mobile-menu-icon
GM Authority

Opel Officially Signals Closure Of Bochum Plant By 2016

GM’s European arm, Adam Opel AG, finally announced that, even after preventative efforts, vehicle production at its Bochum assembly plant in Germany will cease in 2016, when the product lifecycle of the current Opel Zafira MPV concludes. There will be no successor to the Zafira at the plant. The move has been an ongoing rumor throughout 2012 .

As a some sort of consolation, the Bochum warehouse will continue to offer jobs beyond 2016 with the potential of being expanded. Opel is also negotiating with its unions to possibly allocate the production of a new component in Bochum. On top of this, Opel has established the group “Bochum Perspective 2022”, whose focus is on site development, to secure existing jobs and create new ones in the City of Bochum and the entire Ruhr region. The “Bochum Perspective 2022” is composed of representatives of local and regional government, along with leaders and innovators from labor, industry, academia and financial institutions located in North Rhine-Westphalia.

This announcement falls directly in line with the “Drive Opel 2022” initiative, where the company hopes to at least break even by mid-decade. But as we argue, Opel and GM should have parted ways some time ago.

Former staff.

Subscribe to GM Authority

For around-the-clock GM news coverage

We'll send you one email per day with the latest GM news. It's totally free.

Comments

  1. “There will be no successor to the Zafira.” Really?!

    Reply
  2. Yes there will be a successor to the current Zafira, it is already under development, the article means that Bocham will not get a replacement to build when the current Zafira comes to the end of it’s production run.

    Reply
  3. I know there will be a new model Zafira however, that’s not how that sentence reads!

    Reply
    1. The sentence has been edited for the sake of clarification.

      Reply
  4. 1 plant down, 2 more to go…..

    Reply
  5. The only ones to refuse to see this coming are the Europeans.

    While closing plants is a good step right now, it should have been done completely and drastically a few years ago, like it was here. Now I doubt the wisdom of closing a plant in 2016, Europe wont be down forever, and maintaining a excess capacity plant is a lot easier and cheaper than to close it and open another one in a few years. If they were to close it right now it would make sense. But Im sure that Europe’s auto sales will be growing at a brisk rate in 2018. Then GM will be missing out. I also think this could be some sort of negotiating tactic just to get the unions and government to realize that doing business in Europe and trying to compete with Volkswagen is not sustainable.

    Reply
  6. I’ve read this post and if I could I want to suggest you some interesting things or advice

    Reply

Leave a comment

Cancel