Vauxhall Motors owner Stellantis plans to shift its UK production hub from Luton to a plant at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, putting around 1,100 jobs at risk.
The move is part of the firm’s shift to producing electric vehicles (EVs) as part of the government’s ZEV (zero-emission vehicles) mandate. The mandate is a series of targets set by the government to ramp up the number of ZEVs produced annually until manufacturing of traditional internal combustion engine vehicles is ditched entirely by 2035.
But mounting pressure from the car industry has led the government to announce it will launch a fast-track consultation on the mandate as producers are concerned that targets will be difficult to meet.
Despite this, Stellantis has said the “stringent” targets necessitate a consolidation of its UK manufacturing hubs. It said it hopes to be able to move many of the jobs that could be lost at its Luton plant over to Ellesmere Port.
In 2021, Stellantis invested £100m in Ellesmere Port to transform...