Last rites for the British car industry?
Discussion
I saw that car production in the UK slipped to less than 800k last year (900k if you include vans but they are planning to stop production in Luton).
Just 8 years ago it was more than 2 million.
Of course there are no significant UK car companies left. All are foreign owned (Jaguar/Lotus) or production numbers are irrelevant (Ariel). However even production by foreign companies seems to have dropped significantly.
How much is Brexit to blame? Covid? Switch to EV?
Hard to see a way back to significant numbers of mass-produced cars and most of the niche manufacturers (Lotus, Aston Martin, McLaren) and struggling.
Just 8 years ago it was more than 2 million.
Of course there are no significant UK car companies left. All are foreign owned (Jaguar/Lotus) or production numbers are irrelevant (Ariel). However even production by foreign companies seems to have dropped significantly.
How much is Brexit to blame? Covid? Switch to EV?
Hard to see a way back to significant numbers of mass-produced cars and most of the niche manufacturers (Lotus, Aston Martin, McLaren) and struggling.
Like any issue like this, it's probably a multitude of factors.
Brexit could be one, reduced sales figures could be another, people keeping cars longer (average age of cars keeps increasing), previous manufacturing over capacity (particularly in Europe), no strong labour/union movement here preventing closures, no large levels of state intervention to support the sector, big increase in employment costs over the last decade, Korean/Chinese vehicles stealing sales from European manufacturers, more cost effective manufacturing in the Far East, and so on.
It's not dissimilar from what happened with other previously prominent sectors here, such as mining, steel production, hosiery, shipbuilding, the aircraft industry, and many other heavy engineering sectors/mass manufacturing.
Other people can do it better, or cheaper, or both.
Brexit could be one, reduced sales figures could be another, people keeping cars longer (average age of cars keeps increasing), previous manufacturing over capacity (particularly in Europe), no strong labour/union movement here preventing closures, no large levels of state intervention to support the sector, big increase in employment costs over the last decade, Korean/Chinese vehicles stealing sales from European manufacturers, more cost effective manufacturing in the Far East, and so on.
It's not dissimilar from what happened with other previously prominent sectors here, such as mining, steel production, hosiery, shipbuilding, the aircraft industry, and many other heavy engineering sectors/mass manufacturing.
Other people can do it better, or cheaper, or both.
Im not buying a new car because they are now too complicated, too fragile and need plugging into a computer to do the smallest of jobs, too expensive, have too many "safety" features and are pretty much all bland and uninteresting.
Most of my friends agree.
Those that get a new company car are trying to hold on to the old one as long as possible because rhe new ones are horrible to drive around all the new electronic stuff.
Most of my friends agree.
Those that get a new company car are trying to hold on to the old one as long as possible because rhe new ones are horrible to drive around all the new electronic stuff.
Fusion777 said:
Like any issue like this, it's probably a multitude of factors.
Brexit could be one, reduced sales figures could be another, people keeping cars longer (average age of cars keeps increasing), previous manufacturing over capacity (particularly in Europe), no strong labour/union movement here preventing closures, no large levels of state intervention to support the sector, big increase in employment costs over the last decade, Korean/Chinese vehicles stealing sales from European manufacturers, more cost effective manufacturing in the Far East, and so on.
It's not dissimilar from what happened with other previously prominent sectors here, such as mining, steel production, hosiery, shipbuilding, the aircraft industry, and many other heavy engineering sectors/mass manufacturing.
Other people can do it better, or cheaper, or both.
I’m sure a lot of truth in that. It is depressing though because from 2008 to 2016 there was big investment into the UK and a massive increase in production, which has now completely reversed. Brexit could be one, reduced sales figures could be another, people keeping cars longer (average age of cars keeps increasing), previous manufacturing over capacity (particularly in Europe), no strong labour/union movement here preventing closures, no large levels of state intervention to support the sector, big increase in employment costs over the last decade, Korean/Chinese vehicles stealing sales from European manufacturers, more cost effective manufacturing in the Far East, and so on.
It's not dissimilar from what happened with other previously prominent sectors here, such as mining, steel production, hosiery, shipbuilding, the aircraft industry, and many other heavy engineering sectors/mass manufacturing.
Other people can do it better, or cheaper, or both.
Skeptisk said:
I’m sure a lot of truth in that. It is depressing though because from 2008 to 2016 there was big investment into the UK and a massive increase in production, which has now completely reversed.
I think that was mostly JLR, though. They certainly had a good crack with the XE, Ingenium engines, F-Pace, I-Pace and so on, plus all the RR stuff. Other than RR now, we don't have any mass produced home-grown products that can compete with the top players.We're not cheap enough to tempt overseas companies to set up plants here, and aren't offering large enough state incentives either. Mass manufacturing, strategic assets (power, rail, airport & road infrastructure) does seem to be something we're particularly bad at, especially when it comes to the long term planning and prosperity of said assets.
UK is just far too expensive to produce anything other than specialized where we can dictate price.
Hence why luxury brands are doing very well.
Germany is in massive trouble. Even worse than us with its car industry and Americas just don't even go there.
China is the go to place to manufacture because it is cheap and in 50-100 years it will most likely be Africa or something along those lines as the Chinese population becomes more wealthy on a whole and demands better working conditions.
Hence why luxury brands are doing very well.
Germany is in massive trouble. Even worse than us with its car industry and Americas just don't even go there.
China is the go to place to manufacture because it is cheap and in 50-100 years it will most likely be Africa or something along those lines as the Chinese population becomes more wealthy on a whole and demands better working conditions.
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