British car manufacturing declined for the tenth month in a row in March – and industry bosses have warned it could slump to 1980s levels in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
A total of 126,195 cars were built in the UK last month, according to data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). That is a 14.4% decline on the 147,505 vehicles produced in March 2018, and brings total output for the first quarter of 2019 to 370,289, a 15.9% drop from last year’s output of 440,530.
The March decline was sharpest in the domestic market, with the 26,873 UK-bound cars representing an 18.1% fall from 2018. Demand for exports, which account for 78.7% of all cars produced in 2019, fell 13.4% in March.
The SMMT also cited new independent production forecasts that said a no-deal Brexit resulting in the UK adopting World Trade Organization rules for an extended period could reduce production to 1.07 million units by 2021, a fall of around 30%.
The SMMT says those forecasts show that, under a Brexit deal with a sustained transition period maintaining current trade agreements, production would dip to 1.36 million units this year, before rising back to 1.42 million by 2021. That would still be a decline on the 1.52 million units produced in 2018.
SMMT boss Mike Hawes said: “Just a few years ago, industry was on track to produce two million cars by 2020 – a target now impossible with Britain’s reputation as a stable and attractive business environment undermined. All parties must find a compromise urgently so we can set about repairing the damage and diverting energy and investment to the technological challenges that will define the future of the global industry.”
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Bazzer - I'm trying to keep up with your contradictions
You first deny saying it is unimportant, only to then say - "it isn't an important sector".
If you don't value car making in this country, why bother reading an article about car making in this country. There must be other magazines more suitable.
Hugh
I'll try again. In my first post I never said it was unimportant (which you said I had), but it's not important! One doesn't exclude saying the other. Jesus! Also, the value I put on car making in the UK is of no consequence. I was pointing out that it is merely 0.8% of our GDP. You then go on to intimate that I shouldn't be reading either an article (about car production) or this magazine! Yet my very reason for doing so was to point out that it's not an important sector. People who read this magazine like to be educated on facts about cars and car production, and I was supplying a fact. I couldn't give a toss if no cars were made here at all, but people get a skewed impression (as, again, I pointed out) about car production here. There have been posts in the past few weeks from people like 'Symanski' who think car production is really important to the UK. AGAIN, I state it is not...neither is it unimportant (I didn't say that before, but I'm saying it now, just for you), as it does provide 140,000 people with jobs.
Sometimes I despair
Why on earth would you allow car manufacturing to collapse? I don't care that it only employs 20% of the people in the financial sector in London. How does that make it unimportant?
I do care, that it keeps people in productive work, creating cars that are a credit to our country and which I'm proud to buy and drive.
Hugh
It doesn't make it unimportant, and I never said that! Just keep it in perspective, it contributes less than 1% to our economy. It isn't an important sector, and we could lose all of it and it still wouldn't matter as much as people like you THINK it would, that's all. That was exactly the point of my post! The whole sector employs around 140,000 people...but we wouldn't lose ALL of it anyway. Please try and keep up, Hugh.
UK Car Production down due to Brexit
Strange, innit, that they predict UK car production will fall to "eighties" levels if there is an hard Brexit. Why did UK car production nosedive in the eighties in the first place? Answer, because the likes of Ford, GM/Vauxhall & Peugeot (Chrysler Europe), found it cheaper to import cars from their continental factories. So the "EU" was to blame for car manufacturing declines before. They are only interested in propping up German & French producers. When the likes of MG Rover went bust, or LDV, they didn't get rescued by the EU. The rest of the EU just stood back & took the advantage of filling the gap in the market with their products. VW wasn't interested in taking over Longbridge, just interested in flooding the UK market with Golfs!
Why should the EU have
Why should the EU have rescued British factories? The UK government decided that the economy should move away from manufacturing, whereas the French and German governments stuck with it. I bought an Austin Maestro in the 80's on patriotic grounds. It was appallingly made. A Volkswagen Golf was, like it or not, a far superior car. Just balme the foreigners. It's so much easier than admitting our cars were crap.
jagdavey wrote:
Plain wrong. The single market revitalised UK car manufacturing. It’s not the EU’s fault that so few Brits care about supporting UK manufacturing.