[rrobson]

I've been fortunate enough to have a tour around the factory. It is quite impressive but they have a huge problem with it. Because it's a 50 year old ford factory the production line layout isn't suited to large scale modern assembly. It is so far behind the modern plants. Without flattening the place and starting again it would be impossible to rectify. It would also be very difficult to add the extra infrastructure for ev cars simply due to the lack of space and scope for line expansion. While we were there they were only operating 5 days a week, and it was only last year.
Yes it's terrible news for the employees, but I think that plants days are numbered. It's unfortunately out of date now so in 5-10 years it won't have a chance of meeting the demands of the car industry.