Why ship raw materials 5000 miles to a factory in a high tax high rent high labour-cost red-tape ridden politically correct and Health and Safety hell hole?
Partly because of political concerns, I suspect - but largely due to transport costs and manufacturing infrastructure. Transporting relatively small amounts of stuff to be made into something makes far more sense than making the somethings where the stuff is mined, then transporting hugely multiplied tonnages/volumes to the consumer.
Edited by FotheringtonThomas on 21/07/2009 at 00:47
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Well said FT.
I'm really pleased with the news, whatever's good for the factory is good for this whole region, and I think people may be forgetting that it's still business as usual with their other manufacturing operations such as Qashqai and Micra, this is extra work AFAIK, not replacement work.
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what did he say blue?
in laymans terms
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Well said FT. I'm really pleased with the news whatever's good for the factory is good for this whole region
Thank you, Sah. I want one of they there Lightning cars, I do, but even if the cost of the batteries drops to 0 I *still* won't be able to afford one, bother it.
Hello clouds, hello sky, hello Lightning car - SCREEEEE!!!! Hello new tyres, hello plug & socket.
Actually, I'd say it would be best to retain garages, but as "power suppliers" (which they are at the moment). Just drive in, and swap your part-used battery for a fully-charged one (or two or three or four standard batteries for more powerful cars).
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back in the real world
its a political joke
and im not laughing
2000 workers going at the steel plant next door and nissan are going to be making batteries
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2000 workers going at the steel plant next door and nissan are going to be making batteries
It's a good thing about the batteries - it's a shame about the steel works. They aren't the same thing, though. The price of steel has dropped hugely - this is even reflected in scrap values (I mentioned getting £100 for a scrapped Cavalier over a year ago - the last price quoted to me was £20 for a car, and it may not even be that much now. The steelworks in question has lost major contract sales, too.
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BB - He pointed out the reason why it makes sense to make the batteries here, regardless of the fact that one of the components is sourced in China.
There may be 2000 jobs going at the steel works, but it's better this way than lose the jobs at the steelworks AND at Nissan surely?
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.. and when our roads are full of clean, electric cars is that the end of VED over the £35 rate. ?
If so, how do the government intend to make up the shortfall in tax revenue. I'll bet it's a case of four batteries are clean and green but 8 batteries are dirty planet killers so must be punished by a higher VED rate.
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and an extra charge to dispose of the old batteries so we will see them dumped everywhere MR X
As for the price of scrap its tumbled as a direct result of the scrappage scheme pushing lots of cars to the end of life centres and so obviously the price will drop, its simple economics ,oh and it was £80 a tonne 4 weeks ago before the scheme got fully into gear
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and an extra charge to dispose of the old batteries so we will see them dumped everywhere MR X
They're recyclable, just like lead acid car batteries. They are worth money, so won't be dumped.
As for the price of scrap its tumbled as a direct result of the scrappage scheme pushing lots of cars to the end of life centres and so obviously the price will drop its simple economics oh and it was £80 a tonne 4 weeks ago before the scheme got fully into gear
It's not a result of the car scrappage scheme, which in total will provides a fraction of one monhs production. Global steel production is massively down:
www.steelonthenet.com/production.html
The price for scrap cars is quite interesting (I mean real scrap, not recycling components). I scrapped a car just over a year ago, and got £100. Some months (4?) after this, the price was £20. I called a scrap metal merchant just now, who quoted £60, saying "a couple of months ago it was £40". There will be variations caused by the price of copper, aluminium, waste disposal, but most is steel.
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FT
from your link last paragrapgh
quote--------Chinese steel imports in May reached their highest monthly level since September 2005 at 2.36 million tonnes. 55% of the total May imports were semis (mostly slabs) and hot rolled wide coil. Chinese exports in May dropped to 1.29 million tonnes, the lowest monthly level since April 2004. May was the third month in a row where the balance of trade was negative, exceeding one million tonnes for the first time since June 2004.----------------end quote
have you read that?
do you understand what it means?
:-)
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FT from your link last paragrapgh quote--------Chinese steel imports in May reached their highest monthly level since ... do you understand what it means?
Yes. Imports/exports are not production. Actual global steel production is down nearly 1/4 year on year in Q1 2009.
