My thoughts in Conservative Home on lessons for the car industry - and government - from Nissan success and Honda failure.
Extract:
It’s pretty hard to find a negative angle on Nissan’s recent commitment to its Sunderland plant. A £1 billion investment will see an all-new electric model built there supported by its partner’s new battery plant. In all, this looks set to create over 900 new jobs plus over 4,500 in the supply chain.
For what can go wrong, look no further than another Japanese car giant, Honda, whose Swindon factory will sadly close its doors this month. Things could have been very different, of course. Honda was brought in as a partner to save British Leyland in the early eighties. And for a decade, both Rover and Honda flourished. But Rover was ditched by the state, moved on repeatedly (from British Aerospace to BMW to the ‘Phoenix Four’) and failed in 2005. Meanwhile, poor European sales forced Honda out of Swindon.
