RE: Zenos sells 100th car
Discussion
MikeGalos said:
Wow. 100 cars in a year and a half. Yeah. That's a global triumph of the return of the UK to being a major player in the world auto industry.
After all, the world auto market is only 74,000,000 cars per year. And the largest current UK owned, UK made producer is Aston-Martin/Lagonda who makes nearly 6,000 cars per year. Add in Morgan and LTI taxis and McLaren (If Apple doesn't buy them) and you're up to a good 10,000 cars and a whopping 0.014% of the world market. And Zenos's doing "well" enough to get to 100 per YEAR adds a big 0.00014% to that!
Why with that AM/L head start and a growth of 100 per year that's only a thousand years to get up to being 1% of the world market.
(Of course, that's assuming you don't mind not having any actual trading partners who take the cars without country specific versions since you don't think Brexit will hurt those massive sales growth figures.)
Seeing as you're playing that game, AML is largely owned by a Middle Eastern investment conglomerate.After all, the world auto market is only 74,000,000 cars per year. And the largest current UK owned, UK made producer is Aston-Martin/Lagonda who makes nearly 6,000 cars per year. Add in Morgan and LTI taxis and McLaren (If Apple doesn't buy them) and you're up to a good 10,000 cars and a whopping 0.014% of the world market. And Zenos's doing "well" enough to get to 100 per YEAR adds a big 0.00014% to that!
Why with that AM/L head start and a growth of 100 per year that's only a thousand years to get up to being 1% of the world market.
(Of course, that's assuming you don't mind not having any actual trading partners who take the cars without country specific versions since you don't think Brexit will hurt those massive sales growth figures.)
If you stop being a complete twazzock and accept that even if the parent company is foreign, it doesn't make it 'non British' you'd have included both Bentley and JLR produced around 500,000 cases in total.
MikeGalos said:
redroadster said:
Great ,another British firm doing well seems we can do the specialist market well two fingers up to the non brexit league.
Wow. 100 cars in a year and a half. Yeah. That's a global triumph of the return of the UK to being a major player in the world auto industry. After all, the world auto market is only 74,000,000 cars per year. And the largest current UK owned, UK made producer is Aston-Martin/Lagonda who makes nearly 6,000 cars per year. Add in Morgan and LTI taxis and McLaren (If Apple doesn't buy them) and you're up to a good 10,000 cars and a whopping 0.014% of the world market. And Zenos's doing "well" enough to get to 100 per YEAR adds a big 0.00014% to that!
Why with that AM/L head start and a growth of 100 per year that's only a thousand years to get up to being 1% of the world market.
(Of course, that's assuming you don't mind not having any actual trading partners who take the cars without country specific versions since you don't think Brexit will hurt those massive sales growth figures.)
DonkeyApple said:
Except AML isn't UK owned.
Yes. I was being generous by including them since their ownership conglomerate is UK based even if it consisist of a group of various foreign investment groups.But, hey, if you want them left out that makes the point even more clear. The person I quoted who was talking about what a triumph this was for the British motor industry and some kind of bizarre vindication for Brexit is even more silly.
Yes, it's nice there's still a place for the tiny niche producer.
No, this isn't significant either to the world or UK motor industries.
No, this doesn't say a thing either way about Brexit.
RacerMike said:
Seeing as you're playing that game, AML is largely owned by a Middle Eastern investment conglomerate.
If you stop being a complete twazzock and accept that even if the parent company is foreign, it doesn't make it 'non British' you'd have included both Bentley and JLR produced around 500,000 cases in total.
...and 50% of McLaren shares are owned by the Bahraini sovereign wealth fund according toIf you stop being a complete twazzock and accept that even if the parent company is foreign, it doesn't make it 'non British' you'd have included both Bentley and JLR produced around 500,000 cases in total.
https://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2016/09/insight-why...
and McLaren may/might/could become owned by Apple (or a.n. other foreign owner)
I agree with RacerMike, even if the parent company is foreign doesn't make the company 'non British', particularly a company where all the design, R&D, manufacturing etc is done in Britain.
