Three months after the takeover by the French PSA group Opel has presented a reorganization concept: The car maker wants to renounce terminations and plant closures.
Opel factory premises in Rüsselsheim
Thursday, 09.11.2017
10:28
At its restart, the automaker wants Opel get by without operational redundancies and plant closures. Wage costs are to be reduced through severance pay, innovative working hours concepts and partial retirement, announced the company acquired by the French PSA Group when presenting its restructuring plan in Rüsselsheim.
However, the exact design as well as the period of dismissal protection is still the subject of negotiations with the employees. By the end of 2018, the approximately 19,000 Opel employees in Germany are already protected against redundancies.
In total, the company, together with its British sister brand Vauxhall, employs around 38,000 people in ten European locations. PSA had Opel including the British sister company Vauxhall and the financial sector for 2.2 billion euros taken over by the US car company General Motors,
Opel wants to get into the black with its reorganization program “Pace” with a quick turn to the technology of the new parent company PSA. For this purpose, two models already planned, which are still based on the technology of the former owner General Motors, will be replaced by new projects on PSA platforms in the Eisenach and Rüsselsheim plants. The cost per manufactured car is to sink by 700 euros, so that the profit zone is already reached from 800,000 cars announced Opel.
As part of the PSA group, Opel expects synergy effects of 1.1 billion euros annually by 2020 and even 1.7 billion euros by 2026. The German carmaker will have “full access to the technologies of the PSA group” and so in the Be able to offer electric cars in all passenger car series by 2024. As early as 2020, four model series with electric drive will be on the market, including the next Corsa.
The car maker also expects growth through expansion: By 2022, Opel will sell cars on more than 20 new export markets, Lohscheller announced. The previous owner General Motors (GM) from the USA, the markets of Opel were severely limited.