Last month Ford announced the closure of an engine plant in South Wales as part of a drive to close unprofitable operations. 2,000 workers will be affected and they built an EcoBoost motor for the company. It is one of the largest employers in the small town of Bridgend and its closure will affect the town quite badly. Ford had invested over £300m in the plant over the last … [Read more...]
Panhard
Panhard was another manufacturer that was at the very beginning of the automotive industry and were based in France, in fact as you will see, they were associated with many of the leading French brands of the century. Rene Panhard, the son of a saddler and coach-builder, and his associate Emile Levassor founded their company in 1887. They had both worked at a wood-working … [Read more...]
Peugeot To Lead New US Attack
The PSA Group has announced its intention to re-enter the US market - again. It last announced plans to analyse whether the US market was good for their brands three years ago. Now the company has said that it is committed to do it - in five years time! The PSA Group holds the rights to the Citroen, DS, Peugeot, Vauxhall and Opel marques and all of them in some form have … [Read more...]
Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Crisis Update
It's been an interesting few months for the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance. As we have described before, it seems that Nissan were getting more uncomfortable being the revenue generator of the group yet had no voting rights, so couldn’t progress any of their plans inside the alliance. Then when Carlos Ghosn was arrested on financial fraud charges, the wheels literally … [Read more...]
Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance Crisis
Recently Motoring Weekly wrote an article about the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance that described the history of the loose grouping of manufacturers and the marques associated with them. This was to set the scene for this article about the management crisis that has enveloped the alliance. Back in November of last year, Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of the Alliance and the … [Read more...]