RacerMike said:
If you stop being a complete twazzock and accept that even if the parent company is foreign, it doesn't make it 'non British' you'd have included both Bentley and JLR produced around 500,000 cases in total.
For that matter I could also count Ford and Volkswagen and Toyota as "British" since they have assembly plants in the UK.Sorry but if the people at the top making the product decisions are in Germany or Japan or India or the US then it's no more a "British" car company than pretending that Toyota is actually a Mexican car company because they have a plant there.
Bentley make the products that Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft's executives decide they'll make.
JLR make the products that the Tata Group executives in India feel will increase Tata Group's revenue. Tata didn't get to be £100 billion per year multinational conglomerate by being "hands-off" on their purchased subsidiaries.
I remember them displaying a car at the motorshow in Battersea a few months ago, a little lad with his dad wanting a sit in, the Zenos guy quite abruptly saying 'no', don't touch the car. What's the worse that could happen?! Bad marketing - I remember falling in love with TVR's as a kid as I could get up close to them at motor shows...Poor form from Zenos.
100 IAN said:
RacerMike said:
Seeing as you're playing that game, AML is largely owned by a Middle Eastern investment conglomerate.
If you stop being a complete twazzock and accept that even if the parent company is foreign, it doesn't make it 'non British' you'd have included both Bentley and JLR produced around 500,000 cases in total.
...and 50% of McLaren shares are owned by the Bahraini sovereign wealth fund according toIf you stop being a complete twazzock and accept that even if the parent company is foreign, it doesn't make it 'non British' you'd have included both Bentley and JLR produced around 500,000 cases in total.
https://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2016/09/insight-why...
and McLaren may/might/could become owned by Apple (or a.n. other foreign owner)
I agree with RacerMike, even if the parent company is foreign doesn't make the company 'non British', particularly a company where all the design, R&D, manufacturing etc is done in Britain.
As you allude, the concept of being 'British' is somewhat more complex to define than by just looking at name plates on doors and where those doors are or what tax is paid to whom, or where the intellectual assets are or the R&D.
Apple is defined by the chip that lies within its devices. That's the core element, the rest is just plastic, metal and glass skin. That chip is defined and manufactured in Britain. The phone is assembled in China. The head of design is British. But we see Apple as American because its founder was American? Like Bruce was a Kiwi but we don't see McLaren as NZ. Or because it is listed in the US? BP is listed in the UK but it's defining ownership structure is American.
It's just difficult to separate say AML from Bentley. Both are wholly foreign owned. Both have UK heritage and a UK Board but both those boards report to ultimate controllers overseas. Both assemble in the UK but import parts from all over the world. JLR is no different. Nor is Caterham.
We could look at engines. We design and built some of the greatest engines the industry has seen but for foreign companies. We've also designed and built some of the greatest cars for foreign companies. Is the current F1 Mercedes engine British or German? Is the GT40 British or American? And we also import huge amounts of tech and R&D.
I think that just looking at the basic ownership structure of a corporate entity as a means to decide the business' and the brand's 'geographic ownership' is far too simplistic in the post war, global environment.
We assume Zenos is British but it has 23 shareholders. Under this basic calculation we would need to know the 23 beneficial owners, their weightings and geographical location before we could actually say whether Zenos is British or not.
Let's suppose that along the lines of most externally funded start-ups that 75% of the ownership is external investors and what if they were overseas investors? That would put them in the same boat as JLR, Bentley et al. Yet would it actually change our view of the company being British? Almost certainly not. It would take a DailyMail hate campaign for low functioners to force that shift typically. And that tends to illustrate that it's much more down to perception than any legal or tax structure or control.
MikeGalos said:
JLR make the products that the Tata Group executives in India feel will increase Tata Group's revenue. Tata didn't get to be £100 billion per year multinational conglomerate by being "hands-off" on their purchased subsidiaries.
