British government drags its feet, Tata threatens to cancel Indica EV for the UK
In January, the UK government set aside £2.3 billion for loan guarantees to help automakers start producing electric cars on the island. In April, Tata applied for £10 billion from the program to build its Indica Vista EV. Last week the Indian firm was told that it would be another eight weeks before the Department for Business Innovation and Skills would decide on Tata's application.
Tata can't understand what the holdup is and plans to deliver a petition to the minister in charge of the program to make its case. It can't help that while Tata waits it's watching UK government figures give speeches at Nissan facilities in an attempt to woo the Japanese automaker to produce electric cars in England. Nor can it help that Tata's Norwegian arm has already been approved by for a loan by the Norwegian government to make electric cars there.
Tata is also waiting on its €340 billion European Investment Bank loan to be approved by the UK government. That loan was for Jaguar and Land Rover aid, but the issue of both loans is said to be about the British government wanting to make sure that Tata can repay the money. If the government doesn't decide soon, they might have much bigger things to deliberate on -- like more job losses at JLR...
[Source: Guardian]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Avinash machado 8:07AM (7/22/2009)
340 billion?
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Motor_Yakuza 8:11AM (7/22/2009)
Can you believe that nerve that this indians have, they really think that they can blackmail the brit gov a crappy, ugly ev, and this after they wanted money just to build a new LR model.
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homunculus 8:23AM (7/22/2009)
10 million and 340 million
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CityWok 8:27AM (7/22/2009)
The numbers in this story don't make sense... They're asking for £10B when the program is £2.3B? I'm also thinking the 340B number is just a bit off. That would be close to 15% of the entire United States annual budget for this year.
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summazooma 8:30AM (7/22/2009)
Decimal point chaos?
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Avinash machado 8:47AM (7/22/2009)
Seems to be an influx of spammers nowadays in the comments section here.
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figo 9:34AM (7/22/2009)
motor_yakuza... i wud love to see your racist face when these indians actually get the money. wud love another racist comment from your trash.
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Wobbly_ears 10:31AM (7/22/2009)
Interesting to see automakers are the same, whether European, American or Asian.
"Gimme money or else!!"
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Gardiner Westbound 12:47PM (7/22/2009)
Sounds like extortion.
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Patrick 3:17PM (7/22/2009)
Come on Tata, build the plant anyway and dare them to deny the money. That's what Hyundai would do.
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P.V. 9:08PM (7/22/2009)
That's a shame (unless the EV is based off of the older Indica), because the new one is an extremely competitive small car.
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braunarsch 10:35AM (7/24/2009)
its 340---MILLION, not BILLION.... if you want to write based on sources, i think you should check again and correct those numbers
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Darsh 8:37AM (7/24/2009)
Motor_Yakuza: You need your head examined. If British government fails to meet Tata's requirement then it won't cost an iota to Tata, since it'd be the British jobs (at Jaguar and Land Rover in West Midlands & Merseyside) that would be at stake. Questions is during the recession, can British government really play Russian roulette with hundreds of British jobs ??? They may as well pay the money to Tata, after all, whatever they pay would always remain peanuts compared to what's plundered out of India for centuries during their evil Empire :)
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