Why don't we have any volume car makes left...

[J4MES]

...in the UK? The Germans have, the French do (although they're rubbish, and subsidised), even the Swedes and Spanish do, where did it all go wrong? Or was it ever right - Rovers were always a bit rubbish...

[dnyberg]

Rovers were always a bit rubbish...

I don't think all rovers are rubbish

I've had a couple of nice ones in my opinion anyway lol

[chuckskull]

Because the cars were terrible and the companies corrupt? not to mention Maggie squatting down and taking a proverbial... on the economy in the 80's

[b0redom]

The Spanish? What do they have?

[mike_w]

According to those more knowledgeable than I, it's owing to the fact that UK firms just weren't competing especially well i.e. we weren't / aren't as productive as, for instance, the Germans, who became efficient and produced quality cars. Of course, a strong Pound, as we have now, makes it worse if industry does not cut costs and match other countries' competitiveness.

Note that I haven't actually read up on this, so those who told me this could be wrong!

Because the cars were terrible and the companies corrupt? not to mention Maggie squatting down and taking a proverbial... on the economy in the 80's

Care to expand on this a little? (I neither agree nor disagree - I'd just like to see your point!)

[kalniel]

The Spanish? What do they have?

Seat, even if that's also VW.

[Funkstar]

In some ways you could argue that going through the hardship of loosing our manufacturing industry in the '80s has been a good thing. We now have a strong economy, stronger than any of the others in Europe. Part of that is not having to prop up un-profitable heavy industry.

Look at VW now, they are having to shed a huge amount of jobs and massively increase productivity to get back into profitability. It was even rumoured that Porsche were going to buy them! One of the smallest european manufacturers buying the largest. Instead they just thew a fre billion Euro their way and increased their stake holding.

Thats probably a bit simplistic, but you get the idea

[BUFF]

even the Swedes and Spanish do, where did it all go wrong? Or was it ever right - Rovers were always a bit rubbish...

Saab is General Motors (USA) & Volvo is Ford (USA) - both of whom are in serious financial trouble.
As has been said Seat is owned by VW.

Interestingly Toyota, Honda & Nissan's UK plants all do pretty well in productivity terms iirc.

[doll]

Interestingly Toyota, Honda & Nissan's UK plants all do pretty well in productivity terms iirc.

They do have pretty heavy tax subsidies to be able to do that though....

[BUFF]

tax subsidies don't actually affect the productivity itself though (cost of productivity, yes) though & those plants stack upto any in Europe afaik - in fact I think that Toyota's UK plant has several times had the best car productivity in Europe.

[doll]

tax subsidies don't actually affect the productivity itself though (cost of productivity, yes) though & those plants stack upto any in Europe afaik - in fact I think that Toyota's UK plant has several times had the best car productivity in Europe.

You are right, they have had the best productivity figures in Europe along with Nissan. However, they wouldn't be in the UK if they were not subsidised to do so. They would still be the most productive if they were in any other country! Why? Because the company systems and automatic production facilities are state of the art, because Toyota have invested for the long term, a trait a lot of Japanese firms adhere to....Rover was run on a shoestring, with aging technology and a serious lack of technological investment, hence such high labour numbers and labour costs. So yes....tax and transport subsidies do make a big difference...otherwise there would be no mass production of any vehicle marque in the UK because it would be cheaper to do so elsewhere! Why else do you think a mass vehicle producer would set up production on an island, rather than mainland Europe? Because there was a financial incentive to do so.......

I am not saying Rovers were rubbish...because I do not believe they were. The group lacked any serious financial investment to be able to do anything better and whilst a lot of manufacturers were looking at productivity and automation, Rover were having to lump it along with high labour costs and low technology investment ('sticky plaster' syndrome). Nissan Sunderland have around 3000 employees producing 300k cars....Rover had around 5000 employees producing around 120k cars.....

[Butuz]

Nail hit on the head by doll there!

End of discussion lol.

Butuz

[BUFF]

It's not just that though - the Japanese were able to come in & start fresh with no former working practices, pension scheme liabilities etc. to hinder them.
It's exactly the same in the US where new companies (incl. BMW & Mercedes as well as Mazda, Toyota etc.) have been able to set up plants whilst Ford, GM & Chrysler have massive millstones around their necks in terms of historic union agreements, pensions etc.
Same reason that so many of the large American airlines have been in Chapter 11 when other newer ones haven't.

[dangel]

I don't think all rovers are rubbish

I've had a couple of nice ones in my opinion anyway lol

I've had loads and they were all rubbish. I seriously felt like setting fire to my last one..

[TiG]

I think this is much more about british manufacturing more than anything else, the simple message being you adapt or die.

The car industry sooner or later will have to live with massive change, with lack of oil, and will have to deal with other future energy sources.

Don't invest in these now, come the time when you need them you are going to be left behind again then.

The whole british economy is much healthier being a service driven industry, exports are affected so much by currency shifts, and are something that you need to be careful with.

I'd much rather see us dominating the IT, Banking, Insurance, Pharma, Technology industries than i would the car manufacturing industries.

TiG

[doll]

It's not just that though - the Japanese were able to come in & start fresh with no former working practices, pension scheme liabilities etc. to hinder them.
It's exactly the same in the US where new companies (incl. BMW & Mercedes as well as Mazda, Toyota etc.) have been able to set up plants whilst Ford, GM & Chrysler have massive millstones around their necks in terms of historic union agreements, pensions etc.
Same reason that so many of the large American airlines have been in Chapter 11 when other newer ones haven't.

That's not what you were saying though, you were talking about productivity and I was giving a reason for that in the UK...which is quite simply re-investment.

What you are saying is not strictly true. Yes, GM and Ford are well established companies, wheras Toyota have grown in strength over a shorter period of time and experienced good growth...personally I wouldnt compare the practices of BMW and Mercedes in the same catagory as the high volume producers. This obviously gives way to differing working practices...but the key word there is re-structuring, which none of these companies have been very good at (and tbh is a different subject to this, but is related).

The company I work for has been around since 1907 and still has production in the UK. OK the volume has dropped (as there is less car production in the UK and we produce bearings), but we have gone from over 3000 employees to 500 (200 of which are office based)...mainly due to re-investment in automation and technology. We have 24 hour lines in Turin in Italy (not exactly a cheap country to employ) with 2 people operating a line per shift. Years ago there would have been 20 times the manpower on such a line! People say to us "why dont you move to China"...our response is it wouldnt save us any money, because our man power costs are not that high...our investment is in technology and the cost is pretty much the same wherever you drop the machinery.

Re-investment is key within the automotive industry nowadays, just as much as consolidation. Think of all of the brands within the VW group and they are still struggling! There will be a lot more casualties within these groups before things start to get better, especially with the pressure of margins and to all intense a purposes an over-subscribed, very mature market.