I moved to the North East of England almost 30 tears ago. The Prof is a Geordie native and, when my Civil Service job moved out of London to Bristol, we decided for family reasons to move North rather than West. I soon found that Margaret Thatcher remains a somewhat (!) divisive figure in this part of the world, blamed for the rapid decline of the remnants of coal mining, steel-making and shipbuilding in the region. The stand out exception to this collapse in manufacturing during the Thatcher reign was the establishment of the huge Nissan car plant in Washington which instantly became a key cornerstone of the regional economy, bringing modern and efficient manufacturing approaches with it.

This week, there was a massive sigh of relief across the region when it was announced that ‘our’ plant was escaping the chop when Nissan closes 7 of its 17 main manufacturing sites worldwide. [Full disclosure: my relief is also a little selfish as I’m running a Sustainability Mastermind Group for the regional automotive industry on behalf of the North East Automotive Alliance…]

The legacy motor industry is currently facing four massive challenges (I’m omitting Trump’s tariffs as they could have changed by the time I hit ‘publish’):

1. Car sales are stalling/falling, particularly in Western countries.

2. The one sub-sector that is expanding, and rapidly so, is electric vehicles.

3. Intrinsic inertia: developing a new car from concept to production typically takes 3-6 years (just retooling a production line for a new model can take 12 months – a year of substantial cost and zero sales).

4. The two biggest global manufacturers of EVs, BYD and Tesla, have always been electric, so are primed and ready to eat everyone’s lunch in the meantime (give or take Elon Musk).

In other words, legacy companies have to contract and pivot at the same time – a difficult and risky manoeuvre, but one that Nissan is now making. The Washington plant is to produce three new Nissan EVs, an electric drive chain supplier, JATCO, has recently opened a new facility in the vicinity and a new EV battery gigafactory is being built.

When I had Prof Knut Haanaess on the pod, he explained that companies go bust for two reasons: not changing fast enough, or changing too quickly. Nissan has clearly judged that they are in that Goldilocks zone between too soon and too late. I have my fingers crossed for them, the Washington plant and its evolving supply chain.

There are plenty of other stories in the press of legacy industries starting to find the world around them has changed and they haven’t. The two blast furnaces at the heart of the Scunthorpe steel row were built in the 1930s and 1950s respectively, yet people wonder why we can’t compete in steel production. The threatened closure of the Grangemouth refinery is causing much anger, but how can a fossil fuel facility survive in a low carbon world? Sustainable airline fuel and hydrogen, the proposed alternative products for Grangemouth, aren’t replacing fossil fuels, electricity is. These changes are difficult politically and the impact on individuals and their livelihoods should never be underestimated, but change is happening right now and stalling could well be worse than making the leap.