Half the population might be locked down at home, but the economy goes on. More importantly so do car sales. In fact September was the strongest month of the year, and the SMMT and Dealerweb both report extremely strong new and used car sales.
There are plenty of headlines to ponder – Tesla marches on, record deliveries and seemingly winning permission for its massive plant in Germany. Ford has a new chief executive, Jim Farley, whose first day involved a substantial reshuffle in the US. Meanwhile Andy Barrett, MD of Ford over here has taken leave of absence for a while. Volvo has been so successful in selling EVs and hybrids that it has some green credits left to sell to some of its competitors. A nice little sideline. And they say that electrification has driven BorgWarner’s acquisition of Delphi, as well as Honda’s decision to quit F1. Honda is ploughing its FI money into research on zero emissions. But lest anyone think the move to electrification is paved with gold, the story of Nikola should serve as a warning. We saw reports that their much vaunted electric truck was actually just freewheeling downhill as the vehicle had not been fully developed. Sine when its share price has halved and there are questions about its future. With the government’s furlough scheme coming to an end this month, the biggest worry for many is that the economy will stall in the face of mass redundancies. The new Job Support Scheme may well help, but nevertheless unemployment looks set to rise. In the face of this, we set up Workagain at the beginning of August. We have already carried out a number of outplacement projects for clients and we are delighted with the results. But not as delighted as many of our delegates. Because we are motor industry experts, we know exactly what it takes to write a compelling CV for this industry. So now that September is over, we are offering 50 vouchers to those who want a complete CV review and rewrite. Bringing the price down to just £99. Simply visit www.workagain.co.uk and enter MTSOCT50 at the checkout. If you have no need to do so, we are trying to build the brand and it would be great if you could head over to our Linked in Workagain page, and follow us. Have a great weekend, it may stop raining at some stage (nice if you are allowed out). More great feedback from another happy client “The relaxed, compassionate and focused approach with developing my CV, highlighting the skills and selling points. The interview coaching which greatly helped with my confidence throughout the interview process. All your help, helped secure my new role. Thank you so so much” Nick Claridge Our Workagain division is creating professional CVs for people in many industries. And they really do work. Why not take a look here. Call us or email if you are interested.
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You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.
Evan Esar (1899 – 1995) Life is often compared to a marathon, but I think it is more like being a sprinter; long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best.
Michael Johnson If you want to catch something, running after it isn’t always the best way.
Lois McMaster Bujold, “Borders of Infinity”, 1989 I don’t know if the presidential candidates are running for the White House or Animal House.
Bob Hope (1903 – 2003) |
Author: Jo Jenks
In case anyone thought that data breaches, even when carried out at a personal level, were viewed as trivial and of little consequence, a case today suggests otherwise. A motor industry worker has not only been jailed for 6 months but ordered to pay a massive £33,500, which may come as a shock to some. His crime? Taking data regarding customers body repairs and passing them on to a claims management company, presumably for an intro fee of some sort. If he fails to come up with the money then his sentence will be extended by 12 months. No laughing matter, but customers alerted the firm in question because of a significant increase in complaints about unsolicited claims management calls. So they looked and quickly found out why.
Tesla has suffered an embarrassing week in the States, with the press carrying details of alleged poor practice at their manufacturing centre in California. Faced with massive production targets last year, they apparently set up temporary production lines. 12 months later these are still rumoured to be in temporary tents, rather than under permanent cover. The report also suggests that production workers are buying electrical tape in Walmart and using it tape back on components that have fallen off or have split. This comes in the wake of the news that in a recent customer survey Tesla was 51st out of 51 manufacturers for reliability. Still, on the bright side, the only way is up. Teresa May seems to have got her cheque-book out, and Jaguar has certainly benefited from a £500 million loan guarantee to persuade them to build electric vehicles in the UK. Of course, under EU rules state aid cannot be given, but loans can be guaranteed. One might wonder, cynically, whether there was any mechanism in the future, provided we were out of the EU of course, to write these loans off. I have no idea, and I’m sure many will tell me that is simply not possible. Have a great weekend, I hope you enjoy golf, there’s plenty of it on the box. |
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Dealing with network executives is like being nibbled to death by ducks.
Eric Sevareid
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)
The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.
William Gibson (1948 – )
Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
Paul Valery (1871 – 1945), Tel Quel 2 (1943)
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A story in AM online today caught my eye. Shares are starting to be traded in Pendragon as it was reported that a Swedish investment company had acquired nearly 10% of the group. This came seven days after another investment company, TCP, had increased its stake to 21%. Speculation is rife that the company is ready to be taken over, all of this coinciding with Trevor Finn’s decision to step down from his role as head of the group at the end of March this year. Given that they are the U.K.’s largest retailer by some way, this could send shockwaves through the retail sector.
It may not be big news over here, but in the US there is much talk about Tesla’s new Chinese venture. They have just “broken ground” on their new Giga-Factory, as they are calling it, which is set to produce 500,000 vehicles a year. They expect it to be in production by the end of this year. Now we know that the company has promised some ambitious figures before, and has then struggled to keep up, but the Chinese market for electric vehicles is already more than half the total UK market for cars, at 1.2 million. Grabbing a share of that is certainly tempting.
And China has recently relaxed its rules on local ownership, meaning that Tesla will be the first car manufacturer to open a wholly owned facility in China, giving it technological and financial protection from local interests. On the other hand it means that it will be a pioneer in working with local government and breaking through local bureaucracy to ensure things go as smoothly as they can.
Finally it seems that Renault and Nissan have both decided that their future lays beyond Carlos Ghosn. It has certainly been a rapid fall from grace for the world’s largest automotive superstar. If proven innocent then conspiracy theorists will point to a hidden agenda. In fact they already have, and many analysts are wondering whether the triple alliance of the Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi can survive over the coming years. And whether this was ultimately what drove the crisis in the first place.
Finally, talking around my clients, the start of the year has not been quite as disastrous as they were expecting it to be. The retail market has been more buoyant than expected, stockpiling before a hard Brexit perhaps? Or merely that there are some fantastic deals on offer in the market? Time will tell whether we can maintain this momentum through the year, no doubt driven by events outside the influence of the motor industry.
Have a great weekend, at least the cricket back on.
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Here are some jobs from the past ten days. Check these out and see if there is anything tempting. Click on the link to apply immediately through our site. The situation is changing the whole time and if any link refuses to work, it is probably because it has already been filled and removed. Check out all our jobs at on our Jobs Page
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If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965), The Painted Veil, 1925 There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them.
Emile Chartier The case has, in some respects, been not entirely devoid of interest.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930), (Sherlock Holmes) The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun. |
