First Socially Distanced Made Range Rover Roll Off The Line 1
Highlights

First Socially-Distanced Made Range Rover Roll Off The Line

Last week, on May 20, the first Range Rover made under new social distancing measures drove off the production line at Jaguar Land Rover’s manufacturing plant in Solihull, following the recent temporary pause in production due to the coronavirus pandemic. […]

Jaguar Land Rover To Cut Manufacturing 1,000 Jobs
Corporate Business

Jaguar Land Rover To Cut Manufacturing 1,000 Jobs

Jaguar Land Rover, the UK’s biggest auto manufacturer, is cutting 1,000 jobs in the UK as the diesel scandal and slumping sales hit the beloved British brand. Now owned by India’s Tata Motors, JLR employs about 40,000 workers in the UK who produce over 500,000 vehicles a year. The company is cutting the jobs at the Birmingham factory that manufactures the Jaguar F-Pace, Land Rover Discovery, and various Range Rover models. Demand for Jaguar Land Rover cars has fallen in Europe due to fallout from the VW led diesel emissions scandal. Jaguar Land Rover pointed out that “the huge drop in demand in diesels” led to its decision not to renew the contracts of 1,000 workers. Partially behind the decision is also said to be a sharp decline in British car sales that seems to be caused by a loss […]

McLaren 720S The Drive
McLaren

McLaren Automotive Achieves Record Year in 2017

McLaren Automotive, the British creator of luxury sports cars and supercars, has recorded another record year of growth, selling a total of 3,340 cars in 2017. Around two-thirds of sales are attributed to the Sports Series family, the vast majority of which are new buyers to the brand, with the rest coming from the Super Series. The Sports Series family accounted for 2,119 deliveries, up from 2,031 in 2016. Following the unveiling of the 720S in March, Super Series sales continued to perform strongly with 1,221 cars sold – nearly the same as 2016’s figure despite only six months of delivery. This latest news follows the 2017 introduction of new models in each of the established three product families; the 570S Spider was added to the Sports Series, the 720S replaced the 650S in the Super Series while the track-concentrated McLaren […]

TVR Factory in Ebbw Vale Gearing Up
TVR

TVR Factory in Ebbw Vale Gearing Up

TVR has released some big news about their factory. The folks at TVR say that the 200,000 square foot in Ebbw Vale will soon be echoing to the rumble and crackle of V8 engines as they head towards production. The Welsh Government announced officially yesterday that the site has been acquired and they are moving at high speed to get it ready for TVR. There has also been a mention of ‘facilities’ in the plural instead of just singular. More news is to follow on that. Les Edgar of TVR says the factory is more than ample in size to take care of their current and planned requirements as they expand up to full capacity over the next few years. They intend to make the factory an experience in itself – and once open, they will be encouraging all owners, prospective customers etc. […]

BMW MINI British pressings plant Swindon
Corporate Business

British Car Production Falls Again in September

Reuters is reporting that British car production fell 4.1 percent in September from the same month a year earlier, the fifth decline in six months that adds to signs of faltering consumer and business confidence. Exports, accounting for 80 percent of total output, fell 1.1 percent, while domestic demand slumped 14.2 percent, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), pushing total production down to 153,224 cars.

Aston Martin St Athan, Wales
Aston Martin

Aston Martin Hires First Employees Factory in Wales

Earlier this year, Aston Martin announced significant new investments in its long-term future in the United Kingdom, choosing St Athan in Wales as the location for its second manufacturing facility. As a specialist luxury manufacturer, Aston Martin requires highly skilled technicians to hand build its cars, so the new employees for the St Athan plant, which will begin full production in 2020, will commence their careers with Aston Martin at Gaydon. Over 40 people have begun work across the business where they are being fully trained in the ‘Aston Martin way’ by building the new DB11.

New Mini cars are parked outside a Mini dealership in Brighton in southern England
Corporate Business

UK Car Production Up Nearly 16%

British car production rose by nearly 16 percent in September compared with the same month last year driven by a rise in car exports, an industry body said on Thursday. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said car manufacturing rose by a yearly 15.5 percent to 158,281 units. “Particularly encouraging is the recent upturn in exports, which are higher than they were in 2014, reflecting growth in key overseas markets such as the rest of Europe,” SMMT Chief Executive Mike Hawes said. Cars built for exports, which account for around three in four of all British-made models, rose 13.9 percent to 117,307 units in September compared to the same month last year. Production for the British market rose by around 20 percent. Note: via http://uk.reuters.com  

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Corporate Business

British Car Industry On Track For 2 Million Vehicles A Year

According to The Independent, Britain will soon be making almost four cars a minute as the UK’s motor industry booms with record high production figures. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) predicts the number of new vehicles being built in Britain will climb to almost  2 million by 2017, based on current trends. In a new report it reveals that turnover hit an all-time high of £69.5bn last year, while almost 1.6 million vehicles were built, the highest vehicle production figures since 2008. Last year, car production alone grew to 1.53 million units – the highest level since 2007 – with an increasing number of vehicles built for the domestic new car market, which itself grew 9.3 per cent to reach 2.48 million registrations last year. Meanwhile, the number of jobs in the industry climbed 3.5 per cent in […]

