Writing on the wall for some manufacturers?

[DVee8]

Just now, sierraman said:

Interesting stuff, what’s the thinking behind that?

The company I work for supply Nissan with pressed steel panels, It's owned by Nissan.  We did supply Honda till last summer.

Over the last 2 months we have had 3 factory tours from JLR management regarding bringing production back to the uk due to delivery times and cost. Brexit?

Sunderland is 3 hours away, Slovakia, 3 days?

It is at the early stages at the moment.

[New POD]

4 hours ago, Crackers said:

Bit strong coming from a man who thinks the answer to every "what car should I buy" is an Astra J, when it invariably isn't.

Maybe.

I've never had an exhaust manifold crack on any of the 12 Vauxhalls that I or my family have owned. I've never had an ABS fault. I've never lost 4 CDs in the stereo. I've never had to replace an alternator.  (2 On the accord). I've never had a timing chain jump a tooth....But hey all Vauxhalls are shite. 

[vaughant]

20 hours ago, MJK 24 said:

I think Honda may possibly leave the UK at some stage.  Perhaps even Europe.  They’ll definitely still keep making cars though.  They’re massive in Asia and the USA.

Absolutely, they certainly don't need the money, one of the richest companies in the world. I just think they have zero interest in the UK anymore, you barely see one in Europe and Toyota dominate Africa. 

They're loved in America though to be fair and Asia as you pointed out, seen as a premium brand out there. 

[sierraman]

To be fair once you’ve got America who gives a shit who else buys your cars. America love the Toyota Camry, the new hybrid one continues to be extremely popular, supposedly it’s sold in the U.K. but I’ve seen hardly any which is a real shame as it seems a bloody lovely car. If by some circumstance I was to buy a new car the Camry would be it, big Saloon, comfortable and it’ll never go wrong. One day I think I’ll have one.

[treehugger]

37 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Interesting stuff, what’s the thinking behind that?

Brexit. 

[vaughant]

19 hours ago, SiC said:

That's the thing about Honda cars. The car themselves are pretty low tech and simple. As my friend said to me, with a Honda you are buying an engine with a car wrapped around it.

You can tell this by so many parts that are the same between models and don't change between decades. Others do this of course (think Renault radio stalk, VAG indicator switches) but I see this even more with Honda. This means stuff has had time to have problem kinks straightened out. Simple, older but refined designs help reliability. Not a given but certainly is a factor.

My current 9th gen Civic is the third I've had (7th, 8th and 9th gen) and my Mum has had three too (5th, 6th and 7th). Despite a hundreds of thousands of miles between them all, none have given any real trouble.

I looked at comparable 5-7 year old Focus, Golf, Astra, Mégane and the like when we recently bought our Civic 9th gen. None offered the same amount of kit in similar or even base trim levels as the Civic. Even the basics like electric windows and climate control. The touch, feel and NVH between them all is pretty similar, with Golf slightly ahead. But none of the engines inspired any confidence that they'd not give big bills. While it's not a patch on the 5yr older A4 for feel and refinement, I guess I'm not expecting it to be either as they were a lot more expensive new.

Garages do seem to sell Civics easily too. With stock not hanging around. Definitely seems to be still a robust fan base out there for them.

My friend actually got a 10th gen Civic 1.5t CVT 2 years ago after being a die hard Volvo fan for decades. He also looked heavily at the usual German suspects - 330e, c300e, Golf, etc. He certainly didn't expect to get the Civic, but for him it was the best all rounder by far. 

So while their factory may have been a bit shonky around the edge and out of date, they do seem to churn out decent products! 

Tbh it's really not uncommon for those that work in engineering and manufacturing to have a very different viewpoint on the products that are put out. From hearing colleague experiences and my own, there are many brands that are both b2b and consumer, that are held in high regard externally which those working there will give a very different viewpoint. I think its the reality of working on the coalface. You see warts and all, with the warts being the things that are remembered the most!

Also yes, for what the above is worth, I am a Honda fanboi and apologist! 

