The Great Debate UK
Jaguar will make it through the recession – but in what shape?
- Professor David Bailey works at Coventry University Business School. The views expressed are his own -
The UK operations of Jaguar Land Rover lost £673.4m last year after a £640 million surplus the year before, it was revealed last week in accounts filed with Companies House. Adding in actuarial and pensions adjustments, “total recognised losses” at JLR topped almost £1.2bn last year. Not that this is much of a surprise of course. This is a “once in a century” downturn as JLR boss David Smith put it, and most car makers have posted record losses – including Toyota, for the time in its history.
JLR has announced the cessation of X-type production at Halewood at the end of this year, leaving a huge question mark over the viability of the Halewood plant. On current volumes (without the X type) it is difficult to see how JLR can keep open three UK plants.
To keep Halewood operating (which at full capacity is a very efficient plant), the LRX Range Rover concept vehicle needs the green light soon for development and production. This means accessing the EIB loan of £340 million which is already on the table from Europe.
When is the wrong vehicle the right vehicle?
-Patrick Hennessey is the author of “The Junior Officers’ Reading Club: Killing Time and Fighting Wars.” The opinions expressed are his own.-
In the same week in which Major Sean Birchall became the 169th British service person to die in Afghanistan since the start of operations in 2001 (and perhaps more significantly, as is often unmentioned, the 164th serviceperson to die since the British moved into Helmand Province only three years ago), four families announced that they were planning to sue the Ministry of Defence over the deaths of loved ones in the lightly armoured “Snatch” Land Rover in Iraq and Afghanistan.
