28, 2024
I watched the announcement of the Luton closures by Jonathan Powell yesterday. A very smooth operator from first impressions. The Conservative opposition was completely hobbled by the fact that the ZEV mandate was their brain child. My wife (like the Shadown Minster) keeps saying that Rishi rowed back on the 2030 petrol ban (gifted to us by Boris less we forget) but refuses to acknowledge that he didn’t change ZEV mandate one bit. So Mr Powell was able to make the Shadow front bench look pretty foolish in their critique of him.
Car manufacturing has been in the balance for some time simply because of high energy costs. Stellantis are looking not just at ZEV mandates but the whole cost of being in the UK – including increased labour costs, unions free to disrupt and limitless workers rights. I’m suprised they are keeping Ellesmere Port.
But don’t worry, because the UK is “putting in the hard yards to get us to a bright new (green) future” as one commentator put it yesterday. However, if that ‘bright new future’ includes national bankruptcy, then it’s very hard not to be concerned.
November 28, 2024
Sorry – getting my ‘Jonathans’ mixed up – it was Jonathan Reynolds yesterday of course…
November 28, 2024
ā¦.and if you didnāt read it last week, Northvolt the car battery manufacturer ā āā The chief executive of Northvolt has resigned, after the Swedish vehicle battery manufacturer filed for bankruptcy protection in the USāā
That leaves only BYD and CATL, both chinese companies in europe ā¦and leaves the door wide open for other chinese imports
November 28, 2024
Remember ‘BritishVolt’ closed last year ….after Ā£850million of taxpayer funding grant
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/final-grant-offer-provided-to-britishvolt
November 28, 2024
Top down government run by morons pissing other peopleās money down the drain all over the place and wrecking the economy in the process. Driven by fraud, vested interests, mad net zero religions, corruption and gross incompetence.
November 28, 2024
The UK car manufacturers donāt need recuing, the just need our government(s) to stop intervening ā¦.and stop net-zero
Whats happening today to the car manufacturers will happen to all other businesses tomorrow
November 28, 2024
UK GDP is Ā£2.5 trillion and there are 33 million working.
This means average person produces Ā£75,000.
Average take home pay is Ā£27,000
Ā£48,000 per person goes on tax, profits and depreciation of assets.
November 28, 2024
@javelin – that Tax is then sent abroad to support other Nations and increase the Worlds emissions.
The brain has been lost down the back of the sofa
November 28, 2024
Does anybody ask on what basis we are all being taken down the Net Zero rabbit hole?
Somebody needs to revisit the fundamental foundations of this religion.
Long term computer forecasting models are all based on assumptions and choice of historic data. Nobody appears to question these. They appear like tablets of stone for the priests to present to the masses.
November 28, 2024
BYD has just launched a plug-in hybrid with a range of 1,250 miles! The new hi-tech, plug-in hybrid range in China starts from below Ā£11k. Hybrid (all forms) is the future for cars, with LNG for heavy-duty trucks – in China, the LNG share of new sales of these rose from below 10% to 30% late last year. Both are much cleaner alternatives than pure petrol/diesel. BYD will wipe out the UK/EU car industry given current government policies. This is what happens when China is allowed to steal Western IP (literally on an industrial scale) and massively subsidise development and production without any consequences.
November 29, 2024
Lithium batteries are destroying the environment, but as long as it’s not being mined in the UK none of the environmentalists care. Renewable fuels like HVO, a direct replacement for fossil Diesel, reduce emissions by over 90% and eliminates the need for EVs and Hybrids. This new fuel is gaining support and already used widely by HGVs in the UK and Europe. In Europe there are already 1000s of fuelling stations that sell HVO for cars to use, in the UK only Esso is selling it at a very small number of fuelling stations.
November 28, 2024
Off topic: from today’s DT
“Net migration hit a record high of almost one million last year
Spending on asylum also reached a record Ā£5.38 billion – up 36 per cent”
I think it’s obvious why Sunak cut and ran. And also why Badenoch did her “we made mistakes, but we “promise” we won’t do it again” stunt yesterday.
