delusionofgrandeur

Britain’s famous Land Rover assembly lines will not be operating tomorrow or next Thursday as workers at the Solihull plant have been told to prepare for a ‘four-day week’.

The move by Land Rover management is believed to be as a result of diminished sales due to the UK credit crunch affecting both private and corporate car buyers.

The Solihull work force has been told to report as normal but will likely stand idle as the lines are shut down to save on power and material costs. This may also serve to prevent a large stockpile of vehicles forming which would be presumably expensive to store.

Land Rover was recently bought from Ford by Indian company Tata who have stated an intent to keep Land Rover manufacturing in the UK. However, the costs of the UK operation will undoubtly be playing on the minds of the board at Tata who will know they could call on far cheaper labour and facilities at their other plants across the globe.

My guess at Land Rover’s best course of action would be to press ahead swiftly with the development of the new ‘Baby Land Rover’, making it the lightest design possible and trying to squeak-out the highest possible fuel economy. A low price point would be beneficial too but there are many constraints on this, not least the soaring cost of raw materials.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Automotive, Cars, Credit Crunch, Economy, News.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.