The ailing Ellesmere Port plant in Vauxhall, northwest England, will now manufacture electric vehicles, the brand’s parent company Stellantis has said.
The Cheshire site will receive a £ 100million investment after two years of uncertainty.
Its future was uncertain after its owner said in 2019 that he wanted to build the new Astra car there but that would depend on the outcome of Brexit, which was not settled until December.
The new deal was backed by the government, Stellantis said, as was the Nissan plant announcement last week.
Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said in a video message that the move was “a huge vote of confidence in our economy, in the people of Ellesmere Port and in our fantastic post-Brexit trade relationship”.
Next year Ellesmere Port will produce Vauxhall Combo-e, Peugeot e-Partner and Citroën e-Berlingo vans and their passenger car variants for domestic and overseas markets.
Stellantis, headquartered in Amsterdam, was born in January from the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot. The site will be its first site dedicated to battery electric vehicles for its Vauxhall, Peugeot and Citroën brands.
According to union Unite, up to 7,000 supply chain workers depend on the factory for their livelihoods.
Stellantis said the plant will be modernized with “a new body shop, improved general assembly, site area compression and the creation of an on-site battery pack.”
The conglomerate said it wants Ellesmere Port to be carbon neutral by the middle of this decade and is exploring the creation of wind and solar farms to become self-sufficient in electricity.
More about this article: Read More
Source: www.independent.co.uk
This notice was published: 2021-07-06 13:15:04