November 29, 2024
It is the; “We made mistakes . . .” that sticks in my craw. They were NOT mistakes, You don’t keep making the same ‘mistake’ over a 14 year period.
It was negligence. And remember, Kemi Badenoch is on record as activley campaigning for increased immigration.
The cheek of the woman.
November 30, 2024
@Mark B; “You donāt keep making the same āmistakeā over a 14 year period.”
You do if you can’t allow yourself to think of any other policy, unwilling to admit to being wrong, having allowed a bunch of loud mouth activists (who are not even necessarily Party members) to paint the decision making into a corner.
November 28, 2024
There is a certain irony in our hosts article today, given the lack of government level support over the last 40 plus years, and that the UK owned volume car industry effectively ended back in 2005 when the Blair government refused to save MG Rover Group.
The last time a UK government supported the retention of UK motor industry manufacturing was in 1975 following the “Ryder Report”, but unlike our European competitors, such support was short lived (it was the Callaghan govt who asked Edwards to chair BL). Major, and iconic plants/brands were lost from the late 1980s on and I’m not talking just BL brands, the sale by Chrysler of their European operations to Peugeot in early 1979 sealed the fate of many UK brands, factories and suppliers.
As I said in a comment yesterday, the loss of the old Vauxhall plant at Luton has been on the cards for years, and is far more tied to the fate of the European car industry and EC policies than what the UK government does, the UK/ROI is not were their volume market is, and of course we now have no way of influencing or vetoing polices coming out of Brussels. Ho-hmm…
When has the Jaguar been a high volume brand, next step-up from a Jaguar being Rolls Royce, Bentley, and the handcrafted offerings from likes of Aston Martin, if buying British! Jaguar models have always been in either the exclusive or executive market, although by the 1970s no more expensive to manufacture than lesser brands, thus highly profitable, hence why the brand was one of the first to be hived off and privatized in the 1980s.
Reply In the 1980s I helped Margaret Thatcher rebuild the industry after demolition in the 70 s by inviting in the leading Japanese companies who set up big factories
November 28, 2024
@JR reply; Well that is very much an opinion, depending on what side of the fence one is standing!
As a comparison, Renault was very much the French version of BL at the time, both State owned, both with deep problems (including poor build quality and over-manning), one was supported deeper and for longer before eventual privatization, the other less so; which one survived and is now a major car manufacture with multiple production facilities worldwide; the other broken up, sold off or closed down, what survives now being owned and run by foreign companies from afar?
Yet some have the intrepidity to talk about a ‘British Car Industry’, not a view I see from my side of the fence I’m sorry to say. š
Reply Mini survives at Cowley under BMW MG allowed to go to China
November 28, 2024
@JR reply; Both of whose ownership and control is outside the UK, and thus decisions are taken in the best interests of the parent company, even their own economies or governments.
Anyway, “Mini” only become a stand-alone brand once sold to BMW and spun off by them from the ex BL assets previously bought by BAe once Jaguar, Land Rover, Unipart etc had been hived off for separate privatizations; by comparison the restructured Renault Group is still recognizably the same company it was in the 1970s, as is Volkswagen Group, another restructured, once State owned, car company.
MG is just a badge-engineered brand, the marque died when the MG Abingdon factory closed in October 1980, although Rover Group did revive the marque in the early 1990s (with the short lived MG RV8); NAC, the current owner of the MG brand, do not even make their vehicles in the UK these days.
November 28, 2024
You are very “little England ” Jerry
Do you not accept we live in an era of multi national corporations.
Where we in thr UK also invest many millions in non UK nations.
November 29, 2024
@Sam; Talking of being very “little England”
Did you vote for Brexit Sam? I assume not, given your embrace of multi nationalism etc….
November 28, 2024
Land Rover/Range Rover survived the carnage to become a profitable business despite several changes of ownership along the way.
