Another week has whizzed by – along with our summer, apparently – without the disastrous announcement from General Motors Europe that had been in the offing following the Opel supervisory meeting on Wednesday.
With a possible closure now likely only a good three years away – in 2015 after current labour agreements good through 2014 expire – it’s little wonder GM was doing its best to shoo media away from Ellesmere Port. Who can blame ’em? While media like us must report what we hear and know, it must be demoralising for the men ‘n’ women who won the current Astra contract, including all the wagons, want the next one, and would also like to have the Ampera, launched in the UK this week, to build as well. When you’re building – very well – one of the most attractive products in the European C-segment, talk of your plant closing must be a kick in the teeth.
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As the Opel Bochum/Vauxhall Ellesmere Port speculation rumbled on in Germany and here in England, we were in Belgium to hear the European auto suppliers lobby suggest a more united, we’re-all-in-this-together, multi-automaker approach to surplus capacity in Europe. Perhaps such cooperation was behind reports Toyota was talking to Peugeot about what to do at Sevelnord. European auto unions also weighed in, too, calling for a continent-wide approach to the issue, rather than local negotiation. And the EC is also eyeing the capacity issue and plans a summit for 6 June.
In the end, the announced outcome of the supervisory board meeting was only a generalisation amd unions wasted little time blaming GM’s US management for stifling Opel in favour of fast-growing Chevrolet, and suggesting, if nothing else, Opel could at least make the bow-tie brand in Europe rather than closing plants here and importing from elsewhere. All this is going to rumble on a while yet.
Elsewhere, there was some good news – more Canadian-made Toyota RAV4s (the North American product is a little bigger than elsewhere and includes a nice petrol V6 option) at, gotta love this plant name, Woodstock, and another engine shift at Ford’s Windsor plant, also in Ontario. Canada has had its share of auto layoffs in recent years so anything bringing back some jobs has got to be welcome norf of the border.
Meanwhile, Honda started laying bricks – so to speak – at a new Mexican factory site and Daimler’s Mercedes cut the ribbon opening its new Hungarian B-class plant. So new, it was green lighted in 2008, all you can see on Google Earth is the start of siteworks…
Saab – where would a week be without our troubled Swedes? We remain on the case and the chances of Trollhattan becoming a centre of EV manufacture notched up a bit late in the week.
Have a nice weekend.
Graeme Roberts, Deputy Editor, just-auto.com
