PeterGray wrote:odysseus2000 wrote:Mildly interesting article on the front page of the weekend FT about the potential decline of the UK car industry with hopes being placed on a rich mans love of Landrover Discovery. No idea why anyone would, but...
Meanwhile Ford are seen as likely reducing their UK production.
Further meanwhile, James Dyson has stated this his new electric car will not be made in Britain.
Lets not start conflating the likely decline/disappearance of UK car production with the EV issue. There are very specific reasons for the former, which have nothing to do with the nature of global car production or the EV/ICE question.
I was brought up to the media supported certainty that the UK was just too expensive a place to manufacture, just like the US which has at least the last time I looked less manufacturing as % of GDP than does the UK.
But then I see a thriving manufacturing electronics business in New York: Adafruit and I get to thinking: But I was told it was too expensive to make in the US. Then I see a thriving new car company based in the US and I get to believing that all I was ever told about manufacturing in the UK was wrong. Then I see thriving rocket business there too with Virgin also having some of its space activity based in the US.
Then I look at honey bee queen imports and find that the UK imports most of its queen bees, so I ask one of the few UK queen producers why. He says because UK people are lazy.
Meanwhile I see local press about all the VIP's inspecting a new imported train and get to wonder how this can be as the local railworks were shut down as we couldn't make trains economically and yet we used to and this new train was made in Europe which also has high wages.
Then I am reminded of Trump saying he wants more US manufacturing and wonder if some British politician might take up the banner, with the weak £ now seems a good time to start making more stuff here.
If Tesla does succeed I wonder if it will inspire more US entrepreneurial copy cats focused on home land production. One might argue that Brexit may cause this to happen here too.
Regards,