Attack on Opel’s sites in Germany: Opel’s vaunted German Tech Center will lose jobs to PSA in France. The Bochum plant will be closed in 2015. Even Opel’s ancestral seat in Rüsselsheim is endangered. GM is bleeding out Opel’s production base in Germany. This according to a report in Germany’s Spiegel Magazin. Unions suspect GM’s vengeance. Detroit wants to punish Germany for its opposition against GM’s austerity program.
According to the report, the Tech Center will lose the job of developing the next generation Zafira and its engines. This will be the first project that will go to GM’s new partner PSA Peugeot Citroen. It probably won’t be the last. The Zafira job alone will cost several hundred jobs at the tech Center, says Der Spiegel.
White collar jobs at the Rüsselsheim HQ will be done more cheaply in low wage Poland. Another 150 to 200 jobs.
The Opel plant in Bochum will be closed in 2015, heard Der Spiegel. 5,000 jobs.
Moving the production of the Astra from Rüsselsheim to Ellesmere Port and Gliwice will endanger Rüsselsheim, the report says.
Building the Astra in Ellesmere Port will not bring a cost reduction. Production experts calculated that it will cost €220 more than in Germany. Building a car that targets the Eurozone completely in the non-Euro U.K. and in Poland carries a currency risk,
Ah 2015. It won’t be long now. In the mean time, Opel will cost GM upwards to 1 Billion Euros a year.
A lot of rumors about these issues that should be taken with some skepticism. One never knows how much of it has to do with negotiation tactics with strong German unions….while the fact that Opel – especially in high cost Germany – needs to be re-structured is out of discussion.
There is an excellent chance that Germany won’t be part of the Eurozone much longer, provided the Eurozone continues to exist at all after Greece pulls out.
The more likely scenario is a Euro with Germany and a hardcore of countries like the Netherlands, Finland, Belgium etc. Greece, Spain, Italy will have left. That would also be cheaper than having all 17 national currencies come back and the associated legal issues.
There are a couple reasons why I don’t think that will happen. One possibility is that Greece will lead to cascading bank failures that bring down the EU by themselves. The other is the now profound chasm between French and German approaches to the insolvency issues. All that’s left for Germany is a currency devalued by the instability of the other EU nations which helps them export goods. At some point the cost of propping up irresponsible states will exceed the benefits of a devalued currency. Right now the US, Germany, and China are all trying to drive down their currencies for various reasons, some over-lapping. Eventually China will fail to prop up the dollar and something dramatic will happen. Germany is caught between their dependence on exports and the other EU states’ insatiable need for handouts.
Who are these production experts? Ellesmere port is the most efficient GM plant in Europe. The UK is also one of GM Europe’s biggest markets, so the currency risks work both ways to some extent.
They also already build the current Astra.
Wasn`t it just last month that “reports” said Ellesmere Port was one of the two factories to close in 2015. From this news maybe that was wrong.
“As part of the initial announcement earlier this year, GM/Opel and PSA stated their intent to cooperate in several areas including product development. Whatever the final split will be among the agreed common projects, no jobs will be lost in the engineering center in Ruesselsheim due to the alliance – in fact, the nature of the alliance is that it is a balanced one. Opel is leaving no stone unturned to enhance the efficiency and future viability in order to achieve sustainable profitability as quickly as possible in a difficult market environment.” Just released.
I’d also like to know who these “production experts” are. I can’t see how it could possibly cost €220 million more to produce the Astra in a more efficient, higher quality factory with slightly less expensive workers.
Opel’s unions made a rod for their own backs by being inflexible and refusing to engage fully with GM’s austerity measures, while Ellesmere Port and its 2,700 employees have proven all too willing and able to adapt to changing circumstances.
There’s also the fact that, proportionally, slightly more Astras have been sold in the UK than in Germany so far this year – 17,837 Opels in a country of 83 million, vs 14,894 Vauxhalls in a country of 62 million.
220 MILLION €?
Where do you get the millions from???
I thought it said “220 €”, and assumed it meant per car.
That’s only “€220 million” if you build exactly one million cars.
The look on this guy’s face just says, ‘niche gut.’
From my point of view, it looks like Opel design all the latest engineering and design for their latest products, then it seems they farm the manufacturing out to Korea and China. It all comes back to us as a “North American” product.
I think GM would be dead in the water without the brains at Opel.
‘Xackly.