Tata have absolutely no involvement in the product strategy at JLR. And a 'hands off' attitude is exactly what has made Tata so successful. Compare the strategy to Ford who constantly medaled in the design and strategy of Jaguar and Land Rover creating such hits as the Jaguar X-Type and Jaguar S-Type because 'everyone wanted a backwards looking 'quaint' English car'.100% of the JLR product strategy, design, engineering and development is in England.
As for Bentley, it's very similar. Whilst I believe they have to involve themselves with VW, they are largely free to create their own destiny, and I can guarantee that the many thousands employed up in Crew to design, test and manufacture the cars would be fairly keen to set you straight on it the cars being engineered and built in Britain.
Of course I suspect you won't change your opinion, so I guess you're in agreement that Cadbury's (who replaced all employees with Americans and will shortly convert the chocolate factory to make Kraft cream cheese), Harrods (who only sell things made in Egypt), Walkers (did you know Gary Lineker only drinks Pepsi for hydration), Caterham (who will shortly switch to plane manufacture for Tony Fernandez), Tetley, Typhoo, Newcastle Brown Ale, Thames Water (who's Australian owner imports all water from Australia and employees no English people at all), Heathrow Airport (which is being re-located to Spain any day now) and TfL (who will shortly relocate all London Bus services to Berlin) aren't in any way English source: Business Insider
Edited by RacerMike on Saturday 24th September 16:16
ash73 said:
knitware said:
I saw this manufacturer at the 'London Motor Show' this year. My memory of them was an angry employee walking around the car who was telling, sometimes shouting, at children not to touch the car and dads taking the kids and walking off. I can understand this to a degree but If I were to display a vehicle from a relatively new company I would want dads with their kids to climb all over it, I would expect that show car to need a polish afterwards. I would want to portray a company who embraces kids with dads to have a good look, poke, bounce and sit in the car. I got the impression that the company was offish and grumpy, I would have expected them to be warm and fun and actively encouraged whoever to paw all over the car. Maybe if they were a little more welcoming then they may have sold more.
To offer some perspective, the Bentley stand had kids all over their car, perhaps the Zenos is brittle.
Parents should teach their offspring to look and not touch, rather than treating it as an adventure playground. Larger companies can probably afford to write off their show cars after the little monkeys pull them apart, but it must be galling to watch.To offer some perspective, the Bentley stand had kids all over their car, perhaps the Zenos is brittle.
Zenos may have sold a few cars but the real questions are,
I imagine Noble hangs by a thread, even if that thread leads to wealthy investors.
New-TVR? Well, I wouldn't want to have money in it.
Ariel seem to have found a corner of the market which they can make work at low volumes.
- Can they sell many more, and
- Will it ever make money.
I imagine Noble hangs by a thread, even if that thread leads to wealthy investors.
New-TVR? Well, I wouldn't want to have money in it.
Ariel seem to have found a corner of the market which they can make work at low volumes.
Ozzie Osmond said:
Zenos may have sold a few cars but the real questions are,
I imagine Noble hangs by a thread, even if that thread leads to wealthy investors.
New-TVR? Well, I wouldn't want to have money in it.
Ariel seem to have found a corner of the market which they can make work at low volumes.
They were quite well capitalised at the last accounts with over 800k in the bank. Next accounts due in a month will show what they have left of that or whether they've raised more money. - Can they sell many more, and
- Will it ever make money.
I imagine Noble hangs by a thread, even if that thread leads to wealthy investors.
New-TVR? Well, I wouldn't want to have money in it.
Ariel seem to have found a corner of the market which they can make work at low volumes.
23 separate shareholders suggests they would be able to do a fund raising if needed.
They do have 4 directors to feed and, I assume, a few staff.
If they are making margins of say, £10k per car then that's £1m in net revenue, in very crude terms?
