GM's Vauxhall announces new Astra at UK plant - Yahoo Finance
LONDON (AP) -- General Motors' Vauxhall plant in northern England will build the company's top-selling Astra vehicles, the automaker said Thursday — a relief for U.K. politicians who had lobbied its American owner to keep the plant open.
The announcement comes after workers at the Ellesmere Port plant, near Liverpool, overwhelmingly backed a job deal which turned the factory into a 24-hour-a-day operation, a key cost-cutting measure pursued by parent company GM Europe.
GM Europe lost $700 million in 2011 and has been struggling to turn around its Opel and Vauxhall brands. It had been feared the company would close the Ellesmere Port facility in favor of consolidating production elsewhere — such as its headquarters in Ruesselsheim in Germany or Gliwice in Poland.
In a separate announcement, Opel said that the Ruesselsheim plant would switch to producing other models.
GM's announcement — which comes with a 125 million pound (nearly $200 million) investment and 700 extra jobs — is a break for leaders such as British Business Secretary Vince Cable, who fought to keep the British plant open.
Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking from the northern city of Manchester, called the decision "a fantastic vote of confidence."
"The U.K. government gave this its full backing. The unions supported the necessary changes. The workforce has responded magnificently. It is a British success story," he said.
Cable, who at one point traveled to the U.S. to plead the plant's case, told BBC television that no financial inducements were offered to General Motors Corp. to keep the U.K. facility open, saying the move underlined that Britain is "a good business environment for the motor industry."
Production of the new car is due to begin in 2015, with at least 160,000 vehicles scheduled to be produced every year.
London 2012 Olympics: Jessica Ennis breaks Denise Lewis' UK heptathlon record in some style in Götzis - Daily Telegraph
Tatyana Chernova, the 6ft 2in Russian who dethroned her at last summer’s World Championships in Daegu, finished a huge 132 points behind in second place, while Nataliya Dobrynska, the Ukrainian Olympic and world indoor champion, was a long way adrift on just 6,311 points in ninth place.
But Ennis said her record-breaking points total was not about sending a message to her rivals but proving to herself that she was capable of a big score.
“I wanted to do it for me, to prove to myself that I can do it, that I am capable of scoring a big score and that I am in good shape,” she said. “That gives me the self-belief and the mental capacity going forward.”
Ennis said the most important aspect of her weekend’s work was that if confirmed that she was in excellent shape just two months out from the Olympics.
The key now was to maintain her physical condition without risking the kind of devastating injury that wrecked her Olympic dreams four years ago when she suffered multiple stress fractures in her right foot at the same Götzis meeting.
“I am going to train sensibly,” she said. “I have done a big block of my work now, so it is freshening up, sharpening up and getting race sharp. It’s nice to be here in Olympic year and not be injured and have a great result as well.”
She said her recent defeats had been an impetus to work harder in training, and the weekend had reassured her that everything was going in the right direction.
Leading overnight on 4,113 after lowering her 200 metres lifetime best by a huge 0.31sec, Ennis knew that if she get could close to her personal bests in her three remaining events, it would be enough to overhaul the record set by Lewis in Talence, France, in 2000.
Her first event of the day, the long jump, provided the perfect platform as she leapt out to 6.51m with her third and final attempt, equalling her lifetime best and, crucially, beating Chernova in the Russian’s specialist event.
But it was the javelin, the event that proved Ennis’s nemesis at last year’s World Championships, that had the Sheffield athlete punching the air in celebration as she opened up with a huge throw of 47.11m — 40cm in excess of her lifetime best.
In the final event, the 800m, Ennis adopted her usual tactic of striking out from the front and crossed the line in 2-09.00 — the third fastest outdoor time of her career — before sinking to the ground in exhaustion.
But, in a telling moment, Chernova put in a desperate effort to catch her in the final straight, and passed her with a couple of strides to go. It was a clear message to the Briton that she has no intention of backing down in August. But there can be now doubt that the pendulum has now swung in Ennis’s direction, and it could not be better timed.
She made her breathrough with with her runaway victory at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. Further multi-events triumphs in 2010 at the World Indoor Championships in Doha and the European Championships in Barcelona served only to cement her status as one of Britain’s outstanding gold-medal prospects for London.
But the first sign that the weight of expectation was beginning to weigh heavily on her shoulders emerged in Daegu last September where her disastrous javelin performance opened the door for Chernova to take her world crown.
Then, in Istanbul three months ago, she displayed more vulnerability under pressure when a misfiring long jump allowed Dobyrnska to walk away with her world indoor pentathlon crown.
That is why Sunday was so important. After losing two world titles, another defeat in her last heptathlon before London would have been a psychological hammer blow.
But, having complained in the past that too many people have been “hanging a gold medal around my neck” before the Olympics have even started, Ennis will not be getting too carried away.
Four years ago, the inconsistent Dobrynksa finished ninth in Götzis before going on to win Olympic gold in Beijing, and she is certain to be in far better shape in London than she was in Austria this weekend.
The Ukrainian admitted before the meeting that she had only been training properly for a month following the death from cancer of her husband and coach, Dmytro Polyakov, in March. Chernova, too, looked undercooked compared to her brilliant performance in Daegu.
Ennis said her next competition would be the Bislett Games in Oslo on June 7, where she would be taking part in the 100 metre hurdles, before she gets ready for the UK Olympic trials in Birmingham.
Ennis may have ensured her place in the history books, but she will need to run, jump and throw like she did over the last couple of days if she is to become Britain’s Olympic golden girl.
Heptathlon results
1. Jessica Ennis, Britain, 6,906 points.
2. Tatyana Chernova, Russia, 6,774.
3. Lyudmyla Yosypenko, Ukraine, 6,501.
4. Austra Skujyte, Lithuania, 6,493.
5. Lilli Schwarzkopf, Germany, 6,461.
6. Jessica Zelinka, Canada, 6,393.*
7. Dafne Schippers, Netherlands, 6,360.
8. Jennifer Oeser, Germany, 6,345.
9. Nataliya Dobrynska, Ukraine, 6,311.
10. Nadine Broersen, Netherlands, 6,298.
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