JLR on 3 day week

[blademansw]

LDN said:

I’ve dealt with JLR a lot and they’ve been ten times better than Mercedes, in my experience... and that’s on repeated occasions.

10 times 0 is still 0...

[JD]

Can anyone with a more financey brain than I, explain this link?

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/jaguar...

[NomduJour]

They’ve committed a tonne of cash to develop and build diesel engines, which is now worthless.

[Thesprucegoose]

NomduJour said:

They’ve invested a tonne of cash in diesel which is now worthless.

its in the article, sounds like accounting tweakery.

'' £3.1 billion charge was part of the firm’s Charge and Accelerate transformation schemes, designed to invigorate the struggling company with around £2.5 billion of investment.''

[craigjm]

It’s done when you have an asset and that asset becomes impaired and is therefore worth less than it was to that point. Take the hit now on the balance sheet and save money in the long term.

[havoc]

craigjm said:

It’s done when you have an asset and that asset becomes impaired and is therefore worth less than it was to that point. Take the hit now on the balance sheet and save money in the long term.

Well, not 'save money', more recognise the loss now to avoid recognising it piecemeal over future years.

Suggestion was that the 'loss' was split 50/50:-
- 50% is as above - they've invested in "product development" (probably ingenium mainly) which hasn't paid off, so previously they'd capitalised those costs as a (non-physical) asset of the business, and have now decided those ideas and research aren't really an asset so are writing them off.
- 50% is a write down of tangible assets - plant and machinery. This for me is actually more significant, as that means they've invested in the wrong bits of kit. Could also be related to the engine plant, as they now expect to sell far fewer diesel engines than before.

Either way note it's only relating to Q4. Of more interest is the 'underlying loss' of £270m in Q4 + another £90m in Q3. This is a loss on continuing operations, which means that (yet again) they're carrying too many costs vs the amount of vehicles they're selling. Hence the '000s of redundancies...

[alfabadass]

craigjm said:

Well quality control is still as rubbish as ever

https://www.carscoops.com/2019/01/jaguar-e-pace-su...

Actually delivered to customers and then because there is “no fix” they are offering $600 compensation! Outrageous. I would be driving it straight back and getting my money back.

When are they finally going to learn how to build a car properly. To make it worse these are the cars contracted out in Austria.

£600? Imagine buying a new Luxury car with all that missing? Not even Apple and Android ICE?

LMAO

[Brooking10]

alfabadass said:

craigjm said:

Well quality control is still as rubbish as ever

https://www.carscoops.com/2019/01/jaguar-e-pace-su...

Actually delivered to customers and then because there is “no fix” they are offering $600 compensation! Outrageous. I would be driving it straight back and getting my money back.

When are they finally going to learn how to build a car properly. To make it worse these are the cars contracted out in Austria.

£600? Imagine buying a new Luxury car with all that missing? Not even Apple and Android ICE?

LMAO

Hmmm that’s not great is it ?

Looks a class-action waiting to happen

[alfabadass]

I wouldn't accept £600, I'd be rejecting and head towards Audi

[sapf0]

havoc said:

Could also be related to the engine plant, as they now expect to sell far fewer diesel engines than before....

The head of Unite at Lode Lane is a councillor in Wolves. The engine plant was actually built on his patch. How convenient is that? Inside Solihull there has been a lot of high level back scratching to suit personal agendas rather than benefit the company, that is only just being uncovered.

[havoc]

sapf0 said:

havoc said:

Could also be related to the engine plant, as they now expect to sell far fewer diesel engines than before....

The head of Unite at Lode Lane is a councillor in Wolves. The engine plant was actually built on his patch. How convenient is that? Inside Solihull there has been a lot of high level back scratching to suit personal agendas rather than benefit the company, that is only just being uncovered.

It's possible. I know from my time that Solihull was the last bastion of the bad old ways of British industry...and talking to current employees nothing's changed in >10 years.

[legless]

havoc said:

It's possible. I know from my time that Solihull was the last bastion of the bad old ways of British industry...and talking to current employees nothing's changed in >10 years.

I last worked for JLR over 6 years ago now, but I remember even only as recently as 2012 the union shop mentality was alive and well there.

