Thread by @faisalislam

Nissan Europe boss said today he assumes UK-EU “will find an agreement that meets the needs of the [Sunderland] factory”, but reiterates that without one eg with the introduction of 10% [WTO terms] tariffs, business model of Nissan Europe is “not viable”. boursorama.com/actualite-econ…

More De Ficchy:

“We would not be viable..we just wouldn’t be able to sell our cars.”

raised possibility UK models moved to Renault plants, but acknowledged costly and take years... said “working hypothesis is to stay in Europe with a factory in England”. europe.autonews.com/automakers/nis…

The thrust of his words seem to be that WTO tariffs of 10% on UK exports to EU would lead to a strategic decision about Nissan’s entire presence in Europe... nothing on a pivot to a UK only import substitution model, where a fifth of UK sales would be Nissans...

Context is that last week UK Brexit trade negotiator Frost acknowledged there would be trade offs:

“There is obviously a one-off cost from the introduction of friction at a customs and regulatory border...simply not convinced it is on anything like the scale..studies suggest.”

Also Frost: “we understand trade-offs involved - people say we dont but we do,” which is acknowledgment, less than forthcoming during eg election, that sectors/regions reliant on existing seamless frictionless EU trade to be hit by friction but “other factors will outweigh it”

yet to hear ministers acknowledge, as he now has, that some existing sectors, regions, factories face the “trade-offs” & “one-off costs” so that other sectors (AI? Banks?) benefit from regulatory freedom that he argues “will outweigh it”...

In theory, for cars, one might argue that the UK’s new regulatory freedom over data/autonomous/electric could beget a competitive advantage vs EU regulations...

In that case, although it’s EU carmakers filing the bulk of patents here, the Golden Goose would have been Tesla...