greenonedave

The local main road along from where I live is a busy main route,
At one end was a Rover dealer, Then Fiats, Nissan, then Kia, Then Suzuki, then Jeep Crysler, Hyunda, Honda, VW, and Citroen, and at the end Fords,
the story so far,
Rover gone,
VW gone
Kia gone
and today the lights went out at the Chrysler shop.
How many jobs and incomes lost. ?
All these people have lost their incomes and security by this current war on cars caused by green issues that have never been voted for just imposed on us all !!!!!.
Let alone the 8-10 motorcycle businesses I have know to have folded in the last 3 years.

yoza

Chrysler lights may have just flickered back into life...

PeteBrant

Probably would have survived if they hadn't all been on the same street. What were they thinking?

greenonedave

They have all been there a long time, there was always a choice and plenty of customers

PeteBrant

In hindsight, I should have probably put a smiley on the end of my post. I forget how my comedy genuis is wasted here.

SunnySideUp

Green issues did not cause the Credit Crisis.

FlightMan

+1.

The green issue has nothing to do with car dealerships folding.

MMT WRX

Toyota are joining Honda for an extra 2 weeks fully paid shut down early next year as well now.

Its not just the car manufacturers though, what about all their suppliers.

darts_aint_sport

What do you reckon the cost price of something like a Ford Focus is, anyone?

MMT WRX

Erm...is it a game, do you know the answer? £4.5k

Fantom

Car manufacturers have been over producing for years. They should have known what would happen. You can't just expect 80% of the public to buy a new car every 1-2 years. Its just not practical. Now that people are being careful and maybe keeping their cars a bit longer or can't trade them in due to hefty finance or loans all of a sudden the manufacturers are buggered.
Its quite simple economics. Supply & demand.
When demand is reduced, you cut the supply. Bet the big manufacturers are loving this. They probably saved some money instead of dishing it all out to shareholders and now they are enjoying seeing their competition crushed.
Seems crazy to me that governments are bailing out these cars firms etc just because people will lose jobs. You can't just keep making cars to keep people in jobs when the cars aren't in demand!!!

mart360

Do you work in the car industry?

its not a cut and dried as you think.

there is a huge demand for cars, due to varying factors, its not jus t private

punters who change vehicles every 2 - 3 years. Private customers are only a

small percentage of a manufacturers output. If its a simple as over

production as you say, then why has it taken so long for it to suddenly

happen?

Granted the market is shrinking, due to many factors, what we have is loss

of customer confidence, which reduces car sales, (who wants to commit to

a 5 year finance agreement ( assuming they can get one, which is the

biggest part of the problem) if they could be made redundant in the near

future)).

And so the vicious circle starts.

OEM's build cars based on amongst other things, sales history, which up until

recently was very bouyant.

If the confidence was back in the market, and banks would re-lend sensibly!!

then things could start to get back on track.

If an OEM goes bust its not just the 15,000 people they employ who are

affected, its the other 75,000 from the tier 1, 2, & 3 suppliers who then get

hit very hard.

When rover went **** up, the tier 1 suppliers had major exposure, and were

hit hard, the only small saving grace was that CAT carryied on taking spares

orders, albeit in smaller volumes.


Wagon automotive has just gone bust taking out about 15,000 people world

wide, now there 1 supplier of about say 2-300 who supply parts for cars,

when you then work out how many people are suddenly affected, when you

take out the rest of the supplier & the supply chain, you can see why its

often cheaper to keep them going, albeit in a smaller fashion than to pull the

plug completey.

That said, there will be some serious restructuring and a new approach in the

years to come.


Mart

LG John

No but it's put the car makers under a lot of financial strain to develop new technologies and meet new emissions standards. Inevitable these costs work their way down the chain through the dealers and ultimately to the customer in some way.

yoza

Do not fear.....we have just fitted the FreeLander with green Stop/Start capability, so everything is going to be OK.

Adidas

I know that road very well. To be fair VW moved to a much larger premises over on the A12. I agree that the others are falling by the way side.

I just wonder how long the Mercedes garage will survive given the massive dealership in Debden.
I think Ford's should be able to sit it out though.

Chris L

I would agree that the green issue has little to do with the current mess that the car industry finds itself in. Although ironically, there may well be many environmental benefits from the downturn - no matter how efficient your new car is, it will take you years to offset the huge amount of energy used to build the car in the first place. Much better to keep your second hand car.

The problem at the moment is that production is often planned years, if not decades ahead and when an unforeseen downturn occurs, you can't simply change the production line over night - it's a bit like a trying to slowdown and turn an oil tanker.

The question here is should the government spend billions to keep the industry afloat in its current form? Probably not (the folly of supporting Leyland for many years, when it should have been allowed to die is a case in point), it should come with huge strings attached to reform the industry, lower production and start building better, smarter cars.

The problem being it will take a huge change in people's buying habits (esp in the States) for this to happen. Perhaps it will take a massive downturn and credit crunch (that we will really feel the affects of next year) for this to happen? I don't know. One thing is for sure though - the car manufacturers will have to change and adapt quickly and there will be a lot of casualties along the way and I suspect we will end up with 2 or 3 fewer major players in 12 to 18 months time.