Crisis for UK car industry as number of vehicles | Tech News
The UK car industry is in disaster as the number of vehicles being constructed drops to a 72-year low. In the primary six months of 2025, simply 417,000 vehicles and vans had been constructed within the UK.
According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), that is the bottom manufacturing number for that period since 1953. Output for the yr as a complete is predicted to be 755,000 vehicles, decrease even than during the pandemic. In comparability, in 2016, the UK produced 1.82 million vehicles, the best fee since 1999. Santiago Arieu, senior autos analysis analyst at Fitch Solutions, mentioned a main participant within the lower was the UK leaving the EU and investment struggling. He instructed the BBC: “Obviously, Brexit had a massive impression. It created uncertainty and complex future visibility.” Then got here Covid, when output globally dropped by practically a third, revealing simply how costly it was to construct vehicles within the UK resulting from labour and power prices.
Felipe Munoz of JATO Dynamics mentioned: “Car makers operating in the UK also have factories in Europe and elsewhere, so it’s not hard for them to find a replacement for their UK production.”
The Government has said it wants to increase the number of cars and commercial vehicles built annually to 1.3 million by 2035. Production will have to increase fast, with the SMMT believing 803,000 vehicles will leave production lines next year.
Greg McDonald, the CEO of injection-moulded component producers Goodfish Group, is unsure, saying: “I do not assume many people assume there’s going to be a resurgence.
“Suppliers like us are used to being constantly bid at for price and cost reductions, and there’s a limit to how much you can do.”
The industry’s decline additionally impacts smaller companies. Burnett’s Manufacturing, based mostly in Northampton, produces rubber and plastic components and depends on the car industry for 40% of its business.
Technical gross sales supervisor, Rich Dixon, mentioned: “I think we’re lucky in some ways, because 60% of our business is diversified across many different industries.
“The last thing you want to be is 100% automotive. The difficulty is that higher up the food chain, there are some big companies that are very reliant on automotive.”
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