Stellantis To Invest £100m In Ellesmere Port Plant

Published Date: 8th Jul 2021

Vauxhall owners  are set to invest £100 million in their Ellesmere Port car plant. The announcement is more good news for the UK economy and workforce, following the announcement that Nissan will be investing £1 billion in their Sunderland plant with a new ‘EV Hub’.

Stellantis who own a string of car brands including Vauxhall, Citroen, Peugeot, and Fiat will use the investment to prepare the plant for the manufacture of electric vans and cars. The new plans should secure around 1000 jobs at the plant and a further 3000 along the supply chain.

As part of the investment the plant will be kitted out with a new state-of-the-art production line for assembling batteries for EV vehicles.

There has been a lot of speculation about the future of the Ellesmere Port plant, especially during the uncertainty of the drawn-out BREXIT saga, this positive news will certainly be a boost to the local area and workforce,

Stellantis say several full electric vans and passenger vehicles will produced at the plant including the Vauxhall Combo-e van and its passenger vehicle counterpart the Combo-e Life, the Peugeot e-Partner van and e-Rifter 7-seater passenger vehicle, and the Citroën e-Berlingo van and passenger models.

Car manufacturing has suffered during the Pandemic for several reasons including a shortage of components, in particular microchips (sometimes called semi-conductors).

Microchips play a huge part in today’s hi-tech vehicles; required for tech like driver and safety aids, infotainment systems and range of features, meaning a single vehicle can need a large number of microchips.

During the pandemic, manufacturers of microchips have been prioritising the consumer electronics industries, leaving car and van manufacturers under-supplied. Good news recently came from Bosch a key supplier of microchips to the motoring industry who  announced a £1 billion investment in a new microchip factory in Dresden, Germany.