More Bad news for British Car Manufacturing?

Gibby

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B]Land Rover assembly set for India[/B]

Land Rover assembly in India will commence next year, according to Tata Motors' CEO Carl-Peter Forster.

Forster told Reuters that the firm was also in talks with a joint-venture partner in China over assembling certain Jaguar and Land Rover models there.

The Land Rover models will be assembled in Pune; knockdown kits will be exported from the UK to India for assembly. No details on what Land Rovers will be assembled in India have been revealed at this stage.

Elsewhere, Tata Motors' share price rose earlier to its highest level in 19 years after it posted a profit for the first fiscal year quarter to the end of June. The profit was 5.9 per cent up year-on-year, causing an increase in Tata?s share price to a high last seen in January 1991.

Profits were boosted by strong demand for Jaguar and Land Rover products. JLR sales were up in the quarter to 57,153 units compared with 35,947 a year earlier. New car sales in India reached a record high last month.
 
CKD kits were made in England and shipped overseas for assembly since just after WW2. This isn't actually new. Jaguar XJs were originally sent to South Africa and Australia as CKD kits IIRC, and some BL makes did the same with their products and India earlier.
 
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Complete Knockdown kits. Everything you need in brown packages. IKEA. It's stupid shipping assembled trucks or cars places when you don't need to.
 
Complete Knock Down kits. The XJs assembled in SA and Down Under were done so to skip tax laws and regulations on imports by 'assembling' them locally. They were actually no different from the XJ models offered elsewhere.

Edit: Yeah, it's essentially IKEAing all the parts for a car to a local assembly shop from the actual manufactory. In some cases, the car would actually be assembled, checked, then dismantled into kit pieces and packed up. With the advent of containerized shipping, however, CKD became more and more a thing of the past especially as more nations dropped their idiot anti-import taxation schemes.
 
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So is the entire lineup moving to India for assembly, or just the cheaper models or just for the Asian market?

and what about existing assembly facilities?
 
This is no big deal! Why are we all so paranoid?

Like Spectre says CKDs are standard practice in modern manufacturing..

Also, the important thing all the newspapers seem to be missing out is this: in countries like India and China, importing fully built cars or machinery attracts high import duties. As a result imported cars tend to be very expensive (nearly 120% of the sticker price) . CKD kits are a good way of dodging these taxes and making these cars more affordable. End result is MORE people would buy these cars... which obviously means more skilled jobs for the British public (in JLR's case)
 
So is the entire lineup moving to India for assembly, or just the cheaper models or just for the Asian market?

and what about existing assembly facilities?

To me, it sounds like this would be production for the Indian and probably other asian markets.
 
I doubt they will kill British production. Tata gets incentives from the U.K. government for staying.
 
Skoda's been shipping their cars in CKD kits to India (and other places) for years. (and despite this fact, the Czech Republic is now one of the largest producers of cars per capita in the world). The main reason is of course to get around the import regulations. Because of that, the packaging is often quite funny and very un-IKEA-like - they ship pretty much a completely assembled car and the engine and suspension next to it:

http://img217.imageshack.**/img217/1400/20060509195639.jpg
 
Logistics is fun. We make complete dashboards that will be installed in their respective vehicles in Brazil. Also yay for STILL trucks and cleanliness.
 
No manufacturing is going down the pan, this will be step 1.

British manufacturing RiP.

And let's be honest here, the Brits don't exactly have a great track record of precision mass assembly, either.

In fact, the British workman has a longer history of standing around a brazier outside of a struck plant moaning about how his highest-in-Europe salary is just intolerable cruelty, and how hard and wearing it is to torque down one fastener (which the guy up the line from him put in the car) to 7 pound-feet with an pre-set autoclutching overtorque-proof electric driver once every three to five minutes. Assuming he even bothered to torque it, and didn't either just ignore the car as it rolled by or was too busy kvetching to his coworker at the next station over about just how the evil capitalists were persecuting him and exploiting his good nature for a trivial sum of money to do his job.

Sorry, but it has to be said. Or need I remind you which group of people's demands ended up resulting in the closure and demolition of Jaguar's famed Coventry plant? Hint: It wasn't Ford.

Let's face it, it won't be any worse assembled in India than some days in Britain. And do keep in mind that this is from someone who actually likes British cars and has several!
 
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Well from what I've read/heard on the news this is currently for the Indian market only so I'm not worried about them leaving just yet.
 
I don't think it's bad news. If they're shipped in kit form then the bulk of the work still goes on in the UK but shipping component would surely reduce transport costs.

It will be just like Lego at the other end.

Maybe in India you'll be able to buy a Legover Discovery? Or since it will be India how about the In. Flagrente Delicto? ;)
 
... to torque down one fastener (which the guy up the line from him put in the car) to 7 pound-feet with an pre-set autoclutching overtorque-proof electric driver once every three to five minutes. Assuming he even bothered to torque it, and didn't either just ignore the car as it rolled by or was too busy kvetching to his coworker..

Well he has to pass the joint to his coworker sometime.... are you advocating bogarting in the workplace? :O
 
Nah, working while stoned is more a UAW thing than British unionist. :p
 
India has some stupid taxes on imports. Its like 200% or something...probably a good amount less. A base C200 CGI is 61025.2497 US dollars according to todays conversion rates. Good idea on Land Rover's part to increase sales in India.

edit:

a base LR LR2 is 718828.98 usd
 
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