RE: Ineos Grenadier may be built in France

[RacerMike]

AnotherClarkey said:

My original comment was focused on light weight as a means of reducing energy consumption in both manufacture and use. Electric car development seems to have gone off the rails a bit with gigantic batteries in 2.5-3 tonne SUVs.

OK....I'll give you a clue as to why that is. Batteries are effing heavy to get the density required to travel an acceptable distance. No one is intentionally making a heavy BEV. Quite the contrary. But then in 1930 no one was intentionally making 3 tonne family cars.....that's just how much a 15L Straight 6 that produced 100hp weighed....

[W12AAM]

All my respect for Jim Ratcliffe has just gone down the pan !!!

I really hope this is some joke?.
Ive followed this story for quite a number of years, hoping that this would happen & we could have some pride in the UK Car industry.

If it goes to France, some loyalty, in buying it, will be lost...as "it wont be British"
I suspect he could be doing this to get some "free" Govt investment grant - despite being worth £billions..

As has been said before; If it comes down to tariffs - The Govt should get tougher & slap whatever tariffs on German, Spanish,French and Italian cars, aswell as all that cheese & wine...and LV handbags!, which we buy.

They have alot more to lose..

And if it does go to France...I hope he will be faced with French working practices of a short week, long holidays, bad workmanship & strikes and other industrial rest, which will be karma for not building it in the UK !

Rant over

[sisu]

oilit said:

The UK (according to wiki) is the 17th (yes seventeenth!!) biggest country ww by volume of cars manufactured - so we (I) may be looking at it thru slightly rose tinted glasses.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by...


According to SMMT UK has 168,000 people employed directly in manufacturing

In your face Malaysia!!

Gotta love the fact that he is going for a French factory and then selling it as Pork Pie and Cask Ale to the Tim Nice but Dim types.

[AnotherClarkey]

RacerMike said:

AnotherClarkey said:

My original comment was focused on light weight as a means of reducing energy consumption in both manufacture and use. Electric car development seems to have gone off the rails a bit with gigantic batteries in 2.5-3 tonne SUVs.

OK....I'll give you a clue as to why that is. Batteries are effing heavy to get the density required to travel an acceptable distance. No one is intentionally making a heavy BEV. Quite the contrary. But then in 1930 no one was intentionally making 3 tonne family cars.....that's just how much a 15L Straight 6 that produced 100hp weighed....

A Kona EV goes further than something like an EQC but weighs substantially less. I just think that is a better direction of travel than always larger and heavier (accepting that electric cars are somewhat less weight sensitive in use due to regeneration).

Anyway, I have gone so far off topic I forget what this thread was about. Oh yes, a ridiculous rip off/throwback vehicle conceived by an arch brexiteer developed in Germany/Austria and made in the EU.

[loudlashadjuster]

W12AAM said:

All my respect for Jim Ratcliffe has just gone down the pan !!!

I really hope this is some joke?.
Ive followed this story for quite a number of years, hoping that this would happen & we could have some pride in the UK Car industry.

If it goes to France, some loyalty, in buying it, will be lost...as "it wont be British"
I suspect he could be doing this to get some "free" Govt investment grant - despite being worth £billions..

As has been said before; If it comes down to tariffs - The Govt should get tougher & slap whatever tariffs on German, Spanish,French and Italian cars, aswell as all that cheese & wine...and LV handbags!, which we buy.

They have alot more to lose..

And if it does go to France...I hope he will be faced with French working practices of a short week, long holidays, bad workmanship & strikes and other industrial rest, which will be karma for not building it in the UK !

Rant over

Aww, bless.

[300bhp/ton]

W12AAM said:

All my respect for Jim Ratcliffe has just gone down the pan !!!

I really hope this is some joke?.
Ive followed this story for quite a number of years, hoping that this would happen & we could have some pride in the UK Car industry.

If it goes to France, some loyalty, in buying it, will be lost...as "it wont be British"
I suspect he could be doing this to get some "free" Govt investment grant - despite being worth £billions..

As has been said before; If it comes down to tariffs - The Govt should get tougher & slap whatever tariffs on German, Spanish,French and Italian cars, aswell as all that cheese & wine...and LV handbags!, which we buy.

They have alot more to lose..

And if it does go to France...I hope he will be faced with French working practices of a short week, long holidays, bad workmanship & strikes and other industrial rest, which will be karma for not building it in the UK !

Rant over

Curious, but how do you feel about the new Defender from Land Rover? An India owned company, who will be building it in Slovakia.

[AnotherClarkey]

W12AAM said:

All my respect for Jim Ratcliffe has just gone down the pan !!!

I really hope this is some joke?.
Ive followed this story for quite a number of years, hoping that this would happen & we could have some pride in the UK Car industry.

