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| No, Anglesey Council had nothing to do with it this time......... |
It's estimated that the automotive sector is worth £3billion to the Welsh economy, once the supply chain is taken into account. Automotive exports from Wales were worth £428million in 2009, making it the sixth largest Welsh export group. This is despite falls in the previous year, and early statistics for 2010 show that automotive exports had recovered somewhat.
Since the 1970's Wales has done well in securing automotive direct investment, second only to the West Midlands in this respect. Many of the big players are still here, for example Ford in Bridgend and Toyota on Deeside. However, Wales has also lost a lot of automotive jobs in recent years, like Visteon in Swansea and TRW in Resolven.
Car manufacturing may well be big business, but it's no longer labour intensive. In the early part of the noughties, key UK car manufacturers underwent fundamental restructuring, with significant job losses, foreign takeovers and plant closures. Down the supply chain, this will have had an impact on Wales. Wales doesn't manufacture cars, it manufactures car parts.
An interesting story has emerged from Ynys Mon in the Holyhead and Anglesey Mail. Electric sports car manufacturer Lightning Car Company, based in London, approached the WAG in 2009 with a proposal for a manufacturing plant at Parc Cybi in Holyhead, potentially creating 400 much needed skilled jobs. According to Anglesey Telegraph, the public investment involved was a measly £150,000. Ieuan Wyn Jones has seemingly dithered and issued a characteristically glib response saying he "didn't remember" any meeting on the issue. If you were economy minister and someone offered 400 jobs to an economically depressed area, in exchange for £150,000, you would have to be a bit dim not to take it, wouldn't you?
Or has IWJ been a lot shrewder than first appears?
Car making is not only big business, it's expensive business. To get a new car off the ground takes multi-million pound investment (both private and sometimes public), significant marketing and a unique angle in a crowded marketplace.
In the late 1970's/early 1980's DeLorean opened a car manufacturing plant in Dunmurry near Belfast, with heavy government assistance. This was a significant investment at the time considering the impact of "the Troubles". The car itself (DMC-12) was a flop, selling half the break even figure. DeLorean lobbied hard for even more state backing to remain a going concern but unrelated backroom investigations by the US authorites pushed the company over the edge, hampering efforts to stay afloat. They went bankrupt, taking $100million and 2,500 jobs with them.
Although not a like-for-like comparison with the Parc Cybi story, it's an example of how hard it is for new car companies to get a foothold. It's even harder when it comes to electric cars.......
Lightning, as of 2011, have 50 cars "on order". Not bad for an independent company and it's something to build on. They also have the "unique" point, an electric sports car, but do they have the marketing exposure or the kind of background private investment to sustain 400 jobs, or justify public sector investment? I think this is a point those who criticise IWJ, rightly or wrongly, have missed.
How soon would £150,000 become £1.5million, then £15million, then £50million?
How soon would 400 jobs become 300, then 200, then 50?
Stevens Vehicles, based in Port Talbot also manufacture electric vehicles. Crucially relevant to the Parc Cybi story, they actually received Assembly backing. They've found out how difficult it is to get a foothold in the electric car business. Electric vehicles (currently) don't have the range to make them viable for anything other than short urban journeys. There's hardly any way to recharge them in public without a lengthy wait making them unsuitable for medium and long distance travel.
Until the research and technology is there to make electric vehicles a genuine alternative to petrol/diesel (even perhaps hydrogen) in terms of range and fuelling, it's stuck in a technological cul-de-sac. Stevens Vehicles are rumoured to have only sold 3 vehicles in 2 years and currently don't even have a (working) website. I hope that just means they're positioning themselves for bigger and better things but it doesn't look good on the surface does it?
And guess who welcomed their move to Wales and the public investment? I don't need to tell you.
