General Motors is to close its factory in Bochum. The announcement comes as company bosses confirmed the replacement for the current Zafira will not be built at the plant in western Germany. The plant will continue to produce the current Zafira until 2016.
GM executives have blamed the shrinking European car market and overcapacities in the industry for the move.
Bosses hope workers will be redeployed to Bochum’s warehousing operations, with the aim of no forced redundancies before 2016. A new component production facility in the town is under discussion.
Opel’s deputy CEO, Thomas Sedran said: "Germany is our most important market and with about 20,000 employees the backbone and home of our brand. And this will stay this way in the future.”
The announcement is part of the firm’s “Drive Opel 2012” plan, which targets break-even by mid decade. As part of the strategy, Opel will introduce 23 new models and 13 new engines before 2016.
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Declining sales across Europe
If list prices are anything to go by then most of the Vauxhalls are heaveily over-priced in comparison with the very capable competition. No wonder the company is losing sales in UK and across Europe.
Vauxhall makes up for high list prices with heavy discounts and good finance deals but the firm seems to be increasingly left behind the competition and I don't mean VW or Ford. I don't have concrete figures to back up my feeling that the Koreans are biting into Vauxhall sales as much as they are nipping into Peugeot, Citroen and Renault territories.
Same goes for majority of Japanese car companies. VW and Ford have however risen to this new challenge from the Far East. The two companies have improved their cars and reduced their prices. Can Vauxhall/Opel do that? Doubt that, given dollar's strength.
fadyady wrote: No wonder
Sales wise they seem to be doing pretty well in the monthly UK SMMT figures think they were 3rd and 4th or thereabouts.
Anyhow how I laugh when I remember the idiots who used to post on this very site saying Vauxhall will never shut down a plant in Germany and the UK workers should start to look for new jobs, the posters used to 'site' inside information, Ha Ha. I think one of them was called petrolheadinrussia
xxxx wrote: Sales wise they
Yes, they may be 3rd or 4th in the tables, but look properly at the figures. The whole of the UK car market has gone up by 6% this year. YTD Vauxhall are tracking -1.5% down. That's a negative 7.5% shift even with their 0% and discounting at the moment.
Not wishing to let the facts
Not wishing to let the facts get in the way of a good story. I believe Vauxhall's Retail market share increased this year. I also know that Vauxhall is the number 1 choice for people in Scotland and has been for some years.
Also I thought it was the Zafira Tourer that was built in Bochum and it was when this vehicle stopped production that car manufacturing would cease at Bochum.