The most British of British cars may no longer be a British car…
Markus Duesmann, the head of purchasing for BMW, made the announcement during the week that the company are “extremely concerned that the Brexit talks have been so piecemeal and slow so far.”
The second largest manufacturer of luxury vehicles in the world, BMW produce the Rolls Royce models in their British plants, and combined with other vehicle models, result in £2.4 (€2.7) billion in exports each year.
However, Duesmann said in an interview (via Bloomberg) that: “We’re already revising the logistics channels for the U.K., so that we’ll be able to manage the coming border, whichever duties will be in place in the end.”
This is due to Britain’s exit from the EU, which will most likely result in tariffs and other trade barriers being imposed on its cars and parts, which in turn will hike up the manufacturing and exporting costs of the vehicles.
A direct response to this will be to move the car-making plants abroad – quite possibly Munich, where the BMW headquarters is based – which will then see the Rolls Royce cars manufactured entirely in Germany.
Duesmann’s announcement came just one day after Didier Leroy, the Executive Vice President for Toyota, made a similar claim, stating that the complications around Brexit had put a “big question mark about our future investment in the country.”