I had a job to do that involved a software upgrade on some production floor equipment. From a user perspective the changes were utterly minimal - perhaps a different font in parts of the UI, or a different colour on a button, that sort of thing I

First stop was Halewood. Explained to the shift supervisor what I was doing, installed the software, showed him that it still worked exactly as he needed it to, and he was happy.

I had a similar experience at Castle Bromwich.

Solihull was a different matter entirely. I got as far as explaining to the shift supervisor what I was doing, and without any hesitation he asked me if I'd cleared it with the union, and refused to let me go any further because 'i was changing his job without consultation'. Protests that he would barely notice anything different fell on deaf ears and I had to pack my bags and leave. I left that matter for my management to deal with, and I'd left the company before it was resolved.

[stevemcs]

alfabadass said:

I wouldn't accept £600, I'd be rejecting and head towards Audi

I'd rather the £600 no car play and an E Pace instead of driving an Audi

[sapf0]

I spoke to a TATA Engineer today. He told me that 5 years ago, TATA had 16 pay grades within it's automotive sector. He said that big cuts came, with each managers skills being identified to see if they could be redeployed to where they could be useful, or just let go. He said the pay scale is now 6 levels in TATA motors.


JLR is well into double figures, and said TATA are going to cut the fat and have more transparency from bottom to top. Speaking to many friends on site at Solihull, there is a major moral problem due to the union/middle management, and HR's treatment of employees. Arrogant managers don't even acknowledge those 'below' them, and in turn the lads on the track work to rule, and wont go the extra mile.

Happy workers are productive workers.

[Ares]

alfabadass said:

I wouldn't accept £600, I'd be rejecting and head towards Audi

....because you want to drive something that doesn't feel like driving a car?

[JxJ Jr.]

sapf0 said:

...there is a major moral problem due to the union/middle management....Arrogant managers don't even acknowledge those 'below' them, and in turn the lads on the track work to rule, and wont go the extra mile.

Having worked across quite a broad swathe of the global automotive industry - including JLR - I wouldn't necessarily go along with the inference that the 'lads on the track' would go the extra mile even if they were supposedly treated better. The company has problems at the top, in the middle and at the bottom.

[CambsBill]

LDN said:

Digga said:

The thing I found with JLR was, they did always tend to hit quality/recall issues head-on, rather than sweeping them under the carpet or trying to minimise service network disruption by waiting to catch them on a scheduled service..

I agree. Recalls get dealt with as they should; for the most part.

Contrast this with Mercedes handling of the Blue Efficiency injector issues they had a few years ago - from multiple blogs at the time they knew all about the problem but didn't have the parts to do a recall so just waited until customer cars broke down and fixed those

[havoc]

JxJ Jr. said:

sapf0 said:

...there is a major moral problem due to the union/middle management....Arrogant managers don't even acknowledge those 'below' them, and in turn the lads on the track work to rule, and wont go the extra mile.

Having worked across quite a broad swathe of the global automotive industry - including JLR - I wouldn't necessarily go along with the inference that the 'lads on the track' would go the extra mile even if they were supposedly treated better. The company has problems at the top, in the middle and at the bottom.

And at Solihull a lot more are at the bottom than the top.

Halewood was a really pleasant surprise, given the bad rep Scousers tend to get...

[BenjiS]

havoc said:

JxJ Jr. said:

sapf0 said:

...there is a major moral problem due to the union/middle management....Arrogant managers don't even acknowledge those 'below' them, and in turn the lads on the track work to rule, and wont go the extra mile.

Having worked across quite a broad swathe of the global automotive industry - including JLR - I wouldn't necessarily go along with the inference that the 'lads on the track' would go the extra mile even if they were supposedly treated better. The company has problems at the top, in the middle and at the bottom.

And at Solihull a lot more are at the bottom than the top.

And given how the ‘lads on the track’ drive when going to and from the plant, plus the regular smell of dope wafting from their cars it’s not surprising the cars have quality problems.

Top tip, if you’re going to behave like an arse, don’t wear your company’s uniform when you do it.

[Rovinghawk]

alfabadass said:

I wouldn't accept £600, I'd be rejecting and head towards Audi

It's not £600, it's £600 worth of options.