3 days Ago By Chris Randall
Vauxhall looks back on 120 years of history in Luton, north of London: in 1905, the then-young automotive brand opened a factory in Luton as an alternative to its plant in London, where Vauxhall had built its first model in 1903. 120 years later, on Friday 28 March 2025, Vauxhall built its last vehicle in Luton, a Vivaro van. It was Vauxhall’s second plant closure in Luton, as the company had already closed its passenger car plant there in 2002.
Now the neighbouring van plant is to follow. Stellantis had threatened to close its van plant in Luton last November , citing the British government’s so-called ‘ZEV mandate’, which stipulates what percentage of cars and vans sold must be locally emission-free. In February, Stellantis then confirmed to the British media that the plant would close in the second quarter of this year.
The closure of the plant means the loss of 1,100 jobs. The machinery is now to be moved to the Ellesmere Port site near Liverpool and the process expertise transferred there. Several hundred jobs are to be transferred from Luton to Ellesmere Port for electric transporter production, but not all of the 1,100 jobs.
Retraining or other jobs are to be offered to the affected employees who do not want to or cannot relocate. In February 2024 , Stellantis announced its intention to produce the battery-electric variants of the Opel/Vauxhall Vivaro, Peugeot Expert, Fiat Scudo and Citroën Dispatch (Jumpy in other markets) ranges in Luton from 2025 – these models were previously already being produced with combustion engines in Luton. However, this contract has now been awarded to Ellesmere Port instead.
The reason given by former Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares was that moving all activities to one site would consolidate Stellantis’ production base in the UK. He explained that this decision would potentially contribute to greater production efficiency, which he said would also enable the company to meet the increasingly stringent targets of the ZEV mandate, which has risen to 26 per cent for cars and 16 per cent for vans this year. bbc.
co.uk , autocar.co.
uk.