If it goes to France, some loyalty, in buying it, will be lost...as "it wont be British"
I suspect he could be doing this to get some "free" Govt investment grant - despite being worth £billions..

As has been said before; If it comes down to tariffs - The Govt should get tougher & slap whatever tariffs on German, Spanish,French and Italian cars, aswell as all that cheese & wine...and LV handbags!, which we buy.

They have alot more to lose..

And if it does go to France...I hope he will be faced with French working practices of a short week, long holidays, bad workmanship & strikes and other industrial rest, which will be karma for not building it in the UK !

Rant over

Yes but they should sell more in France, which, after all, has much the same (or slightly larger) population than the UK. Nowhere else will give a crap, Jim Radcliffe certainly doesn't.

[Ares]

Tim bo said:

RacerMike said:

Either way, incredible how quickly a leopard can change its spots when the wind changes. On minute he's voting to leave the EU, spouting how incredible the UK is and how we can go it alone....the next he's hiring German engineers and building cars in France. Nice one.

Indeed. Smacks of James Dyson.

Both have been systematically vilified by the UK Press, criticised at every step. Can't really blame him. Despite being a self-made, home-grown British businesses icon, he treated like a villain in his own country. Loyalty needs to ebb both ways.

Beyond that, his logic is raw common sense.

[LotusOmega375D]

Right that’s it. Dysons being built in Malaysia. JCB excavators being built in India and now Land Rover clones being built in France. Whatever happened to all those patriotic Great British industrialists, we used to have? Now all we’re left with are Pro-globalisation and sweat shop tax dodgers like Dyson, Bamford and Ratcliffe.

Whatever next, a Wetherspoons pub with Eastern European staff?

[Ares]

Andy20vt said:

Yet another Brexit success story

Aside from he supported Brexit (and being the richest guy in GB, and being British, and being self-made, and having most of his business interests in Britain), this isn't immediately anything to do with Brexit.

But the more you and every loony-left commentator/Brexiteer/Lefty press criticise him and his every move, the more he will wave too fingers at our shores. And who could blame him.

Brexit will be damaging in some degree to our country....but nothing like as damaging as blind hatred and ignorance so rife within our population.

[Ares]

Jack_and_MLE said:

oilit said:

Just rename it Talbot/Matra Rancho and building it in France will make sense !!

Edited by oilit on Tuesday 7th July 12:35

That suggestion is insulting to Matra which used to make developed and manufactured quite a few advance cars, as well as going racing.

Jack

Edited by Jack_and_MLE on Tuesday 7th July 14:43

....but not the Rancho!

[Stuart70]

InitialDave said:

Condi said:

How can he build a plant here, with no idea what if any costs are involved with shipping parts from the EU to the UK and then completed cars back again? The EU is the obvious choice and always will be because even if they agree 0 tariffs, that can change with a change of the wind.

If he hadn't been a supporter of Brexit, with all the above being blatantly obvious beforehand, I would agree with you.

But he was, and it was, so my attitude is somewhat one of he helped make this bed, and he should bloody well lie in it.

He is, by fking off and building his factory somewhere he could make money.
More fool the other idiots who voted for Brexit... believing him that there was a bright new manufacturing future in Britain.

[Ares]

W12AAM said:

And if it does go to France...I hope he will be faced with French working practices of a short week, long holidays, bad workmanship & strikes and other industrial rest, which will be karma for not building it in the UK !

....as opposed to Britain which is so good at manufacturing with it's world beating productivity, helpful unions, sloth-like regulatory bodies and inept local government.

[Blayney]

Damn, if only they were off to Spain... Ineos says adios! It writes itself!

This is why, despite working nearby in manufacturing I haven't looked at working for them. Aston Martin and TVR have made me wary of bold claims of new manufacturing jobs in Wales. Although Aston Martin seems to be going ahead, albeit on shaky ground?

[Stuart70]

Ares said:

....as opposed to Britain which is so good at manufacturing with it's world beating productivity, helpful unions, sloth-like regulatory bodies and inept local government.

“World beating” - that is now a synonym for “ste that doesn’t work”. Isn’t it?

[leef44]

RacerMike said:

chelme said:

I'd be very interested to know whether the Company is HQ'd here in the UK. I have a suspicion, even the company is based abroad.

My theory is that the decision as to where to engineer the vehicle was based on the availability of skilled personel and knowledge, as it seems, was the decision as to where to assemble the vehicles.

Had the UK had a large, and importantly, a home grown vehicle manufacturing sector that proved itself over time to be innovative and able to evolve as part of a successful export led economy, I am certain the decision to engineer and assemble the vehicle in the UK would have come as second nature, despite Brexit.

