GM Attacks Opel Problems With A Vengeance
Attack on Opel’s sites in Germany: Opel’s vaunted German Tech Center will lose jobs to PSA in France. The Bochum plant will be closed in 2015. Even Opel’s ancestral seat in Rüsselsheim is endangered. GM is bleeding out Opel’s production base in Germany. This according to a report in Germany’s Spiegel Magazin. Unions suspect GM’s vengeance. Detroit wants to punish Germany for its opposition against GM’s austerity program.
According to the report, the Tech Center will lose the job of developing the next generation Zafira and its engines. This will be the first project that will go to GM’s new partner PSA Peugeot Citroen. It probably won’t be the last. The Zafira job alone will cost several hundred jobs at the tech Center, says Der Spiegel.
White collar jobs at the Rüsselsheim HQ will be done more cheaply in low wage Poland. Another 150 to 200 jobs.
The Opel plant in Bochum will be closed in 2015, heard Der Spiegel. 5,000 jobs.
Moving the production of the Astra from Rüsselsheim to Ellesmere Port and Gliwice will endanger Rüsselsheim, the report says.
Building the Astra in Ellesmere Port will not bring a cost reduction. Production experts calculated that it will cost €220 more than in Germany. Building a car that targets the Eurozone completely in the non-Euro U.K. and in Poland carries a currency risk,
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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“As part of the initial announcement earlier this year, GM/Opel and PSA stated their intent to cooperate in several areas including product development. Whatever the final split will be among the agreed common projects, no jobs will be lost in the engineering center in Ruesselsheim due to the alliance – in fact, the nature of the alliance is that it is a balanced one. Opel is leaving no stone unturned to enhance the efficiency and future viability in order to achieve sustainable profitability as quickly as possible in a difficult market environment.” Just released.
I'd also like to know who these "production experts" are. I can't see how it could possibly cost €220 million more to produce the Astra in a more efficient, higher quality factory with slightly less expensive workers. Opel's unions made a rod for their own backs by being inflexible and refusing to engage fully with GM's austerity measures, while Ellesmere Port and its 2,700 employees have proven all too willing and able to adapt to changing circumstances. There's also the fact that, proportionally, slightly more Astras have been sold in the UK than in Germany so far this year - 17,837 Opels in a country of 83 million, vs 14,894 Vauxhalls in a country of 62 million.
The look on this guy's face just says, 'niche gut.'
From my point of view, it looks like Opel design all the latest engineering and design for their latest products, then it seems they farm the manufacturing out to Korea and China. It all comes back to us as a "North American" product. I think GM would be dead in the water without the brains at Opel.