Friday 22nd January 2010

Factory Closures For Opel/Vauxhall

Antwerp shutdown is first round of swingeing cuts for Opel/Vauxhall

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Opel has announced plans to shut down its Antwerp facility in Belgium, with the loss of 2300 jobs.

The move is part of a savage European cost-cutting plan at General Motors that will eventually involve more than 8000 redundancies.

With the European car market expected to be just 1.5 million units in 2010 - down form a peak of 4 million in 2007 - Opel says that it needs to reduce its capacity by 20 per cent to ensure long-term sustainability.

The UK's Ellesmere Port Vauxhall plant is safe for now, but GM Europe says that all Opel/Vauxhall production sites will be affected in some way, either through redundancies, capacity reduction or general cost-cutting.

"We fully understand the effect this announcement has on the Antwerp employees and their families and we sympathise with them," says Opel CEO Nick Reilly. "Many have been dedicated to the plant over generations and have done an excellent job producing great quality cars. The decision to announce this today was not taken lightly; instead, it is the unfortunate result of the current business reality."

GM, meanwhile, is still trying to decide what to do with Saab - sell it to Spyker, investment firm Genii Capital, or wind down the Swedish luxury car maker completely. A decision, says GM, is expected 'very soon'.

[Nickellarse]

I think the number of replies to this story speaks volumes about the general interest in Opel/Vauxhall.

[Deva Link]

....or "who gives a toss about what happens in Antwerp"? (Apart from any Belgian based PHer's, of course).

[mark3man]

My SAAB dealer says they have no official (or unofficial) news.
However, if Opel have realised ( some years late ) there is too much capacity and they should reduce some of it, it isn't a good message to preserve more capacity in Sweden, sadly.

[geoffracing]

Terrible for the Antwerp workmens' families of course.
But workmen complain when things go less well, but if there weren't courageous bosses to start all those huge businesses, they wouldn't have any work at all, or would have to sell patates-frites.
So, when things work well one accepts, and when things don't one should also accept. Sorry.

Regarding SAAB, has ANYONE EVER seen an attractive looking SAAB ?
The old ones were absolutely ghastly. The later ones just acceptable.
Good cars probably, but ugly-ugly-ugly. Quite wrong in proportions.
Why can Scandinavia do splendid interior design, and not design a nice car?
Volvos aren't wonderful either...

[lenandsons]

Not surprised as the writing has been on the wall for a while now. Not nice at all for all those workers and no matter what some people say it is often the guys breaking their necks to do a good job who get the the axe first.

[Church of Noise]

Deva Link said:

....or "who gives a toss about what happens in Antwerp"? (Apart from any Belgian based PHer's, of course).

Such as me.

And it's not just because Antwerp's in Belgium, but also because once again, thousands loose their jobs (their suppliers will suffer as well, such as Johnson Controls who made the seats and had only 1 customer left since the crisis began). Furthermore, as a PHer, I find it sad to see that jobs in the car industry are lost.

But then again, I'm Belgian...

[bencollins]

Blimey, 4M to 1.5M, thats a big drop, no wonder everyone is struggling.

[Deva Link]

Church of Noise said:

And it's not just because Antwerp's in Belgium, but also because once again, thousands loose their jobs (their suppliers will suffer as well, such as Johnson Controls who made the seats and had only 1 customer left since the crisis began). Furthermore, as a PHer, I find it sad to see that jobs in the car industry are lost.

Of course. My point was that there's not much response as the closure is outside the UK. It's bit like hearing there's been a plane crash, you hold your breath for a second, the breathe a sigh of relief when you hear it was somewhere in some far-flung location.

[funwithrevs]

geoffracing said:

Regarding SAAB, has ANYONE EVER seen an attractive looking SAAB ?
The old ones were absolutely ghastly. The later ones just acceptable.
Good cars probably, but ugly-ugly-ugly. Quite wrong in proportions.
Why can Scandinavia do splendid interior design, and not design a nice car?
Volvos aren't wonderful either...

I would rather drive a dodgy looking Saab than a boring, featureless looking Audi. Even if they got it wrong (to my eyes) at least they tried.

[Black S2K]

There's VAST overcapacity in the European motor industry.

We had our big clearout in the UK years ago.

It's overdue in Europe: since GM's mismanagers have recently made Opel & SAAB look like the Chuckle Brothers, it's gonna happen there first.

Then there's a lot of French/Italian dross to be raked off.

[chickensoup]

I think the lack of replies is more because it is poor form to cheer. Sadly good news for Ellesmere Port is st news for some other community

[geoffracing]

[/quote]

I would rather drive a dodgy looking Saab than a boring, featureless looking Audi. Even if they got it wrong (to my eyes) at least they tried.
[/quote]


I agree SAABs are at least original; because as the AUDIs are in fact perfect in simplicity, smoothness, finish, they are absolutely dull! Quite uninteresting.

BMWs are usually a bit less well designed (especially details) than Audis, but are anyway bewitching cars to handle.
And Mercs are for whealthy butchers.