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Job cuts planned at Steyr Motors

Focus on diesel engines for defence and navy

Pressemitteilung | Reading time: min

As reported by the Austrian industry magazine, the Upper Austrian engine manufacturer Steyr Motors GmbH is struggling to survive due to a sharp decline in sales and earnings.

Already in 2018, the company, which was founded in 2001 as an independent company of an investor group around the former general director of the "Steyr Daimler Puch Werke" and ex-transport minister Rudolf Streicher and Rudolf Mandorlen, the ex-head of Magna Steyr's engine division, was insolvent.

 Due to a "strong decline in turnover and profits", a "redimensioning" was unavoidable, and by the summer large parts of the 130 employees were to be laid off.

The new owner, the Munich-based investment company Mutares, which  took over the special engine manufacturer Steyr Motors until the end of 2022, wants to get the company back on track.

Previously, Steyr was owned by the arms company Thales. Thales had bought the company out of insolvency, into which the company slid in 2018 under the ownership of a Chinese investor group.


Mutares now wants to focus the company on its "core competence", i.e. the production of diesel engines for the defence sector as well as for use in the marine sector. Steyr Motors GmbH develops and produces high-performance engines and manufactures engines for boats, special vehicles and machines in small series.

The company has made a name for itself with the development and production of monoblock engines with high-pressure direct injection. These are diesel engines that do not require an extra cylinder head made of aluminum and therefore no cylinder head gasket. This niche product is lighter, more compact, more economical and more powerful than the usual diesel engines. The engines have been used in marine applications, land vehicles and machinery. A hybrid drive for sports and leisure boats was also developed.

 

Source: Austrian industry magazine

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