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They havent lost contracts FT the contracts have been withdrawn
a contract is a contract you cant just pull out and say we arent interested ,one of the main players that pulled out was an italian company
look at the price of the pound to the euro ,its now up to £1.14, that tells me we are riding the storm and europe has to have a big fall,its been coming for 16 months but i really dont think the media like the bbc is reprting it enough
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Thanks everyone for your warm welcome?s. You?ve given me a lot to think about. There I was just happy that some of our car manufacturers could keep their jobs but at a cost of even more pollution is sad actually. The whole low-carbon thing is suppose to create jobs in the process. I saw another article today about the low-carbon busses in Surrey that have been launched last week and will be effective in Surrey starting begin of next year. Could electric cars be that far off then?
Anyways I love all your insights and think you?ll be seeing a lot of me on this forum.
Cheers
Danny
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There I was just happy that some of our car manufacturers could keep their jobs but at a cost of even more pollution is sad actually.
What's this pollution, then?
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Battery cars will never be more than fringe product. Not even considering the cost/manufacturing/pollution/disposal of batteries.....
They will never have the required capacity/weight
They will get more dangerous with every "advance" in capacity/charging - they are blooming dangerous now.
There will never be a suitable charging infrastructure to support overnight charging, never mind fast charging (consider one car per household and how much electricity you need to generate)
Diesel powered engines will always blow electric cars out of the water for overall efficiency and life time green credentials.
No one ever talks about electric car inefficencies i.e.
Power station generation - 50%
Transmission/substation efficiency - 90%
Battery charger ac/dc conversion - 85%
Battery charging/discharge energy efficiency - 80%
Motor control - 80%
Motor electromechanical efficiency - 80%
Ball park overall efficiency of < 20%
Compare with >40% for diesels, some are >50%
Nissan/Toyota are playing a game to get government money for free.
BTW history shows that 3rd world countries rich in resouces are alway raped/pillaged by 1st world countries for the raw material so that the 1st world countries can continue to live their life styles.
Edited by brum on 21/07/2009 at 19:30
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No one ever talks about electric car inefficencies i.e. Power station generation - 50% Transmission/substation efficiency - 90% Battery charger ac/dc conversion - 85% Battery charging/discharge energy efficiency - 80% Motor control - 80% Motor electromechanical efficiency - 80% Ball park overall efficiency of < 20% Compare with >40% for diesels some are >50%
I'm not sure wether your figures are right or wrong but the figures you give for an electric car is for the whole process. The one figure you give for a diesel is from the tank, the fuel doesn't magically appear in there! Its extracted, refined, pumped for miles, transported onto a tanker, transported thousands of miles via tanker, offloaded, shipped by road to the fuel station, pumped into the fuel station. You then pump the fuel into your car. So whats the overall efficency of all that then?
Of course then there are lots of other things about fuel cars, such as all the oil for the engine, this needs to be recycled, extracted and shipped several times too. Then there are the processes needed to make the engine, gearbox, clutch etc.
With an electric car there is also regeneration under braking or slowing down saving even more energy. Once made an electric car is a very clean device, little maintenance required, so not so much wasted energy having to visit garages.
Edited by carl_a on 22/07/2009 at 22:52
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Battery cars will never be more than fringe product. Not even considering the cost/manufacturing/pollution/disposal of batteries.....
Consider the cost of manufacturing an electric motor compared to that of a IC engine. Where is the pollution in making electric car batteries? Why is it worse than that from making IC engines? What about EOL recycling?
They will never have the required capacity/weight
They already have. If they haven't, then please explain why.
They will get more dangerous with every "advance" in capacity/charging - they are blooming dangerous now.
Interesting. How?
There will never be a suitable charging infrastructure to support overnight charging never mind fast charging (consider one car per household and how much electricity you need to generate)
Pick up your charged batteries at the garage, just as you now pick up fuel.
Diesel powered engines will always blow electric cars out of the water for overall efficiency and life time green credentials.
Shall we have some figures?
No one ever talks about electric car inefficencies .... Ball park overall efficiency of < 20%
Hm. Someone's playing a strange game with their balls in that park...
Compare with >40% for diesels some are >50%
Wow! Which ones? A good car petrol engine is about 25% efficient. What diesel car engine is more than about 35% efficient? I'd really like to know!
Nissan/Toyota are playing a game to get government money for free.
Yup. Business is business, but it doesn't affect the laws of nature (physics, thermodynamics, W.H.Y.).
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FT,
for something like Li-ion batteries the cost of transport, either raw materials or finished product, is totally insignificant.
The biggest proportion will be the cost of mining and refining the Lithium which is the same wherever the batteries are put together. The next highest will be the production costs that are very dependent on where the batteries are made. Employment, energy, regulatory and tax regimes.
