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Some of this 'engineering exports to Germany' is really just inter-company transfers.
The Ford works at Dagenham has transformed from a fully vertically integrated vehicle manufacturing plant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Dagenham
based upon the success of the Ford River Rouge plant in Detroit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_River_Rouge_ComplexNowadays, Ford Dagenham assembles diesel engines for Ford Europe and North America.
Ford can without too much difficulty transfer this assembly to any of their EU-domiciled factories. They even showed the Uk government what can happen when the Transit plant in Southampton was transferred to the existing Ford plant in Kocaeli, Turkey,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_OtosanI'm guessing it is the same for GM, and the BMW engine plant at Hams Hall.
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mespilus
Hmmm, I don't remember saying abandon R&D. As I understand it from the news, isn't quite a lot of the funding for R&D (I include sciences in this) coming from EU partnerships? And what will happen to this funding if we do end up leaving the single market. Which seems likely to happen as that's an under pinning principle of the EU and EEC, and quite clearly the Brexit vote seems to have been won on the premis of shutting down our borders.
I really hope that Germany still wants our engineering exports once this debacle settles down - according to the government's figures they're our largest engineering customer.