All Cars, All the Time

Make that Another Car Factory I Won't Tour...

The area surrounding Coventry loses another car manufacturing plant as Peugeot announced its intent to shutter its 206 plant near Ryton. Of course Jaguar closed its Brown's Lane plant not that long ago as well. Peugeot's concern is primarily one of labor (or should I say labour) costs. The average auto worker in the Slovak Republic earns 3.3 Euros per hour! There is no way that a British plant could compete with that. BBC News has an interesting article that is worth your reading if you want to know more about the current state of British automotive manufacturing plants.

In other British news, and perhaps even more troubling, sportscar maker TVR is laying off around half its workforce! Yikes. The official line is that once they get their financial ducks in a row, workers will be brought back. With the collapse of Rover still fresh in their minds, I'm sure that TVR employees are taking that promise with a grain of salt. Too bad, really. I have always admired TVR's spirit and thought that the 2004 purchase by Russian millionaire Nikolay Smolensky was a good thing.