Shipping the Lithium gel from somewhere like China so that Gazza in Sunderland can wrap it in plastic and add a charging regulator (probably made in China anyway) does not make business sense unless subsidies and grants outweigh the lower production costs elsewhere for the expected life of the plant.
This is just Gormless Gordon and that disgusting creature Mandelson buying votes again with taxpayer's money, nothing more.
Kevin...
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Come the day we stop giving foreign companies bribes... sorry, meant incentives to operate in the UK, we'll be knocked off our feet by the rush to the airports and deafened by the slamming of factory doors as they shut up shop.
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And the fact that the Sunderland factory is already built and already the most efficient Nissan plant in the EU would have nothing to do with Nissan's decision? No I can see it now, far better to build a plant in China to build the things in a less politically-stable country with an unknown standard of labour.
To clarify - my post is in reply to Kevin.
Edited by Blue {P} on 21/07/2009 at 22:47
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>And the fact that the Sunderland factory is already built..
The battery plant will be a completely new plant.
>No I can see it now, far better to build a plant in China to build the things in a less
>politically-stable country with an unknown standard of labour.
Less politically stable?
Thank-you. That's really brightened my day. You reckon the CPC are going to be routed at the next election?
Unknown standard of labour?
Check almost any piece of electronic gear and you'll find it was manufactured or assembled in China. My Olympus D-SLR was "Made in China", the fibre channel adapters installed in our servers were "Made in China". BT have sourced the kit to upgrade the UK data/voice network from China. Chinese labour standards are far from unknown and assembling batteries won't need many PhDs.
I have alot of sympathy for the Nissan and Corus employees who have been shafted but it still does not alter the fact that this venture does not make business sense for Nissan unless they are getting subsidies and grants courtesy of the UK taxpayer.
Kevin...
PS. Did you mean "politically stable" or politically correct?
Edited by Kevin on 22/07/2009 at 00:29
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Possibly haven't used the right terminology, obviously CPC aren't going out of power anytime soon, possibly politically correct may be closer to what I mean, the impression that I have had of China is that the government basically can have their own way with anything and don't really answer to anyone. Here, one way or another, we are still a democracy.
A lot of the components in your Chinese made gear won't have been made in China, much of it is simply assembled there. It is my (possibly mis-informed) understanding that the work done in the UK will be more than just putting together the ready-made materials but maybe I'm wrong.
Either way, chucking up an extra building on an existing site that is a totally known quantity and hiring (or re-hiring) a few extra staff must be easier than starting from scratch with no workforce and maybe will lead to some sort of trade advantages as within the EU etc?
Besides, if there are any government subsidies, surely we could find out with a simple FOI request or is this not covered?
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'the government basically can have their own way with anything and don't really answer to anyone.'
That sums up the UK perfectly !
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>A lot of the components in your Chinese made gear won't have been made in China, much of it
>is simply assembled there.
20 years ago I might have agreed with you Blue, but it most definitely isn't the case now. In fact the situation is reversed. Many products without a "Made in China" sticker contain components made in China.
>Either way, chucking up an extra building on an existing site that is a totally known quantity..
The UK is only a totally known quantity if you realise that labour costs, business rates, taxes and energy prices will be an order of magnitude higher than either China, Bolivia or Chile. Add in an unstable currency and the prospect of even higher taxes for years to come and the UK is not an attractive place for new business.
It just does not make sense. Unless it's not your money on the line?
>Besides, if there are any government subsidies,
It was part of the announcement that the deal was secured with the offer of grants and loan guarantees "to create the UK's first Low Carbon Economic Area".
In effect, Nissan's £200 million "investment" will be a Govt. backed loan supplemented with Govt. grants.
This whole venture can go TU and Nissan can probably walk away losing next to nothing. The taxpayer is picking up the bill.
Kevin...
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This whole venture can go TU
No, it can't, it's not allowed to, due to the Great Push for Clean Vehicles.
Edited by FotheringtonThomas on 23/07/2009 at 00:12
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Believe me, if the government only spent £200 million to keep the factory here they would be getting a very good deal, if it went TU and we lost it the closure would devastate the region for the foreseeable future with a much higher overall cost to UK PLC.
I work for the second biggest employer in Sunderland and we don't even employ half the staff that they currently do in the factory alone, never mind the supporting industries. There simply aren't enough vacancies available in the north east to soak up the number of unemployed people that would be on the market if Nissan disappeared, well, certainly not the kind of jobs with pay anywhere near the level that Nissan staff earn.
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