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Great post, why are they so expensive though still?Originally Posted by llan bluebird
I suppose the comparison with TVs works well, they were extortionate at first but the price came down very quickly as the technology advanced and the manufacturing was progressively upscaled.
That con man Johnson shouldn’t have had a big red double decker driving around with posters on it promising Ł350m a week to the NHS if we left. That prick Farage shouldn’t have been telling all and sundry that our borders would be closed to interlopers if we left. The whole leave vote campaign was a huge lie, shame on them...........but they have no shame, do they!!
There may be a number of reasons why UK PLC is unable to grasp the opportunity you suggest.
Firstly, the failure of BritishVolt and the unwillingness of UK PLC to intervene may act as a disincentive to other potential market entrants. Nissan has invested in both a production plant and a battery manufacturer which seems a more stable platform.
British start-ups may be uncompetitive. As you said earlier the rush to green in the US is being driven by Biden's massive subsidies and incentives to manufacture in the US. The EU is sure to follow suit. There is every chance that the UK will be squeezed out both on price and capital whilst both economic superpowers protect and take advantage of their vast internal markets. It is also possible that British engineering talent and ingenuity will be plundered by those markets for our loss and their profit.
There is a significant force in the UK politic and media that sees the transition to green as a threat not an opportunity. We get a flavour of that resistance on here regularly.
In the midst of this the Tory govt is rushing headlong to burn as much EU derived regulation as possible with little inkling what to put in its place. The further that regulation diverts from that supporting the EU single market the more frictional the trade barriers become and the more unlikely that start up electronic car manufacturers will have a viable business plan. Perhaps we can flog them to Australia and New Zealand.
Tell us EXACTLY what you wanted from the Brexit deal (that you didn't get in the negotiations).
There's a big reason: Brexit. The UK cut itself off from its biggest market, created strangulated logistics chains, and, non-tariff barriers. The UK is too small a market for global players to base any strategy on.
Ford disagrees with you: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47225787I often sit from afar and chuckle at these types of threads on here
This is a Ford story and whether it goes the likes of Woolworths, Polaroid and blockbuster.
A relatively new entrant has taken over a valuable revenue stream in the very important mid to upper ranges; Tesla. Fords attachment to internal combustion engines has almost been negligent, they haven't been caught napping they have been unconscious.
Being unashamed "America First" is a hail mary shout for patriotism in a competitive domestic market and the new entrant is also American and all the new subsidies are going in that direction.
Brexit has nothing to do with it.
Outside the battery, electric cars are pretty easy to assemble, I can see a lot of smaller local, national manufacturers setting up pretty quickly and the landscape will look very different and Ford won't be part of that.
Welcome back British Leyland
Nobody, including me, is saying Ford left/is leaving solely because of Brexit. But if anybody thinks that didn't play a part in their decision-making, they are deluded.
Why in a green world do we need to export ? There are 33 million cars in the UK, thats a lot of cars transitioning to electric.
For the left, it can be nationalised, for the right, it can be pride in UK manufacturing and buying British. Same thing.
The USA has forgotten how to make things, and so is pilling cash to return manufacturing to America, The EU will justify continued German and French state subsidies in their fair and equal marketplace.
The UK is now small enough to do what's right for itself, our problem is we are still arguing whether we are closer to the Yanks or the Europeans and the truth is neither and we have never been.
Engineering talent is a global commodity, who pays wins.
Globalisation is dying on its arse, supply chains are crippled worldwide and I severely doubt it will ever get back to those halcyon days of a decade ago.
Covid delayed the inevitable Brexit crash, but the delay has allowed companies to figure out how to work around them. Time is a great healer and I suspect in a few years there will be a sensible solution.
Ford isn't leaving the UK just restructuring its operations like most of the big OEM car manufacturers . As a sign of confidence just invested in a shed load of money only 2 months ago at its Halewood plant securing its workforce .
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news...-ford-25717318
sounds bizarre a big problem here in the UK most of the car /aerospace companies can't get enough skilled engineering type people especially with the new technologies within these industries .
A lack of apprenticeships and apprenticeship type degrees over a sustained 30 year period has held back the UK
If we are going to look for blame , I blame the government in its way it's not invested in developing young people and core skills within the UK required in these type of industries.
