There’s nothing like a classic ‘despite Brexit’ story to round off the week with; not only have Toyota affirmed their commitment to continue manufacturing cars in their Derbyshire factory – despite warnings to the contrary during the EU referendum – they’ve now also announced they’re to shortly begin building a new hybrid car for Suzuki from their Burnaston plant, before being sold right across Europe. This follows Nissan’s decision to concentrate production in Sunderland…
Toyota have just announced that they will begin producing a new generation of hybrid cars at its factory in Derbyshire next year, despite the global car industry downturn. Ford announced last week that they were cutting 5,000 jobs in Germany, Brexit is not to blame for the car industry’s global woes…
This isn’t just good news for thousands of Derbyshire workers – the new hybrid cars built for Suzuki will also use engines produced at Toyota’s Deeside plant in Wales. All despite Brexit…
Nissan’s decision not to begin production of a new model of car in Sunderland dominated the media at the start of the week, despite no jobs actually being lost. Brexit naturally got all the blame, despite a large number of other significant factors including falling demand for diesel cars and the EU’s stringent new emissions standards in the wake of Germany’s major diesel fraud scandal. If it was really a Brexit issue why didn’t Nissan just move production to one of their many manufacturing plants in Spain, or France where they have a strategic partnership with Renault?
Funny how quiet the media was when another Japanese car giant did start a major new production line – just last month Toyota commenced production of the new 2019 Corolla at its Burnaston plant in Derbyshire where over 3000 people are employed. The Corolla is not a niche SUV like the Nissan X-Trail, it is the best-selling car model in the world…
In fact the only mention of the new Corolla on BBC News was a single line in an article puffing up the latest round of no-deal bluster from the firm’s European boss and Greg Clark, which didn’t even mention the fact that new production had started. Not a word from Project Fear cheerleaders Sky News…
Toyota today announces an investment of more than a quarter of a billion pounds into the UK, contrary to previous warnings from the firm and car market analysts over Brexit. The Japanese company has a major plant near Derby where it manufactures its Auris and Avensis models. About 75% of cars made at that plant are exported to EU nations. Last year the FT warned:
“The Leave vote could be the final straw for the two Japanese carmakers… Ahead of the referendum, Toyota had already warned of “huge cost reduction challenges” at its plants in Burnaston in Derbyshire and Deeside in north Wales if the UK faced a 10 per cent tariff on exports to Europe.
“The reality is that it’s nearly impossible to make profit considering that they had not made much money over the past two decades. Can you keep holding on to a perpetually lossmaking operation in Britain?” said Koji Endo, analyst at Advanced Research Japan.”
Experts…
Carwyn Jones’ scaremongering about Brexit during last night’s debate included the claim that businesses would leave Wales if Britain left the EU. Citing the examples of Toyota and Airbus, the Welsh First Minister said: “They’re interested in a market of 500 million people… These are all companies that are in Wales because it’s a European base for them.” When Farage disputed this, Jones insisted: “Nigel, I speak to them, what do you do?” So, would Toyota and Airbus quit if Britain voted to leave?
This is today’s FT splash:
And this is a BBC headline from June:
More Remain campaign myths busted…
