Suicidally, Jaguar is opening the door for Tesla and BYD to pick off the best of its dealerships
Mike Rutherford thinks it's been a difficult few months for the British car industry
Those who live within, or know anything about, the UK will confirm that at times of crisis, Brits reach for the kettle and have a cuppa. ‘Keep Calm and Drink Tea’ is a national slogan.
So it’s a minor tragedy that Typhoo – a beverage brand and a British institution – has just fallen into administration due to the usual double whammy of dwindling customers and financial woes.
These are the sort of problems many vehicle manufacturers know well. For decades, Ford topped the UK car sales charts, but it’s now slumped to fifth place and has just announced 800 further job cuts in Britain. Traditionally, Vauxhall claimed the No.2 spot, but has now plummeted to 10th, and the latest atrocious news from the firm is that it’s killing off its Luton plant, which employs 1,100 production workers.
Jaguar – a motor car brand and another British institution – has sunk much closer to the foot of the sales league and is on course to reach rock bottom next year, when it will be making and selling no new cars at all. Where this leaves the jobs and salaries of the company’s thousands of production workers producing zilch isn’t clear. But we do know that around 75 per cent of the brand’s dealers will be booted out or will throw in the towel. Suicidally, Jaguar is opening the door for the likes of Tesla and BYD to pick off the best of those dealerships and target growth.
And in view of that biggest, most momentous announcement of the year so far, surely we at least need to ask another massively important question: Can the £4billion gigafactory proposed by JLR’s owner Tata and expected to be subsidised by the dazed and confused UK Government, along with Somerset County Council, really be justified at that price, or indeed be located in that unlikely, awkward-to-get-to bottom left-hand corner of Britain where logistics might prove difficult?
Last week, I also questioned whether train and bus fanatic Louise Haigh was the right person with the appropriate job title – that of Transport Secretary – to lead ZEV mandate discussions and other potentially life-saving talks with the deeply troubled vehicle manufacturing industry. Now, she’s been publicly exposed as a “convicted fraudster” who “pleaded guilty to fraud by misrepresentation”.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer was aware of her conviction before making her a member of his Cabinet, appointing her to the top transport job and giving her a budget of billions to play with. Her replacement is Heidi Alexander, the former senior rail and cycling aid to car-hating London Mayor, Sadiq Khan.
I know we’re Busted Britain, but don’t we need and deserve something better than this?
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