I do totally agree with that, and I will always defend their workforce who did actually give a fuck about what they were producing on the whole and why I think their quality was excellent. 

The basic tech they use is pretty much copied from other manufacturers but  brought out much later when reliability is proven. I remember having a conversation with someone there about how superior their engines were compared to Ford back the 1990's when they were using twin cam, 16v lumps which I pointed out Ford had back in the 60's, and with turbochargers on them as well. 

While their cars were produced really well, from an engineering plant point of view it was very much 3rd world compared to any large scale engineering place I've ever worked and never seemed to have any investment. 

For example they put in an almost fully automated line to build the diesel engine, 2.2 and the 1.6d. Pretty good install done mainly by their own lads (their standard of maintenence guy was on another planet to Ford mind you, I learnt so much there). Sales were excellent yet they still wouldn't invest in an overhead conveyor to take them across to the ECC or sorting centre whether they then transferred to the assembly line. Instead, they paid a logistics company to have 3 operatives collect the engines on trolleys, load them onto an artic so paying for a hgv driver, drive them 300yds to the ECC and physically unload them 🤣🤣🤣. For about 5 years!!!! The overhead would have cost maybe £150k to install, that would have paid itself back in 2 years max. 

Ford, engine gets built wrongly, press a button, goes off to the repair area, gets repaired, goes back on the line at the next process, repeat for maybe 50 engines, and that was in 1980!!!Honda, you can do that once then 3 people had to lift it off onto a trolley!!! Strip a thread and they still had to build the entire thing, then dismantle it, then rebuild it, Ford, strip any useful parts and straight in the bin. 

I think it's mainly due to Honda producing day 700 cars a day and Ford making probably 5 times that, time is certainly money in that respect. 

I reckon the sales may well have gone up a lot this year as they gave the staff a huge discount off their cars paid from their redundancy when they left. 

Can't blame you for being a fanboy, they made some great stuff over the years!!! 

[vaughant]

45 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Interesting stuff, what’s the thinking behind that?

In Honda they used a company called Grob to supply machines to produce engines. Any issues, Grob were finding getting parts etc was a nightmare, huge leaf times and so on. They were in the process of setting up a UK base to do it all. 

Pretty sure they can get a nice favourable tax deal as well in the UK but it's much harder to do in Europe. 

Right now, engineering is mental and there's a massive lack of skilled labour, which is good news for me 😀😀

[Angrydicky]

Shouldn't this be in the modern blob imeancar section?

[SiC]

2 minutes ago, vaughant said:

The basic tech they use is pretty much copied from other manufacturers but  brought out much later when reliability is proven.

100% and I think most Honda fans, especially those that work on them, know this. They also appreciate this as it often makes them easier to fix too.

Like my top spec 2015 9th gen Civic gained several things over my previous 2007 8th gen top spec civic. Speed limiter cruise, auto dimming rear view mirror and keyless start/stop + locking. All of which I had as standard in my 2005 Laguna II v6!!

Even the 1.8 n/a petrol is old tech. Pretty much all manufacturers had moved to direct injection by 2015 on their engines. This is still (good old) multi point injection.

It was one of the primary reasons I bought yet another Civic.

29 minutes ago, vaughant said:

While their cars were produced really well, from an engineering plant point of view it was very much 3rd world compared to any large scale engineering place I've ever worked and never seemed to have any investment. 

Have you seen the 9th gen window regulator? Ours has been making some weird clonking noises, so I bought a genuine replacement on eBay... I last saw a design like that on my pre-80s BL cars. 🤣

[SiC]

21 minutes ago, Angrydicky said:

Shouldn't this be in the modern blob imeancar section?

No.

It'll effects what many on here will buy in a decade!

[Mally]

6 minutes ago, SiC said:

No.

It'll effects what many on here will buy in a decade!

Right.

Put it on here in 10 years time then.

[MrBiscuits]

2 hours ago, Timewaster said:

I would say it is at least a fair jump rather than a short hop. In cities the capacity is probably there. But many cities underground cables are old and close to if not over capacity. 

I think the street light idea is a non starter. 

