Could General Motors (GM) be planning to close Vauxhall down for good as they seek an answer to huge losses in Europe.
That US bailout has seen GM return to profit in the US, but GM Europe continues to be a big hole in its accounts as the European car market continues to struggle with over capacity and a lack of buyers for traditional mainstream cars.
A partnership between GM Europe and Peugeot Citroen (PSA) seems to be on the cards with a new joint venture taking on board PSA and Opel. But does that joint venture include Vauxhall, or are GM considering shuttering Vauxhall for good?
Vauxhall (and Opel) are always going to struggle in the new world market for cars, hamstrung as they are with a parent, GM, which won’t let them compete in certain markets – the US, notably. Which leaves GM Europe able to play only in struggling markets and incurring seemingly never-ending losses for its parent.
Perhaps the biggest sign that GM are planning to close Vauxhall for good comes with the recent news that Chevrolet are to sponsor Manchester United to the tune of £375 million from the 2014 season, a huge amount of money which, if GM were planning to keep Vauxhall, would surely have been spent promoting Vauxhall?
Also a factor in the ‘Sale or Close’ question about Vauxhall must be a desire not to go the same route with Vauxhall as GM did with Saab. The sale of Saab became a farce as GM blocked its sale to any car maker with Chinese connections, fearing its technology would be used to compete, and Saab ended up as just a badge for a new EV maker.
The simple act of closing Vauxhall for good and pumping a chunk of money in to a new company building Peugeot, Citroen and Opel cars would free GM from its European problems in one fell swoop, and give the new Joint Venture the immediate advantage of an immediate cut in production capacity.
Perhaps Vauxhall buyers in the UK ought to get use to the idea of a Chevrolet instead. After all, they’re the same under the skin.
mark powell says
Well vauxhall should be sold to the general public as share options on the stock market, this will secure the jobs in the uk and then you could tell GM to shove it where the sun dont an will never will shine. As for vauxhall these are fab cars and for chevolet, well they are so poo. Chevolet will never be accepted as a main stream car sales in the uk. Like land rover, Vauxhall could move on to greater things like land rover is the biggest and most successful brand in India.Vauxhall could become a british owned main stream car company. This would be great as we have lost rover in the asset stripping fiasco, and the Pheonix three got away with it technically, just legal and i mean only just legal, and labour knew it was to happen, before BMW took hold of the company, the Pheonix consortium (three) were brushed aside and were exposed for their asset stripping agenda. So why was BMW so keen to offload Rover to a bunch of Nutcases hellbent on legaly stealing money from the company and the pension pots of the employees. sad very sad. Labour did what they called an enquiery and they got away scott free, anyway forget Rover as it is now in the hands of the chinese who got the gear and no idea. We must make sure that this does not happen to Vauxhall, the Vauxhall employees must vote a sponsor for themselves and get GM around the negotiating table and borrow the money from the goverment with a very low interest rate, share options for every employee, before floating the rest of the shares on the stock market. surley this is a win win situation and will be a great success and would be a great initiave from David Cameron and the Conservative goverment. So come on and start the ball rolling………if only life was that simple………
Mike Walker says
Hmm
Mark should look at Vauxhall reliability studies. They are near the bottom of every list..
As for Vauxhall being fab cars: ROFL…