Vauxhall said plans for its UK plant at Luton will be finalised within the “next month or two”.
Speaking in Detroit, Vauxhall parent Opel’s CEO Nick Reilly said the company was still evaluating the future of the factory north of London.
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GM Europe previously announced a commitment to renew its commercial vehicle venture with French maker Renault, which currently assembles the Vivaro and Trafic vans at Luton.
“With Luton, we have not announced what our manufacturing plans will be,” said Reilly. “We are continuing to develop the product with Renault and we are looking at what is the best future for the Luton plant.
“For now we are driving through that decision-making process and we should be able to finalise that in the next month or two.
Reilly insisted the company would remain a “significant player” in the commercial vehicle segment despite the economic challenges of the last few years.
“When Vauxhall got into severe financial trouble, one of the decisions was not to develop a replacement for the Combo,” he said. “We were all lined up to buy it from a particular [unspecified] manufacturer but they did a deal with somebody else.
“If you are out of the market you risk losing significant fleet business and I did not want that at all, so we did a deal with Fiat. Where we end up long term, you should not assume we should buy outside in that segment for ever or for that model.”