They run a 16a fuse from pretty small cables often daisy chained over great distances.  Households with 60a fuses are needing an upgrade to supply a car charger. 

I've seen some street lights running off little more than bell wire. 

Street light charging is already working here in Portsmouth. There's one right opposite my house. It was installed in a couple of hours. No cable work - just a box about the size of a toaster strapped to the lamp post.

Granted it's not a hyper charger, but one on every other lamp would give a lot of people with on street parking the chance to top up overnight. 

All our street lights were swapped for LEDs a couple of years ago so I expect the cables have a lot of unused capacity now. All these problems are solvable with enough incentive. 

[Timewaster]

5 minutes ago, MrBiscuits said:

Street light charging is already working here in Portsmouth. There's one right opposite my house. It was installed in a couple of hours. No cable work - just a box about the size of a toaster strapped to the lamp post.

Granted it's not a hyper charger, but one on every other lamp would give a lot of people with on street parking the chance to top up overnight. 

I might look into that when I get a few minutes. 

I am intrigued what sort of capacity charger that is. 

[Jerzy Woking]

So if some/many/any of these compamies abandone the UK, what will be the spares situation?

I cannot see why the UK government stated zero emmissions by 2030. Do they know something about battery range, etc to be able to predict all manufacturers will have everything everyone demands of a car by then?

[sierraman]

9 minutes ago, Jerzy Woking said:

So if some/many/any of these compamies abandone the UK, what will be the spares situation?

I cannot see why the UK government stated zero emmissions by 2030. Do they know something about battery range, etc to be able to predict all manufacturers will have everything everyone demands of a car by then?

Like a lot of subjects the Government flys into the fog and hopes for the best. 

[Jerzy Woking]

14 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Like a lot of subjects the Government flys into the fog and hopes for the best. 

And if the manufacturers turn round in 2028 and say "We can't do it", what would happen? I really can see something along those lines happening.

[catsinthewelder]

I think it's sensible to enforce electric only by 2030, the only issue is they should have announced it about 2005.

[bigstraight6]

1 minute ago, Jerzy Woking said:

And if the manufacturers turn round in 2028 and say "We can't do it", what would happen? I really can see something along those lines happening.

A big U turn as the wheels are literally falling off the policies being blindly pursued currently.

[sierraman]

3 minutes ago, Jerzy Woking said:

And if the manufacturers turn round in 2028 and say "We can't do it", what would happen? I really can see something along those lines happening.

They won’t go ‘we can’t do it’, it’ll just be the usual case of private school educated people making decisions on behalf of the average working person of whom they’ve no concept of what it’s like to go out to work and have to find money for things.

[carburettor]

2 hours ago, grogee said:

Interesting points, to which I'd add a couple of things:

1) there's very little lithium in li-ion cells, despite the name. Although a rise won't be good news for manufacturers, it will create more demand for lithium which in turn may encourage more/better recycling of used cells (something the world is largely ignoring at present).

2) What you say about hydrogen is true. Unless it's generated by splitting water using 100% renewable energy, it's just shifting the problem somewhere else. Which brings me to

3) Infrastructure for electric cars is a short hop away from complete. After all, how many homes don't have electricity? Or electric street lamps outside? 

It's tricky for cities and flat dwellers I admit but not insurmountable. In contrast, hydrogen is a non-starter in terms of useable, ready infrastructure. There's a handful of pilot schemes like TRL and Honda and that's it. Why would you choose to invest in supplying hydrogen, when you could invest in the already accepted electric infrastructure?

Nobody can go and buy and use a hydrogen car today. Everybody can buy an electric car today. Some can even use it if they've got a suitable charge point to use. 

I readily admit that electricity production has its own environmental cost, but it does at least move the local NOx problem away from city centres. EVs are a step towards greener transport that are fully compatible with any future improvement in renewable supply. 

If only our twattish government would persue renewables...

I’m not 100% sure but I think you can but the Toyota Mirai in this country, it is powered by Hydrogen. It’s hellish ugly though, it makes the Prius look reasonable.