An interesting story has emerged from Ynys Mon in the Holyhead and Anglesey Mail. Electric sports car manufacturer Lightning Car Company, based in London, approached the WAG in 2009 with a proposal for a manufacturing plant at Parc Cybi in Holyhead, potentially creating 400 much needed skilled jobs. According to Anglesey Telegraph, the public investment involved was a measly £150,000. Ieuan Wyn Jones has seemingly dithered and issued a characteristically glib response saying he "didn't remember" any meeting on the issue. If you were economy minister and someone offered 400 jobs to an economically depressed area, in exchange for £150,000, you would have to be a bit dim not to take it, wouldn't you?
Or has IWJ been a lot shrewder than first appears?
Car making is not only big business, it's expensive business. To get a new car off the ground takes multi-million pound investment (both private and sometimes public), significant marketing and a unique angle in a crowded marketplace.
In the late 1970's/early 1980's DeLorean opened a car manufacturing plant in Dunmurry near Belfast, with heavy government assistance. This was a significant investment at the time considering the impact of "the Troubles". The car itself (DMC-12) was a flop, selling half the break even figure. DeLorean lobbied hard for even more state backing to remain a going concern but unrelated backroom investigations by the US authorites pushed the company over the edge, hampering efforts to stay afloat. They went bankrupt, taking $100million and 2,500 jobs with them.
Although not a like-for-like comparison with the Parc Cybi story, it's an example of how hard it is for new car companies to get a foothold. It's even harder when it comes to electric cars.......
Lightning, as of 2011, have 50 cars "on order". Not bad for an independent company and it's something to build on. They also have the "unique" point, an electric sports car, but do they have the marketing exposure or the kind of background private investment to sustain 400 jobs, or justify public sector investment? I think this is a point those who criticise IWJ, rightly or wrongly, have missed.
How soon would £150,000 become £1.5million, then £15million, then £50million?
How soon would 400 jobs become 300, then 200, then 50?
Stevens Vehicles, based in Port Talbot also manufacture electric vehicles. Crucially relevant to the Parc Cybi story, they actually received Assembly backing. They've found out how difficult it is to get a foothold in the electric car business. Electric vehicles (currently) don't have the range to make them viable for anything other than short urban journeys. There's hardly any way to recharge them in public without a lengthy wait making them unsuitable for medium and long distance travel.
Until the research and technology is there to make electric vehicles a genuine alternative to petrol/diesel (even perhaps hydrogen) in terms of range and fuelling, it's stuck in a technological cul-de-sac. Stevens Vehicles are rumoured to have only sold 3 vehicles in 2 years and currently don't even have a (working) website. I hope that just means they're positioning themselves for bigger and better things but it doesn't look good on the surface does it?
And guess who welcomed their move to Wales and the public investment? I don't need to tell you.
"Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice.........."
No wonder IWJ "didn't remember" anything about the Anglesey meeting.
IWJ might have pushed Ynys Mon out of the path of what could have been a very costly, and embarrassing, Sinclair C5-shaped bullet. Or he could just as easily be kicking himself (and being kicked by his constituents) down the line. Judging by the record of other independent electric car manufacturers, I doubt he'll be losing sleep over it.
That doesn't mean that he shouldn't be doing his damnedest to ensure investment on Ynys Mon. It doesn't excuse him (or the DET), but it doesn't condemn him either. If anything he can come out of it better than the headlines suggest in the cold light of day. If this is an "ace up the sleeve" in trying to pile pressure on IWJ in the run up to May, whoever's doing so will have to do a lot better.
Electric cars won't take off until Jeremy Clarkson is nearing vinegar strokes driving one and you can travel the length of Great Britain quicker than you would in Tudor England (once recharging stops are taken into consideration).
None of this means that electric vehicles don't have their uses in the present, or that they don't have future potential. It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that oil dependency is a dead end. Perhaps that £150,000 would be best invested in electric vehicle research after all....
IWJ has turned down a few other investments too- he won't throw money at anything that doesn't look like value for money. It's only in Wales that Tories are happy to suspend their conservatism and belief in the market and call instead for public money to be thrown at everything.
ReplyDeleteLong live IWJ! The good people of Ynys Mon like him
and will re-elect him in May.