Is Stellantis preparing to say bye bye to the UK?
Stellantis warns the British Parliament: if the post-Brexit agreements do not change, the production of electric cars in the United Kingdom is at risk. All the details
Dutch carmaker Stellantis has sent a warning message to the British parliament: review Brexit trade rules, or some operations in the country will close.
Stellantis is the fourth largest automobile manufacturer in the world. It refers to Exor, the holding company led by John Elkann, which is the largest investor with a 14.4 percent share.
STELLANTIS' WARNING TO THE UNITED KINGDOM
In a document presented to the British Parliament as part of an inquiry into the production of electric vehicles, Stellantis says that if Brexit trade rules are not renegotiated to avoid the imposition of tariffs on exports of electric cars from the United Kingdom to the Union European Union, it may have to close parts of its business in the country: employment and the entire British car industry would suffer.
“If the production costs of electric vehicles in the UK become uncompetitive and unsustainable, businesses will close down”, writes the company in its report to the BEIS committee (the one dedicated to energy and industrial strategy) of the British parliament.
The Associated Press reported that Stellantis executives met with economic affairs secretary and Brexit advocate Kemi Badenoch to discuss their concerns.
THE BRITISH PRESENCE OF STELLANTIS
In addition to the Italian FIAT and the French Peugeot, among others, Stellantis also owns the British car brand Vauxhall and has two large plants in the country, one in Luton and the other in Ellesmere Port. It has around five thousand employees in the UK and is working on the electrification of its vehicle offering.
Two years ago the company announced a £100m investment in Ellesmere Port to redevelop the site for the production of electric cars.
WHAT BREXIT HAS FOR ELECTRIC CARS
The current Brexit deal stipulates that 45 per cent of the total value of an electric vehicle sold in the European Union must come from either the EU or the UK. But the free trade treaty between Brussels and London contains stricter rules of origin that raise that threshold from 45 to 65 percent by 2024.
As a result, Stellantis electric cars could face a 10 percent tariff. For this reason, the company is asking the British authorities to maintain the current rules until 2027.
STELLANTIS HAS PROBLEMS WITH THE BATTERIES
Stellantis, in fact, does not currently have the capacity to produce the batteries to be mounted on its electric vehicles by itself and has to rely on imports from Asia and Europe. The new trade rules would cause logistics costs to rise, consequently making the UK a less convenient place for car manufacturing. Stellantis cites the recent examples of BMW and Honda, which precisely because of Brexit have moved their activities to China and the United States.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/stellantis-regno-unito-brexit/ on Thu, 18 May 2023 09:23:08 +0000.