From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Doug Brodie
This may be the first crisis Starmer faces, as the real world comes up against Miliband’s fantasy world:
The car giant behind Vauxhall has threatened to mothball its UK factories amid a row over net zero targets for electric vehicle (EV) sales.
Stellantis warned on Tuesday that it would be forced to close plants at Ellesmere Port and Luton, where it makes vans, unless the Government relaxed rules forcing manufacturers to sell a certain proportion of EVs.
It has also threatened to reduce the number of petrol and diesel cars it sells in the UK.
The warning dramatically escalates a dispute with the Government over the so-called zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which requires car makers to sell rising proportions of electric cars annually.
From this year, at least 22pc of cars they sell must be electric and the figure rises gradually to 80pc by 2030. In 2035 the sale of new petrol and diesel cars will then be banned.
However, Maria Grazia Davino, UK managing director for Stellantis, said the rules were out of step with consumer demand and risked making sales unprofitable.
Stellantis makes electric cars and vans at its Ellesmere Port plant and vans in Luton, employing more than 1,000 workers across both sites.
Speaking at a car industry conference in London, Ms Davino told journalists the mandate would have a big impact and “damage the UK”.
‘Hostile market’
Speaking at a car industry conference, she told journalists the mandate would have a big impact and “damages the UK”.
Ms Davino added: “We have undertaken big investments in Ellesmere Port and in Luton, with more to come.
“But if this market becomes hostile to us, we will enter an evaluation for producing elsewhere.”
Asked how long Stellantis would wait for a decision from the Government, she said: “Less than a year.”
This was inevitable, and certainly won’t be limited to Vauxhall. As I have repeatedly pointed out, the UK motor industry as a whole cannot afford to pay the hundreds of millions in fines coming their way at the end of the year. The only option open to them is to cut back on production of ICE cars, in order to get back to the 22% target.
Based on current trends, this could mean that factories shut down production for the last three months of the year, or alternatively simply stockpile 3 months of production.
This is not sustainable in the long run, and the likes of Vauxhall would quickly run out of cash to do so. And it would make the problem doubly worse next year – not only would they face even tougher targets next year, but they would start the year with 3 months of ICE cars to sell, impacting output next year.
This is why Ms Davino has stressed the government has a year to sort the problem. They have clearly been hanging on to see what government will do to address the problem after the election. But unless the punitive ZEV mandate is relaxed, expect Stellantis to shut up shop next year, and shift production to Europe instead.
And they won’t be the only ones.
National suicide.
Everyone will be forced to drive BYD’s (or similar Chinese EVs)
….. a fiery and explosive situation.
Even most of our medicines are made in china.
But russian oil and gas No No. Imagine if we would depend on russia. But depending on China is ok.
Much of the world “depended” on the U.K. for industrial products for much of the 19th century. Sheffield metro, for instance, manufactured 70% of all the kitchen knives IN THE WORLD. That means frontier housewives in Nebraska, chefs in China, and machete-wielding banana harvesters in Honduras couldn’t go about their daily work without a speciality product made in a British city far from the seacoast, then packaged and shipped all over the world.
“Sheffield steel” was made from a local iron ore with the most desirable impurities to make knife blades that held a fine edge. Billions upon billions of people sliced their celery & onions with alacrity, carved their Thanksgiving turkeys, and buttered their toast with ease, thanks to the practical science of metallurgy.
People have been denouncing “British imperialism” ever since. . . without even knowing how their bread is buttered.
And people think voting Labour will improve the economy when all it will do is finally close the remaining heavy industry.
UK is already 80% services only 20% manufacturing
“UK Roulette” – Like Russian Roulette except with all six chambers loaded.
Perhaps that is the wake-up call the “Woke” need…for industry to leave the UK and take their employment with them. People out of work and The Crown gets hit in the Taxes pocketbook
I doubt there are many wokesters working the assembly lines at Ford or Vauxhall, more’s the pity. Maybe when their parents who do work at these factories are lining up at the local JobCentre they might get their snouts out of their phones long enough to have second thoughts.
nah, they’ll blame the collapse of industry on ….. drum roll…. climate change!
Last one out turn off the lights….
Won’t need to. Nuts Zero will do it for them.
You beat me to it. 🙂
With pig-headed adherence to the current bi-partisan policy for ‘NetZero’ by 2050 without the wholesale adoption of nuclear — apart from cottage industries — manufacturing in the UK is doomed anyway.
We are promised many new green jobs in the UK. As far as I can tell those will mostly consist of selling and installing and constantly tinkering with heat pumps and wind turbines, and wiping each others’ bum in care homes. Plus a bit of stoop labour in the (remaining) fields. They are claimed to be “well paid” jobs too, so expect everything to be more expensive. How any of that increases national prosperity is a mystery.
I don’t know if processing shipping documents for Chinese imports counts as a green job. Probably.
I have a sentimental fondness for manufacturing but the comparative advantage is in the far east now. RIpping the band-aid off and giving up what manufacturing we have left might give us a head-start on whatever comes next. Let’s hope whatever comes next is better than I guess above.