In very basic terms, it would suggest that if they can keep selling at this rate then they should be OK?
Can they keep selling? Well they seem to have handled their build up and launch very well and certainly better than most do.
If I had to take a punt then I'd say they stand a good chance of being a healthy, solid business.
RacerMike said:
Tata have absolutely no involvement in the product strategy at JLR. And a 'hands off' attitude is exactly what has made Tata so successful. Compare the strategy to Ford who constantly medaled in the design and strategy of Jaguar and Land Rover creating such hits as the Jaguar X-Type and Jaguar S-Type because 'everyone wanted a backwards looking 'quaint' English car'.
100% of the JLR product strategy, design, engineering and development is in England.
Yes, that's why the product lines at JLR and Bentley are pretty much just gradual evolutions of what they were doing before the acquisitions. Why the F-Type is pretty much an XJS and the Evoque is really just a Freelander. And, well, we all know that a Bentley doesn't really use a VW family chassis or drivetrain or electrics or switchgear. 100% of the JLR product strategy, design, engineering and development is in England.
Oh, wait, that's exactly backwards...
Edited by MikeGalos on Sunday 25th September 12:44
DonkeyApple said:
They were quite well capitalised at the last accounts with over 800k in the bank.
800K for producing 100 cars is 8K/car. If they can cover materials and 3rd party inventory and salaries at 8K per car (and assuming they can cover the costs of manufacturing equipment depreciation and facility rental cost and insurance and utilities and all the other day to day expenses by new revenue) they're doing pretty well. Pretty hard to see how that happens, though. mikey P 500 said:
It's hard to see on a 100 cars in a year they can make money. The salaries of staff must cost close to total revenue on 100 cars, surely all the development must need sharing over a much larger volume of cars to make sense at this price point. Good luck to them though.
Before the first E10 was built, they were always clear that the new platform would be used for three separate models. So for we've only seen the first, with a choice of three engines. The next car should have doors, and after that a coupe. I don't know enough about the business to say if that's realistic, but I don't see why not. It's a big assumption that production has been linear.
Not many cars were shifting at the start as things shake themselves out. When I got my e10r (the first one back in April) they were making more than 1.8 a week for sure!
The e10 was always a means to an end
- make a noise with a new chassis construction method
- have a really fast initial offering
- work out the bugs
The e11 will be the mainstream car and will go toe to toe with the traditional manufacturers.
Doors, windows, air con, etc.
Not many cars were shifting at the start as things shake themselves out. When I got my e10r (the first one back in April) they were making more than 1.8 a week for sure!
The e10 was always a means to an end
- make a noise with a new chassis construction method
- have a really fast initial offering
- work out the bugs
The e11 will be the mainstream car and will go toe to toe with the traditional manufacturers.
Doors, windows, air con, etc.
MikeGalos said:
Yes, that's why the product lines at JLR and Bentley are pretty much just gradual evolutions of what they were doing before the acquisitions. Why the F-Type is pretty much an XJS and the Evoque is really just a Freelander. And, well, we all know that a Bentley doesn't really use a VW family chassis or drivetrain or electrics or switchgear.
Oh, wait, that's exactly backwards...
True. I mean the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport chassis, Jaguar XE, XF, F-Pace and complete redesign of the Freelancer platform for the Discovery Sport were done on the lunch breaks whilst Tata weren't looking.....Oh, wait, that's exactly backwards...
Edited by MikeGalos on Sunday 25th September 12:44
ads_green said:
The e11 will be the mainstream car and will go toe to toe with the traditional manufacturers.
Well, either that or just a version of e10 with more bodywork etc. They'll need to do a lot better than the horrible side windows and weather gear dreamt up by KTM.If Lotus ever get around to replacing the centuries-old Elise it should give all of the smaller specialist cars a severe kicking.
At the end of the day when Porsche will sell you a 300 bhp mid-engined sportscar for £40k it's not easy for any of these people.
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