Vauxhall’s new parent company, PSA Group, has confirmed that it will continue building vans at its Luton factory. Carlos Tavares, PSA’s Chairman, announced that the company would be investing heavily in the factory and that the UK Government would be contributing around £9m to the deal. Although PSA hasn’t confirmed what it’s spending on Luton, it’s thought to be more than £100m in the first instance.
The decision to build the next Vivaro van at Luton is good news, but not unexpected. PSA sold a record 476,500 LCVs in 2017, which is an increase of 15% on 2016, and adding in passenger car derivatives (the Citroën SpaceTourer and Peugeot Traveller), the Group sold 658,000 units during the same period. More capacity in the UK, and Vauxhall’s strong market position make this a logical business decision.
The move will calm the fears of so-called Remainers, as the continued Vauxhall production takes place despite what Tavares describes as Brexit uncertainties.
Good news for Luton’s workforce
The deal secures the jobs of the 1400-strong workforce beyond 2030 and confirms that PSA is committed to the future of both Vauxhall and Opel, with a forward model plan that will see an accelerated move to the French company’s platforms for all models.
Vauxhall says tha,t once up to speed, Luton production will increase from the current level of 60,000 Opel/Vauxhall Vivaros per year to something around 100,000 vans based on PSA Group’s EMP2 platform. Expect the a PSA-based Vivaro to roll out of Luton in 2019, once the current Renault-based model is phased out.
According to a statement issued by Vauxhall, ‘the investment in Luton is driven through a performance plan negotiated between the Unite Trade Union and the Luton plant, combined with its recognised know-how in the manufacture of light commercial vehicles and the flexibility of its existing paint shop. With this initiative, the EMP2 platform for LCV will be localised by mid-2019, as part of the convergence on PSA Group technology.’
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Perhaps they are just softening up the UK public so that they can announce the closure of Ellesmere Port in 2020 without too much uproar.
Why would PSA need to soften anyone up? This is a commercial decision (with some government intervention presumably), Ellesmere Port is a completely separate decision.
Excellent news, as it wasn’t at all certain that PSA would continue UK production, seeing that their current medium vans are produced in France and Italy in a JV with Fiat. I guess buoyant PSA sales in this sector of the market helped, as they need the capacity. The Vivaro thus continues as the ONLY British made van
The current Vivaro (based on the Trafic 3) only came out in 2014 so will have a short production life.
Good news indeed, probably made possible by the fact that all other PSA vans (Peugeot Expert and Citroën Jumpy) are to be made at Luton too and that they are basically the same vehicle. Economies of scale can then easily be achieved by combining their production for the UK at Luton, without risks of currency fluctuations and import duties.
Unfortunately the same won’t be true for the next Astra and it’s EMP2 siblings, as those are far more differentiated. So still a lot of gloom over Ellesmere Port I’m afraid…
Perhaps the same could be done at Ellesmere Port for the new Vauxhall Combo, Citroën Berlingo and Peugeot Partner?
Good news, but remember vans are highly profitable – they are cheap to make and you can sell them for a decent wad of money because the commercial vehicle market isn’t anywhere near as incentive driven as the private car market. Ford’s most profitable vehicle in Europe is the Transit! And globally I think it is second or third only after the F150 pick-up truck in America. So no real surprises to be honest. I agree with others that this is by no means a barometer for what will happen at Ellsemere Port.
Transit sadly moved to Turkey.
More cap-in-hand to foreign manufacturers. This is what happens when you get rid of UK owned manufacturing. Brexit will make this worse. GKN is just the beginning as we flog off more to keep the short term city wide boys.
Even worse, EU, (our) money was used to encourage Ford to move the production outside the EU – you couldn’t make it up! It probably helped the EUssr meet some plant food production target at the cost of British jobs – who cares about those eh?
That’s right, EU money helped Ford to close the Southampton van factory and relocate to Koecaeli Turkey which is NOT in the EU!!!!!!!!!!
If I’m not mistaken, it was the FoMoCo’s decision (not EU’s) to consolidate all Transit production in Turkey, purely on cost grounds. EU money was available and used to redeploy Southampton workers.
Please get your facts right even if they don’t fit in with your by now abundantly well known political opinions.
Didn’t say it was the EU’s decision to move the factory…..you Europeans like to fudge opinion and say you are right over Brits
Anthony it is never the UK’s fault in your mind. The fact that 40% of UK manufacturing is foreign owned is OUR fault. We sold it. We were not made to.
We should be thankful that they believe in our businesses as we seem not to otherwise we would have kept these businesses.
Anthony, thank you for acknowledging it wasn’t the EU’s decision. I’m sorry if I misunderstood your comments, though I think I didn’t really.
No need to get personal though, I like to hold on to my impression that (most of) “you Brits” are (used to be, anyway) such pleasantly civilised people, even when you are (mis?)led to believe you’ll be better off on your own by selfinterested politicans who have an uncontrollable desire to become your next PM at all cost to the country, its economy and its people, or hold a well paid seat in the European parliament after trying time and again to get elected in their own, telling you the UK should leave the EU because it’s not democratic…
Still wishing you all the best and hope to see how you become better off and more relevant in an increasingly globalised world with 66 odd million rather than together with 500 million Europeans, if eventually your glorious leadership really does decide to bite that hard-Brexit bullet. If not (and I dare bet you it won’t be a hard Brexit, but soft if at all), let’s see then whether formaliteit outside but still very much intertwined and interdependant really is that much better than full membership. I doubt most of you will be pleased to pay, obey and have no say…
And after this cri de coeur, I’ll return my attention to the cars and Tories for which I enjoy this site so much.
Funny fault in my last sentence, should read “cars and stories” 🙂
I notice the red Vivaro van is wearing GB/EU logo style number plates – co-incidence?
However it looks a decent Van and I wish the company well. I really hope Ellesmere Port doesn’t get the chop though.
Looks smart as a new ‘personal’ plate. Shows it is ready to travel any journey.
Europe is still a huge market for Vauxhall-Opel vans.
I don’t think these optional eurobands will dissappear overnight, perhaps replaced eventually with a similar band without the euro stars or maybe a UK fleg. Look at Turkish plates for similar.
Could be worse, see the MINI press photos… 😉
Good grief, I wasn’t expecting that! The new Vivaro is no more than a Peugeot Partner van (from the class below). Nothing new here 🙁