Car industry braced for bumpy ride11 Sep 2018 19:22
just-in-time manufacturing across a pan-European integrated supply chain, and its constant refinement over years is responsible for the raging recent success of UK car production, under mainly foreign ownership, from Sunderland to Swindon.
just one example.
Inside the main body is the engine. It contains a crankshaft, a £400 precision-sculpted metal part that transfers under several tonnes of pressure the motion of the pistons into the rotational motion of the flywheel, which will turn the wheels of the car
The crankshaft is made in France, drilled and milled in Warwickshire, and integrated into an engine in Bavaria.
It then arrives at the Oxford plant in an engine, and within five-and-a-half hours turned into one of the 1,000 finished Minis produced per day.
The cars are then tested thoroughly before being driven in convoy up and down the ramps of the plant rail station on to a double-decker train heading for Purfleet or Southampton docks, and exported back to Europe or beyond.
At a Number 10 meeting in July, Jaguar Land Rover boss Ralph Speth is understood to have directed a "heated" monologue on the impact of no deal and no transition on the car industry towards the PM.
Top JLR boss Andy Goss told Sky News that its investment in a car plant in Slovakia should now be seen as a "hedge" against uncertainty around the post-Brexit trading environment.
"It's become a hedge by default - we will assess everything in the cold light of day - we don't expect to do it, but if we have to we will," he told me.
https://news.sky.com/story/brexit-forensics-why-car-industry-is-getting-worried-11041671
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