Europe's Car Makers in Crisis

Europe's car makers are in crisis, with rearmament seen as a potential solution to boost production and save the industry.

Ford is part of a joint venture with General Dynamics and Ricardo bidding for a Ministry of Defence contract to supply 9,000 vehicles over five to seven years.

The UK car industry and its suppliers are heavily reliant on a few big manufacturers, making them vulnerable to underutilization of capacity.

Stellantis - owners of the Vauxhall, Fiat, Peugeot and Citroen marques - has taken a 20% stake in Chinese EV maker Leapmotor and production of the Chinese brand started in Poland two years ago.

Nissan and Chery International UK have signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding for the study of contract manufacturing for Nissan to manufacture Chery vehicles at its Sunderland plant.

VW CEO Oliver Blume said in April this year that Volkswagen was considering sharing spare European factory capacity with Chinese joint-venture partners.

Some plants may only perform final assembly while many of the components - especially batteries - may continue to come from China.

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Car making is still seen as central to countries' sovereign manufacturing capability - in the old days the mantra was: 'What's good for General Motors is good for America. ' You could say the same for Volkswagen, Mercedes and BMW for Germany and JLR for the UK.

Car plants are often the major employer in their area and support local supply chains, so job losses can hit particularly hard. That's why countries go to great lengths to protect and preserve them.

Stellantis - owners of the Vauxhall, Fiat, Peugeot and Citroen marques - has taken a 20% stake in Chinese EV maker Leapmotor and production of the Chinese brand started in Poland two years ago. Nissan and Chery International UK have signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding for the study of