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Corporate Business

Britishness of British Cars Increasing

Is it possible to be more British than British? Well, according to the forthcoming report of the Automotive Council, yes. British cars, meaning those made within the confines of the British geographical region, are being made with more British-sourced parts as the upswing in UK car production continues. The report shows that homeland component makers sold 19% more products to UK vehicle producers last year than in 2013. Yes, that means the cars are 19% more British. Currently, approximately one-third of the components in a UK-built car are domestically sourced. This is far down from the heyday of the mid-1970s when that number was more than 90%. However, vehicle manufacturing in the UK is undergoing rapid growth – British car production has increased by more than 50% since 2009, and this is creating new opportunities for domestic suppliers. The Automotive […]

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Corporate Business

Jaguar Land Rover to Create 1700 UK Jobs

According to The Telegraph, Jaguar Land Rover is to create another 1,700 jobs at its Solihull factory in Birmingham to support a new range of sports and cross-over cars featuring the latest in lightweight aluminium technology. The UK-based car maker, owned by India’s Tata conglomerate, said it would invest £1.5bn to introduce new one-piece “aluminium vehicle architecture” into its range. Prime Minister David Cameron hailed the move as “fantastic news for Solihull and a huge vote of confidence in the UK. This investment will also deliver another 24,000 jobs in the supply chain – on top of the 1.3m the private sector has already created since 2010.” A Jaguar sports sedan, launched in 2015, will be the first to feature the new technology, as well as the first to use engines from the company’s new £500m engine plant in Wolverhampton. […]

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Corporate Business

MINI's Historic Oxford Plant Turns 100

Mini’s Oxford assembly plant is the third-oldest mass-production car facility in the world, and this month it celebrates its 100-year anniversary. As one might expect, the plant has a storied history and a long tally of cars produced. So far, the plant has manufactured more than 2.25 million Minis, including the original Mini that rolled off the line from 1959 to 1969 (another plant in the UK continued production until 2000). In 2001, the Oxford plant began production of the modern Mini Cooper, a project spearheaded by the brand’s new parent company BMW. For centuries, Oxford has enjoyed international appeal as having one of the world’s best known and highly regarded universities, and draws thousands of visitors from around the globe every year. But many people don’t know that Oxford also has a technical and industrial history: 100 years ago – in […]

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Corporate Business

UK Car Production Up 22%

British car production is still revving ahead of the rest of the economy after official figures showed an increase in output for the 13th month in a row. Almost 120,000 cars were built in the UK in July, which is up 22% on the same period last year, according to the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). The figures came in the same week that one of the industry’s great export successes, Jaguar Land Rover, moved to a 24-hour operation in order to keep up with soaring demand from Asia. The latest SMMT total means that year-to-date production is running at 875,998, an increase of 15%. Paul Everitt, SMMT chief executive, said investment commitments from producers with a major UK presence, from JLR to BMW and Toyota, had underpinned the growth. “While uncertainty in Europe remains a challenge, the […]

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Aston Martin

Aston Martin Rapide Production To UK

Aston Martin is planning to move production of the Rapide sports saloon to the UK in 2012. The production will be moved to the British automaker’s Gaydon headquarters in Warwickshire in the second half of 2012. After the conclusion of a six month feasibility study, the automaker had decided that the production of the Rapide is not feasible in Gaydon due to some constraints. Therefore, in 2008, the company joined hands with Magna Steyr to manufacture this car and the latter established a dedicated facility in their Graz facilities in Austria. The pre-production of this car began in late 2009 and full production began in 2010. Explaining the decision to move the production of this car, Aston Martin’s chief executive, Ulrich Bez, said that the facility restrictions in Gaydon would have created problems in production of other cars if the […]

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Corporate Business

British Car Production Rose 44 Percent

British car output rose an annual 44 per cent in April with a total of 98,290 new cars produced in Britain last month on higher demand for new vehicles, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. In the year to date, car production was 64.9 percent higher than the same period a year ago. “Output in April is up across the car, commercial vehicle and engine sectors compared to the same time last year, reflecting a good start to the second quarter of 2010,” said SMMT chief executive, Paul Everitt. “The home market saw a significant increase in the month, a positive indication of a strengthening economy and an improvement in consumer confidence,” he added. – Reuters

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Corporate Business

U.K. Factory Production Unexpectedly Jumped in June by 0.4%

U.K. manufacturing unexpectedly jumped in June by the most in 1 1/2 years as factories raised production of cars and computers, evidence the recession is easing. Output rose 0.4 percent from the previous month, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. Economists predicted a 0.1 percent drop, according to the median of 25 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. Factory production is down 11.7 percent from a year ago.