You would think on the eve of one of the most consequential elections of my life we’d be getting some imaginative proposals for how to deliver the Brexit dividend. I want rather more than a blue passport and Spanish airport aggro out of that pup.
Green job…:
Redundancy
No, it’s an oxymoron.
I read in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago that Europe is swamped with American tourists this summer — so much so that locals refer to tourist-based economies as “the beach disease.”
Apparently, the civilization that led the world from 1500 to 1914 is turning into a giant theme park. Few Europeans still attend services at the cathedrals, but the magnificent buildings are still popular on the tourist circuit.
I lived in a part of New England that is a giant theme park in many respects. The biggest metro in New England, Boston, leads the “industries” of medicine and higher education. The textiles we wear on our backs, and shoes we wear on our feet? Not so much. After leading the New World in those two categories 150 years ago, most of the mills have decamped for the Orient. Most of our food production comes from the Midwest or Latin America.
Nobody trudges around naked, barefoot, or starving, however. Somehow we manage.
Comparative advantage is a real thing and it often works to everyone’s mutual benefit. But you can’t make it work just by snuffing out segments of your economy and hoping something “comes along”.
Giving up something you do less well in order to pile your scarce resources into something you do better than someone else is good sense. My question is what is it the UK so much better at? And if the answer is “not too much” my supplimentary question is: what is the plan to change that? Mr Sunak? Sir Kier? Anyone?
Many of the things they once did well, have been hampered by government taxes and regulations.
Today you manage. Soon, all of the NE will fall to the woke demands and reliable energy will be a thing of the past. No more cars, since the power plants that would fuel them will be shut down. No more single family homes as the gas and oil to heat them will no longer be available. And forget abouot heat pumps as there will be no longer electricity to keep them running. Kiss yo a** goodbye.
Also forget about heat pumps because they are impractical in many millions of UK homes.
As for single family homes- they’re not skyrocketing in price. Unimaginable. Even here in relatively poor central MA- so I suppose I benefit. Maybe I’ll cash in and move to a low price state with cash left over.
medicine and higher education and high tech are very wealthy industries- much of that rubs off on many of the natives- but not all- lots of poverty in Wokeachusetts and the rest of New England- I live in north central part of the state- a great deal of poverty here- drive around here and you’ll be amazed at how destitute much of it looks- classic rust belt- it’s mostly the coast that is doing fine and the Berkshires, thanks to a very high end tourism industry there- this state is on the net zero bandwagon- it’ll destroy the environment and the economy- even the wealthy industries don’t like high energy costs
And yet US firms were bringing manufacturing back under the previous administration. There are a lot of disadvantages to doing complicated manufacturing on the other side of the planet. Most notably if you need to change something it costs many times more.
It is a myth that US manufacturing was “brought back” or even needing “bringing back”. US manufacturing $ has been increasing steadily for a long long time. Manufacturing jobs, on the other hand, have been decreasing steadily for something like 70 years, and that’s a good thing, because it means productivity has been increasing and other fields have been increasing.
Wishing to increase manufacturing jobs, as a goal, is as insane as wishing to increase farming jobs, as a goal.
Perhaps the goal should be to increase productivity (and its compensation) enough to get back to a single wage-earner per family.
that should be the goal- it would be great for family values
Robots and AI will do most of the manufacturing at low cost.
Guardedly true – higher labor productivity could actually increase manufacturing employment analogous to how improvements in the efficiency of steam engines caused their use to vastly increase (Jevon’s Paradox).
I think the bigger issue is the domestic regulatory environment. Jobs offshored as a result of bad regulations, particularly those stemming from climate alarmism, can and should be ‘brought back’ by simply rolling these regulations back.
The problem is that it costs a lot of money to move your production facilities. Once they have been moved elsewhere, there needs to be a substantial competitive advantage in order to entice companies into bringing them back.
The companies are also going to have to be convinced that the regulatory environment won’t turn hostile again as soon as they return.
I think what actually happened is that many companies realized they had more to fear from US progressives than from LDC thugs.
Most of offshoring was to cheapen the cost of production- that is, get rid of your labor force. It benefit the company but hurts the nation. Instead, the companies should have continued raising productivity- keep SOME jobs here and maybe increase jobs as the company expanded.
Capital and labor are always complementary. The idea of the economy as a zero sum competition between the two is Marxist crap that unfortunately has been mainstreamed into our thinking.
Sure, but sometimes one side or the other becomes too strong.
There are many things that all of us do that benefit ourselves, while maybe hurting the country. When you shop, do you always shop for made in America, or do you look for the best deal you can.
If so, why do you condemn others for something that you yourself do?
There will be a huge increase in Chinese tourism to the UK. They’ll drive around the ‘hoods, taking pictures of the natives on their stoops. They’ll be laughing at how desperate the natives seem.
“You would think on the eve of one of the most consequential elections of my life we’d be getting some imaginative proposals for how to deliver the Brexit dividend. I want rather more than a blue passport and Spanish airport aggro out of that pup.”
What Brexit dividend? Blue Passports and airport aggro is about all you could realistically expect from Brexit.
