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Comment by tonyedgecombe | Hacker News Reader

Investment in the UK car industry has plumetted since the referendum was called.[1] When the current government came into power I imagined they would do whatever they could to rescue that situation. Now I'm wondering if they have come to the conclusion that it can't be saved. I couldn't imagine them making decisions like this otherwise.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49170387

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That's a highly cynical view. On the one hand, Nissan are reportedly considering ramping up production in the UK [1]; on the other, the UK government no doubt realises that there is considerable economical potential in green energy.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/03/nissan-eu-u...

Makes sense that a few of the companies would do that — from what I’ve been hearing, the problem with cars in particular is post-customs-union cross-border manufacturing playing badly with rules of origin and just-in-time manufacturing, so I am expecting spring like 75% shutting down U.K. factories and 25% expanding U.K. factories at the same time and for the same reasons.

> That's a highly cynical view.

The current UK government is full of people who have repeatedly demonstrated that they don’t know how the UK government functions. The cynicism is deserved.

>That's a highly cynical view.

The figures don't lie, investment has plumetted. If they were serious about keeping the UK car industry then we would be heading towards close integration with the EU. That is the opposite of where we are going.

> When the current government came into power I imagined they would do whatever they could to rescue that situation.

What on earth led you to believe that? Nothing that any British government of recent vintage has actually done supports it. They seem to be utterly uninterested in UK based manufacturing and what little is left is mostly owned by foreign entities. The same goes for service industries such as rail where ideology prevents long term state ownership but only if the state in question is the UK. See for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB_Cargo_UK which describes a British rail freight company wholly owned by Deutsche Bahn which is wholly owned by the German Federal government. I don't mean that DB is necessarily bad for either the company in question or the UK but it seems odd that so much of that sort of thing seems to happen in the UK but seems less popular in other countries.

What on earth led you to believe that?

It does look like wishful thinking now :)

I could see Nissan staying in the UK, just to produce the Leaf for the home market, I'm expecting the other car companies to close though.

I'll be surprised if they are still here in ten years. Nissan is interesting as since Ghosn has gone their interest in EV's seems to be waning.

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