From this forums paper of choice, four years later.
https://www.theguardian.com/business...-cut-uk-europe
The jobs are at its technical centre, so no tariffs or supply issues.
Ford dropped the ball (massively) and blames everyone else
I thought you started your contribution with some very valid points. However you seem to have made a Utopian leap of faith that the UK is now the perfect size, we don't need either the US or Europe to prosper and we can outbid that world for talent. All the while we need worry not about having an export capability because we have a perfectly functional internal market of our own.
Seems you are hauling down the Global Britain Brexit flag and pulling up the drawbridge of this sceptred isle as the way to future prosperity.
Listen. The UK new car market is too small for a UK manufacturer to survive purely on domestic sales. Car producers require massive production runs to drive down unit costs. Did you know, for example, that VW's A Series includes something like 11 different consumer models (Audi, VW, Seat, Skoda)? They do this to produce engines and parts in their millions to drive down costs of production.
Large scale (global) production is here to stay. It's actually one of the primary reasons why mature technology prices fall precipitously (cf. your TV references).
FYI the US manufacturing share of GDP is 20% bigger than the UK's.
Why are some of you (rightly) talking about the importance of a free trade deal when that is what we have, imperfect as it may be in terms of some checks? UK exports to the EU are at a record high.
Clearly there is a hell of a lot going on in the global car industry. Rapidly developing economies, technological advances, a growing green movement towards electric motors and away from cars in general, coupled with a global pandemic, a global supply issue, soaring inflation and shortage of key goods.
Did Brexit, which happened a mere three weeks before the pandemic, help? No, and there would never be immediate benefits in this (or any other sector) Has it caused damage? Who knows.
What we do know is that the four largest European economies are all seeing a very substantial decrease in vehicle production, which rather suggests that the core issues lie elsewhere.
I don't doubt there are those in France blaming their car production declines on Macron. Those in Germany blaming the Green movement, etc etc..but I'd suggest these are complex and multi faceted issues.
Strikes me that the biggest challenge is who adapts to green vehicles quickest and that doesn't really seem to be us at the moment but it's probably too early to make any sweeping statements
"Immediate benefits" of Brexit are none. Disbenefits are both SR and LR huge. Agreed.
Jimbo, give us your prediction of which millennium the LR benefits of Brexit will become apparent.
Bollocks I'm afraid. The record nominal year for UK exports to the EU was 2018. I'd be curious to know where things are in PPP real $ terms.
The reason UK exports (valued in GBPs) rose, after a multi-year decline which started in 2011, in 2017 was the GBP lost 20-25% of its value, making UK exports cheaper.
Are you also implying the UK has frictionless trade with the EU?
You have alienated yourself from 17/18 Million of the electorate
Yours is clean, mine is dirty!
Yes that would be interesting to see I agree. But it's not bollocks it's a fact. And whilst there are always reasons behind statistics, you present a world of endless negativity and the reality is that isn't the case. You can't just dismiss things as bollocks.
You seem to view things as binary or black and white, good and bad, where anything bad (or different to your view) is universally bad and anything good is spectacular. But that isn't so, and the stats generally show that and when unpicking them it is impossible to seperate them from Covid also.
More widely, a true picture will undoubtedly occur in coming years which is why 2022 and especially 2023's data will be so clear and indicative of the future.
The general point of Brexit isn't that good trading relations don't matter, it's that in tying them to the EU (a declining part of our and the world's trading cake) we are unable to strike our own deals globally.
Whether that happens remains to be seen, but as os clear to anyone, a matter of weeks after leaving the EU we were in the greatest global shock for many many decades so it's impossible to assess yet.
Some look for practical solutions to problems. I don't sense you are one of those people tbh.
I guess if you could define the problem you are talking about, obviously can't be Brexit, that would give him a start!
Problems facing the UK are many. Developing a better trading relationship with the EU is of course important so let's hope the discussions currently taking place in Belfast are positive, right?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-deal-imminent
Obviously Brexit was a massive change followed weeks later by Covid and then the multitude of global issues stemming from that. Do you think that is fertile ground to assess something properly?