Well van drivers could have told them that-
NO ONE IS BUYING ELECTRIC VANS!! It’s time for manufacturers to panic! (youtube.com)
Ferrari have a cunning plan to address the massive depreciation of EVs-
Ferrari’s plan to tackle PHEV, EV depreciation (msn.com)
Stick your replacement battery on layby
Meanwhile not happy with the net zero Elon-
Tesla is ordered to stop pumping out massive amounts of toxic gas (msn.com)
re: “Tesla is ordered to stop pumping out massive amounts of toxic gas (msn.com)”
NO specifics that I could see; the new state of journo-lism, eh?
No more noxious spray painting for cars and they must all be cybergreen stainless steel now perhaps?
According to the UK i newspaper Ferrari’s debut EV will cost a minimum of €500,000 / £422,200 (20 June 2024). Want to place a bet on how many they sell to ordinary people? 🙂
How many “ordinary people” buy Ferrari irrespective of their engine type?
As usual, only REAL pain (loss of jobs, options…freedoms…) will be the teacher and motivator for REAL change. It just continues to amaze me how deeply in denial the NetZero believers are able to remain, with so much contradicting evidence. Guess they really do need pain for learnin’…
Some net zero lovers here in Wokeachusetts are now turning against wind and solar “farms”- with the fantasy that by covering every building in the state and many parking lots- we can arrive at net zero nirvana. The fact that it can’t happen escapes them.
re: “Vauxhall owner threatens to close UK car factories ”
The pols don’t want to do anything about this, otherwise, they would do something about this.
Right?
Not before disaster strikes
The entire political and managerial classes and most of the media in the UK have lost their collective minds. Not just on energy and climate, either. They live in a London based echo chamber, ruled by fantasies about energy, race, gender, defence, biology, economics, you name it.
It is going to get worse, a lot worse, before it gets better.
Indeed. There is only one partially sane party and that is Reform. They look set to poll around 20% and return a few MPs.
Labour will visibly destroy British industry with wokery. They wont last more than one term. The real question is who comes after them?
A lot of damage can be done in one term.
It’s easier to destroy than it is to build.
It takes a lot less time as well.
I regret that you are correct, they are driven by blind faith and when their policies have a negative effect, they at first deny, then blame problems on others opposing them and insist that the answer is yet more of the same. Unfortunately the elected politicians have been very successful in evading democratic intervention by passing on their powers, either upwards to supranational agencies or downwards to QuANGOs.
Probably- but, I fantasize that a turn around could happen very quickly- such things happen in history. I suspect most people are getting fed up with it- and when it starts to turn, it’ll happen suddenly. I’ll start praying for it. 🙂
Oh dear oh dear. Well I predicted, along with many others, that either some big car companies would go bust, or pull out of the UK and it’s net zero insanity.
Reality has bitten the arse of the net zero nutters. If it weren’t so bloody serious it would be hilarious.
The general intent was that users convert or do without. Pretty effective so far. UK can be the next island nation like Cuba. Except speaking Arab.
soon, they’ll have a new regulation- everyone will have to bow to Mecca 5 times/day
Part of the plan while Vauxhall thinks it’s a threat.
We are at the precipice… the tipping point for the end of human civilization.
The really worrying part of this is that the politicians are seeing blind and hearing deaf. They believe in their cause and are psychologically incapable of understanding the buffer the train is going to run into. It would be amusing unless, like me, you live in the UK.
Going from 22% in 2024 to 80% in 2030 doesn’t sound at all gradual to me.
PS: Once a factory is closed and mothballed, it costs a lot of money to start it up again. The longer it’s mothballed, the more it costs to restart.
I came across this years ago.
It was in reply to critics of GW Bush’s tax cuts.
Still applicable to Government messing with Industry (beyond ensuring they are honest and operating within the Law.)
We (and the UK plus other free nations) have already driven to many jobs and industries to Communist countries or others where labor is cheaper and Government regulations are no longer connected to reality.
THe purpose of the tax system is to take money from those who work, in order to buy the votes of those who don’t want to work.
BTW, thanks to our modern tax system, it is now possible for your tax “refund” to actually be larger than the amount that you paid in taxes.
Why move to the EU? Isn’t Europe only marginally better when it comes to Net Zero?
Free Market doesn’t exist with this bullshites lingering around.
The wealth of a nation is directly proportional to what it makes and can sell to the other countries. This is the most important and simplest rule of economics. Contemplate this O you ignorant.
Oh well, never mind. At least electric Ferrari owners will not have to suffer battery replacement anxiety – they can have the battery replaced every eight years, or earlier if defective, for just a small annual warranty fee of seven thousand Euros (nearly 7500 USD). That’s 56000 Euros per battery! I guess Ferrari batteries are more expensive than others, but try searching for the cost of replacement Li-ion batteries – I find nothing, just the cost of12V lead-acid batteries.
Two of my views clearly illustrated here. Government is the problem and giving government more money whether through taxes or fines doesn’t solve a damn thing.
It’s OOOOOVERRRRRR!
Why nearly half of EV owners want to switch back to gas vehicles (msn.com)
Stellantis is a very large automobile manufacturer, an amalgamation of Chrysler, Fiat, Peugot, and other brands.