Collapsing demand for new cars across Europe is to cost skilled workers at General Motors and Ford hundreds of shifts as the car giants try to reduce supply. General Motors plans to cut production by 40,000 vehicles across Europe as a whole by the end of the year. It is closing its factories in Luton and Ellesmere Port, Merseyside, temporarily this month to try to avert flooding the market with unsold cars. The Ellesmere Port factory, which makes Vauxhall Astra vans and Vauxhall Astra five-door cars, is halting production for 14 days to cut the number of cars it makes by 9,000. It normally makes about 120,000 vehicles a year, about 46 per cent of which are exported to Spain, Italy and Germany. The company, which has its headquarters in Detroit, Michigan, will also close its Luton plant for ten days this month, making 4,000 fewer vehicles. It normally makes 90,000 a year. That factory, which makes the mid-sized Vivaro van, exports about 62 per cent of its cars to the Continent.
Collapsing demand for new cars across Europe is to cost skilled workers at General Motors and Ford hundreds of shifts as the car giants try to reduce supply.
General Motors plans to cut production by 40,000 vehicles across Europe as a whole by the end of the year. It is closing its factories in Luton and Ellesmere Port, Merseyside, temporarily this month to try to avert flooding the market with unsold cars.
The Ellesmere Port factory, which makes Vauxhall Astra vans and Vauxhall Astra five-door cars, is halting production for 14 days to cut the number of cars it makes by 9,000. It normally makes about 120,000 vehicles a year, about 46 per cent of which are exported to Spain, Italy and Germany.
The company, which has its headquarters in Detroit, Michigan, will also close its Luton plant for ten days this month, making 4,000 fewer vehicles. It normally makes 90,000 a year. That factory, which makes the mid-sized Vivaro van, exports about 62 per cent of its cars to the Continent.
Such a program will make it technologically easier for far greater penetrations of windpower in the grid, though i don't know the details (or have a cite.) If i got it right, a Danish utility, DONG, together with IBM and Siemens are developing the program.
There is a future for automakers, but it ain't just the old assembly line. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