The reality is that whilst the UK is the 8th largest manufacturer (in general, not just cars) in the world, a whopping 40% of that is foreign owned. The historical knowledge and experience of implementing this huge exercise has, since the 80's been eroded. We can speak of Nissan and Honda here in the UK for example, however all the conceptual thinking and implementation of how to manufacture and be efficient at this, not to mention new ideas being brought forward and to be innovative is highly likely to come from Japan and and even if great ideas came from British thinkers within the company, the owner of this knowledge is a company or person abroad.

And then there is the faith and confidence and I suspect this is lacking too for the historical reasons I merely touched on above.

Whilst in certain industries the UK may lead, this is one where we could learn a lot from others.

The question is have we, or will we? These questions have been asked for some time now going back the 80s, but I have not seen many new homegrown British brands enter the market...there is McLaren, which is good.

Its not as if I am taking pleasure in speaking of this either. However this is a recurring theme and I'd like to know why, out of interest.

Anyone who disagrees or takes a different view, I'm all for meaningful contributions.

Generally I think the 8,000 plus skilled engineers living here and working for JLR from both the UK and Abroad, the hundreds who work at Ricardo (who engineered the McLaren V8, and the 7 speed DCT for the Bugatti Veyron/Chiron), the thousands at McLaren developing world leading supercars (regardless of the companies marketing strategy), the hundreds at Crew engineer and testing Bentleys, the several hundred working at Williams Advanced Engineering as consultants to a lot of the words leading manufacturers on Vehicle Dynamics and EV/Hybrid systems, the hundreds at Lotus currently developing the Evija and the several hundred who just got fired by Dyson who were trying to find jobs again would fundamentally disagree with that statement. There's phenomenal talent in the UK for the nitty gritty and important bits that, judging by the number of Brits I encounter working throughout the European car industry in test and development, would back this up.

The UK is categorically really good engineering things well (usually against hilarious time constraints), but terrible at planning properly or managing to do things to process. It's why we're do good at making racing cars (big problems that seem almost impossible to fix but have no money constraint at all) and terrible at making reliable mass produced stuff (because everything ends up being done last minute without enough testing).

Personally, if I started a car company, it would have German's planning the whole thing, Brits doing the engineering and it would be made in Eastern Europe where people generally take pride in their work and use British or American talent to market the thing.

This is indeed how I see it.

I don't really care what nationality you view a car manufacturer. I care more about having the work in the UK which creates jobs and wealth for the country and reduces state welfare costs (as well as a motivated work force, self esteem, morale etc. etc.)

It wouldn't matter where the HQ is or where the cars are going to be sold. For example, let's say it is HQ'd in France but engineered, manufactured in UK and assembled in France. French company would pay for UK labour. That is equivalent to a UK export service.

In the past, Nissan, Toyota and Honda had invested in UK plants because of legislation and tax reasons as well as the "talent pool" of the UK work force, as compared to other EU countries. So this says something about the UK manufacturing businesses.

Of course, this is all blown out of the water now with Brexit and the EU trade deal with Japan - but that's another story.

[NGK210]

Danez said:

Tim bo said:

Indeed. Smacks of James Dyson.

billionaires will always have their own agenda, especially with brexit. Many of us saw this coming, brexit was always going to be bad for UK manufacturing but good for their profits. This is just the beginning

Alas, very true all-round.
Contempt for the likes of this Ineos creature, Johnson and his criminally inept cohorts, and all who voted for Brexit is getting to the point that I fear I’ll literally self-combust

[braddo]

W12AAM said:

...
As has been said before; If it comes down to tariffs - The Govt should get tougher & slap whatever tariffs on German, Spanish,French and Italian cars, aswell as all that cheese & wine...and LV handbags!, which we buy.

They have alot more to lose..

...

among the stupidest of the Brexit myths, that last bit.

Brits will keep buying those things. But they will be more expensive thanks to trade barriers and an even weaker pound.

The idea that UK buyers will stop buying German cars, prosecco and European designer goods etc is just laughable. As is the notion that a trading bloc of 400m+ people will somehow lose out more than a nation of 60m in a trade negotiation (when the former is the latter's biggest export market by far!).

The Brexit delusions are as strong as ever among some people but how dare others burst their bubble by 'talking Britain down'...

[Cripes]

I thought this was supposed to be a no-nonsense, British, utility vehicle... If so, shouldn't it be capable of being built in an industrial estate in the midlands, by a bloke called Wayne with a hammer and a rivet gun...

[maffski]

W12AAM said:

And if it does go to France...I hope he will be faced with French working practices of a short week, long holidays, bad workmanship & strikes and other industrial rest, which will be karma for not building it in the UK !

French labour laws will be why they are looking at it. As long as they are willing to keep it going with at least some of the existing staff then Daimler are required to sell them the site at almost any price.

So they get a larger, better equipped, factory that's only a couple of hundred miles from their engine supplier. Not only that, but they get it quicker.