November 28, 2024
@DA; Yes and those brand sales could have been used to help restructure the BL Group, but the intent was to privatize hived off brands, not save BL as a group that could better compete. Some advisors to the government at the time even complained when BL wanted to buy a company called Edmunds Walker, with the sole intent of strengthening the Unipart brand for eventual privatization; why are we nationalizing another company (or word to that effect) a memo said. The complaint was NOT from our host but I’m sure he will know who I’m referring to!
November 29, 2024
Land Rover hasn’t survived
Makes the Land Rover Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque. Nitra Plant, Slovakia: Makes the Land Rover Discovery and Land Rover Defender.
Defender models assembled under licence in several locations worldwide, including Spain (Santana Motors), Iran (Pazhan Morattab), Brazil (Karmann), and Turkey (Otokar).[42]
November 28, 2024
reply to reply ….you should be forgiven to use MG in the same line as China. MG ? who are you kidding. The badge is about all.
November 28, 2024
demolition by poor designs, reliability, workforces run by ‘everybody out’ and a consumer who had choice.
November 29, 2024
@MT; You clearly have little or no experience of the competitor brands to British Leyland (and the wider British motor industry) at the time, some European and Far Eastern makes had as bad if not worse reputations (including build quality), but most customers at the time bought with their eyes open, often taking the option of a hefty part-Ex allowances on their older model, and the included optional extras, thus they never really had to worry about expensive mechanical repairs or rust, so few complained and the repeat sales figures never not lied….. hmm! š
November 28, 2024
“The U.K. vehicle industry is in sharp decline.”
All going to plan then…
November 28, 2024
“Labour came into office and took five years off the time to go all electric making it impossible.”
No. It was always impossible. Labour just made it impossible sooner.
November 28, 2024
Labour found the previous government far too slow in destroying UK, so are going at with some vigour!
November 28, 2024
The proponents of net-zero need to be hunted down, and retribution meted out. We all know the main political people involved, but also need to research the names of the many in various committees who also drive this insanity.
November 28, 2024
Trying to figure why this country, advanced in so many ways, would wreak such economic carnage upon itself.
Hang over from EU membership perhaps? Maybe the UK was delegated (as a mainly service provider district) to take the main hit of net zero targets to protect and off set the carbon emissions from the industry intensive districts? The EU as a whole could then proudly proclaim its net zero credentials?
Not sure….
November 28, 2024
An amusing slightly aside but still with EV Vehicles, which I have just been reminded of. Only having meaning if you are from the Wokingham area.
My Son works in Motor Sport in the USA, there they use hybrids in race cars. There is a situation of safety with all battery vehicles so much so you have to go on a course to have the dangers highlighted. The safety course starts, (this is the USA I am referring to) with a video showing a Tesla Charging Station under water ā the station in the video being at Sindlesham.
I have just come back that way and as we have had a bit of rain it is amusing to see yet again Teslaās lined up charging batteries with water lapping around the cars.
November 28, 2024
IanB
But the educated ones built the charging station on a known Flood Plain, indeed the Hotel next door was called the Moat House for a very good reason !
Yes water and electricity do not make for good bed fellows.
Nature wins in the end, but so far we should be thankful that no one has been killed yet.
November 28, 2024
and why do F1 drivers usually pitch themselves off the car onto the tarmac? And why do pit lane crews usually have safety gloves on? Well those cars and EVs have one thing in common – a hell of a powerful electrical charge if you were to get hit by it. All that without standing in water….
November 28, 2024
āJaguar has lost a lot salesā I would suggest Jaguar lost its way some time back, it tried to hard to be German and copied them on every move in recent years ā so lost most of its jaguar DNA.
They no longer have a convincing management or owner.
