UK car manufacturing output fell by 4% year-on-year in October, according to figures released today by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
Just 134,752 cars were produced – 5622 fewer than in the same month last year. This is the 16th month of the previous 17 in which production has fallen. There was a modest rise in August only because Brexit-related factory shutdowns earlier in the year meant some usual summer shutdowns were cancelled.
Production for the home market dropped by 10.7% in the past month, while exports came down 2.6%. The SMMT cites fragile consumer and business confidence at home and demand problems abroad as the cause of the reductions. Model changeovers, as with the Land Rover Discovery Sport, didn’t help the situation.
Car production for the year to date is down 14.4%. A total of 1,123,926 cars have been rolled out so far, 80.5% of which have been exported to destinations including the EU, US, China and Japan.
SMMT boss Mike Hawes said: “Yet another month of falling car production makes these extremely worrying times for the sector. Our global competitiveness is under threat, and to safeguard it, we need to work closely with the next Government to ensure frictionless trade, free of tariffs, with regulatory alignment and continued access to talent in the future.
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Be happy, it's a good thing
We should all be pleased that automotive manufacture is falling (and it's not just in Britain but around the Western world). Less new fossil fuelled cars on the road means less pollution and less CO2 and there are millions of nearly new and used cars for sale in autoparcs around the country.Surely better to use those up first.
Eventually China and far eastern countries will make all the cars anyway, as that is where the raw materials and labour are cheapest, so this is just the start of a long term trend I would guess.
quiet news day?
do a web search for UK car manufacturing, and click the link for the tradingeconomics website. you can set that graph to 25 years and see where we really are in things. Better than 2009
Is It Brexit?
Meanwhile, car production in the USA fell by approx. 20% on October last year.
Was that Brexit too, or are there larger factors at play that are being ignored to suit an anti-Brexit agenda?