If Scotland became independent in Feb 2020 and in March 2020 Covid hit would you say that is a normal environment to make an assessment of the success or otherwise of it? I would be amazed if you thought it was.
It would be a great idea for a thread mind for us all to identify issues and talk about solutions for them. 👍
It is wryly ironic when people who saw our marriage with the EU as a problem now asking people if they have solutions to the divorce. Having a rational solution to the Northern Ireland Protocol that Johnson presented as the centrepiece of the "oven ready" deal that brought the DUP and the ERG on board would be a beneficial step. It will be interesting to see how Johnson and his cronies like Frost, the DUP and the ERG react if Sunak actually negotiates something rational.
Similarly there was a sensible conclave chaired by Gove the other week looking at identifying solutions to the problems that Brexit has caused. It triggered convulsive outrage from those aforementioned groups and the jingoist tabloids at the temerity of seeing issues with Brexit and the thought of softening the purism of our departure. Whilst the New Model Army holds sway in the Tory Party I doubt there will be any sensible steps forward.
The idea that our future prosperity lies with trade deals on far off shores, which if early signs are anything to go by are disadvantageous compared with the benefits to the other party, in a world looking a bit more inwards and shortening supply lines as green measures kick in is a massive leap of faith.
There is plenty of evidence from the OBR, Bank of England and other studies about the underperformance of our economy, we are the only major economy to recover from Covid and our forecasted (I know) future growth is parlous. There could be a range of reasons other than the Schengen in the room why the GDP fairy hasn't sprinkled its magic dust on us of course.
Sensible solutions would involve working on closer mutually beneficial relationships with our closest trading partners. I don't know where burning as much EU negotiated law and regulation as quickly as you can (a bit like sowing kippers into the curtains before the new owners move in) fits with your search for solutions but I am sure as soon as Guido pronounces you can paint it as a positive step.
You've not really offered much in terms of practical solutions there, are deflecting with comments about the ERG (and bizarrely), Guido Fawkes and you seem to imply that all of the UKs problems are tied to Brexit which the evidence j ust doesn't stack up on, which is my entire point. Have you forgotten that Britain post 2008 was not in great shape at all?
There are clearly issues on cross border trade, which need sorting (and they are literally talking about it now) but the vast majority of problems facing the UK are faced by other countries, who also face numerous issues that are less of a concern here (unemployment for example). My entire point is that people need to move away from a binery decision made 7 years ago.
And you didn't answer this question:
If Scotland became independent in Feb 2020 and in March 2020 Covid hit would you say that is a normal environment to make an assessment of the success or otherwise of it? I would be amazed if you thought it was.
It is quite funny to see you get miffed about your use of Guido as source material given the knowing sighs you make whenever a Guardian article appears.
That you don't see forging closer rather than more divergent ties to the EU within the framework of Brexit as impractical says a lot about the strictures and climate that the zealots have created and continue to shout down any attempts at rebalancing a flawed departure.
The analogy of drawing conclusions on a newly formed state concurrently detaching itself from a fully formed union with an existing one that was part of a loose federation is frankly bizarre. As I said the comparative evidence of G7 countries growth wrestling with Covid and greater energy challenges are all there already. I guess you just have to want to look.
1/ Not miffed at all! Just a very weird thing to mention. I provided a link to the guardian earlier. It's a good paper but it's not gospel and it's opinion writers are usually hopelessly biased.
2/Of course 'forging closer ties' within the context of being outside the EU is not impractical. That's what's happening now. A free trade deal without the political element is ideal.
3/Yes it's an analogy, but it stands. The global pandemic makes assessing any big change that occured a month before it essentially impossible to assess. Your non answer is your answer. It's clearly not valid to do it, just as it wouldn't be valid to assess a Scotland that became independent a month before Covid.
4/ The GDP an do return to pre Covid figures are very important and it's absolutely fair to mention it. But countries economies didn't all decline the same either. I'm sure the point was made that Covid hit our economy more at the time? Nonetheless, important data I agree, but not the only figures going.
My point is, was, always will be that these are complex issues with numerous inputs and outcomes and there's evidence on either side. No one denies the status quo is not ideal and needs improving though 👍
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