November 28, 2024
This Century the UK Government has lost the reason for its existence it has morphed into a what used to be called a 3rd World Dictatorship (but even they know how to manage)
To many āOh! thatās a good idea projectsā, then charging in before thinking. It appears that to change how we get and use energy the Dictator in them said lets, ban and punish ā long before finding a viable and sustainable alternative. The consequence of their personal actions is to strip the UK of Industry and Jobs the very thing that is desperately needed to fund a future. Then in doing so they ramped up World emissions even further creating a bigger problem
If emissions are a āthingā, they are a World āthingā, shoving it off somewhere else doesnāt reduce it. Sending UK Money abroad to fund the replacement, even the Wind Farms, Solar Farms, import of Cars solves nothing other than making the Country and its people poorer.
November 28, 2024
Look at every action to reduce World emissions since May, then Johnson, Sunak and now Starmer has been to enhance World emissions by increasing magnitudes while making the UK poorer. Now we have ultra-Zealots such as the mad Red Ed that has their hands on the UKās taxpayers hard earned cash, every project they are spending our money on has UK wealth leaving the Country. There is no new industries or enterprises being created in the UK as they have found it easier to just send the money to support other Nations in their new technology pursuits.
We need the Chinese to supply the components of wind mills, even the towers themselves ā the UK canāt manufacture themā¦? Why because the UK Government wont support the UK. We are short of power so France and Denmark are given extra bonuses to keep our lights on. It is a never-ending stream of money outflow, nothing circulating and creating our own economy. Taxes have to keep going up to support these personal endeavours of self-gratification. The result of all this out-pouring of these valued resource, we are poorer the world gets richer and World emissions rise
November 28, 2024
The Net Zero, Global Warming, Climate Change, and CO2 bubble has to burst soon, or it will literally kill the UK economy. Do either Starmer Millibrand or Reeves have a brain? Do they ever stop to consider the impact of their actions? I thought Sunak and Hunt were useless but Labour are even worse.
How could a conservative government pass legislation to damage our car industry so foolishly? That and Immigration are what cost them at the last election. Under their new leader, will they actually become conservatives again?
Will nothing penetrate our MP’s blind adherence to the Net Zero nonsense?
November 28, 2024
Under the liblabcon, this country has become progressively more authoritarian over many years starting with the post war labour government which with the British Nationality Act of 1948, decreed that there was no such thing as an indigenous people whose country this was; any individual whose country once hosted a Union Jack had exactly the same right to live here. Since then that right has been potentially extended to anyone from anywhere however culturally incompatible as a result of the voluntary adoption of globalist destructive legislation in every sphere of life.
The deliberate destruction of the UK motor industry using the Climate Change Act as the weapon of choice is just a minor manifestation of how the liblabcon has turned the ratchet further on our liberty to make free choices in the market place.
The problem with authoritarians is that they are mostly unhinged but also seek opportunities to tell the rest of us how to live. These people infest parliament but also very importantly infest the civil service where much of the oppressive, anti-libertarian legislative burden imposed on us is hatched.
November 28, 2024
The forced deindustrialisation of the West continues at pace. The rampig up of all energy prices by government edict and policy pressure will ensure manufacturing ceases to be part of UK economic activity.
The big question is, what will be part of UK economic activity?
November 28, 2024
Is it still the case that the ZEV Mandate cannot be enforced with foreign manufacturers?
“ZEV Mandate Cannot Be Enforced With Foreign Manufacturers, Say DfT”
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/11/29/zev-mandate-cannot-be-enforced-with-foreign-manufacturers-say-dft/
November 29, 2023
November 29, 2024
Not fit to rule is the answer and the sooner the country collapses (as it did in the 1970s) the better. We who lived then know what is to come and are gearing up for it. It will be terrible to have to endure it again but it will teach those a lesson who voted Labour this time time what they can expect and never trust them again. Also the Tories need a good hiding for allowing this to happen. It seems the people of today (I will not age them for you) have had it too good and do not understand their role in leading this once great country. We who have worked hard all our lives and had families who fought to keep the freedoms we have enjoyed are disgusted by the present lot of humans who live here and are having a good time and not putting in the hard work for future generations.
November 29, 2024
āWe have 12 or 14 months to survive,ā said a senior official close to Nissan.
https://www.ft.com/content/970897c4-6d61-44f8-ae39-327c7c64e2c9