Can't read the article because it requires an FT subscription but I can guess what it says.
I think it's a bluff by them, yes they are already moving the Freelander production abroad but there is no way they would drastically reduce their UK based operations and manufacturing simply because it's the Britishness that sells the brands (particularly in a luxury segment). BMW knew it with Mini and Rolls Royce, VW knew it with Bentley etc. The demand for their vehicles would fall off a cliff if they were made abroad imo.
BMW are doing the same with Mini.
The industry is currently making plans to do just what you think they will not, they will.
My own (advertised) as very Swedish Volvo, isn't built in Sweden.
The likes of the very top end will stay, but JLR isn't quite at that level and Mini certainly aren't. Oh and modern Bentleys have been built in Germany, due to demand Flying Spurs were built in Dresden in 2005 and 2006 (for markets outside of the UK and US), JLR already has plants in India, China and South America (being added to with Slovakia and the i-Pace and e-Pace come out of Austria); Mini's are pretty much built any damn place they can, with BMW adding capacity to those plants over the UK ones.
Automotive investment in the UK has fallen off a cliff since the vote, down from £2.5 billion in 2015 to £1.66bn in 2017 (the lowest level ever), the first six months of this year are even worse sitting at £322m (which is repeated in the second half would be £644m and a under half the already all time low of last year).
Brexit has the potential to utterly change the UK motor industry, and not for the better (which is what the industry
professional and
trade bodies - the professional one of which I'm a member of - have been warning about since day one). I can assure you that JLR are not bluffing, nor is any other manufacturer currently based in the UK.
When 80% of the product ends up being exported (the bulk of which goes to Europe), and 66% of the components in those vehicles come from abroad its a no brainer. Any increase in time in customs and/or tariff costs in either direction will push up costs to the point of being untenable. When the bulk of the components come from Europe and the bulk of the vehicles end up in Europe it's not exactly a stretch to see where production will then end up!
Yes Bentley, Rolls and McLaren may well stay in the UK, but that's a tiny fraction of the UK workforce in the industry. The potential (and medium to long term very real) loss of Vauxhall, BMW/Mini, Honda, Nissan, Toyota, etc in terms of manufacturing would destroy the economies of a number of large UK towns and city (including the one I'm sat in typing this - we stand to lose BMW/Mini and Honda - both the plants and the UK side of the supply chain and the associated companies).
That's without even looking at the impact it would have on the UK retail network and the 3rd party supply chain that relies on that (which I work in).
So no, I don't, sitting right inside this particular industry, think for a minute this is people trying to call the UK governments bluff. In reality its actually been a clear, consistent and accurate series of warnings from an entire industry that the UK government and the Leave campaign have repeatedly ignored (as they had enough of experts).