[catsinthewelder]

1 minute ago, Jerzy Woking said:

And if the manufacturers turn round in 2028 and say "We can't do it", what would happen? I really can see something along those lines happening.

I imagine the government will tell them to FRO.  There are quite a few on the market now, most of the main manufacturers have something in the range and smaller marques like Suzuki and Subaru (oh them again) will have to make one or leave the UK.

Point taken @sierraman but when's the last time you bought a new car?  I'm guessing your first electric car will be a 20 year old electric Focus around 2045 😉

[carburettor]

15 minutes ago, Jerzy Woking said:

And if the manufacturers turn round in 2028 and say "We can't do it", what would happen? I really can see something along those lines happening.

Jaguar (and Land Rover?) have stated that they will be all EV by 2025, seems a little optimistic 🥸

[SiC]

20 minutes ago, Jerzy Woking said:

And if the manufacturers turn round in 2028 and say "We can't do it", what would happen? I really can see something along those lines happening.

The Chinese manufacturers will say "we can do it and have been for a decade" and sell loads of cars at the expense of Western manufacturers. It's why most western manufacturers are scrabbling to catch up at the moment.

China car manufacturers had a head start in electric cars as they had no proper indigenous engine manufacturing technology and their cities were already getting clogged up with fumes. So they saw the future (certainly for their own country) and it made sense for their manufacturers to pile into electric propulsion. 

[SiC]

4 hours ago, grogee said:

I readily admit that electricity production has its own environmental cost, but it does at least move the local NOx problem away from city centres.

Centralised generation of energy is a lot easier to control emissions too. Especially compared to the millions of individual energy converting devices (engines) that we currently use. Just look at the amount of DPF, EGR, etc defeat devices and removal. that are so commonly used on cars by end users, all which increase emissions past what was originally intended.

[sierraman]

11 minutes ago, catsinthewelder said:

I imagine the government will tell them to FRO.  There are quite a few on the market now, most of the main manufacturers have something in the range and smaller marques like Suzuki and Subaru (oh them again) will have to make one or leave the UK.

Point taken @sierraman but when's the last time you bought a new car?  I'm guessing your first electric car will be a 20 year old electric Focus around 2045 😉

I take your point! Wonder what the second hand car market will look like then. 

[catsinthewelder]

Terrifying I imagine 😲 

I feel like I really need to look after my veg friendly 405.

[bigstraight6]

23 minutes ago, catsinthewelder said:

I imagine the government will tell them to FRO.  There are quite a few on the market now, most of the main manufacturers have something in the range and smaller marques like Suzuki and Subaru (oh them again) will have to make one or leave the UK.

Point taken @sierraman but when's the last time you bought a new car?  I'm guessing your first electric car will be a 20 year old electric Focus around 2045 😉

Like old sierrageezer I’ve never bought a new car, and electric ones will be likely have fucked batteries by 10 years old so a 20 year old electric Focus will never exist!

[SiC]

12 minutes ago, bigstraight6 said:

Like old sierrageezer I’ve never bought a new car, and electric ones will be likely have fucked batteries by 10 years old so a 20 year old electric Focus will never exist!

Average age of a car before being scrapped is 13.9yrs in the UK iirc. Most cars currently are well on their way to be fucked by 10 years old anyway! Yet we still have 20yr old cars.

But the data from electric cars so far is that they are pretty durable. Even hybrids like the Prius last for hundreds of thousands of miles.

Batteries by definition are made up of multiple cells. Those cells can be and are replaceable. You'll see a cottage industry appearing to rebuild these (expensive) packs.

[catsinthewelder]

5 minutes ago, bigstraight6 said:

Like old sierrageezer I’ve never bought a new car, and electric ones will be likely have fucked batteries by 10 years old so a 20 year old electric Focus will never exist!

Neither have I but I've been vaguely looking at 10 year old electric cars for when my Focus dies and the batteries are lasting fairly well.

[sierraman]

I think as there’s less moving friction bits to go wrong then maybe couple of grand on refurbing the batteries might not be such a big deal. Who fucking knows, I expect someone will find out in 20 years.