If another big firm decides to follow Honda and leave, the rise-and-fall pattern that has characterised British carmaking could become a downward spiral
have made it look more like a Morris Marina. Only around 770,000 cars emerged from British factories in 2022 . The country has gone from 13th in the carmaking league table in 2016 to 18th today.
Carmaking is an industry that directly accounts for 182,000 jobs and had a turnover of £67bn in 2021. But the chances of another revival in fortunes are ebbing, for three reasons:and, above all, its poor performance on electrification, the most profound shift in the industry since the advent of mass production.set up shop locally and other foreign firms snapped up the best British brands.
Brexit uncertainty also stymied investment at a crucial moment for the industry, says David Bailey of Birmingham University. Britain has not entirely lost out in the switch to battery power. Ford said in December that it would spend another £150m to makecomponents at Halewood on Merseyside, taking its total commitment to £380m. Stellantis, owner of Vauxhall, is spending £100m to convert its plant at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire so that it can churn out electric vans.
Jaguar Land Rover , a maker of posh motors owned since 2008 by Tata, an Indian conglomerate, is thought to be in talks with the government over sweeteners that might persuade it to build a gigafactory in Britain. But it could easily be induced to locate elsewhere. Toyota, which assembles vehicles in Derbyshire and makes engines in Wales, mainly makes hybrids, which require only small batteries. It has six other plants across Europe that might be better served by a new gigafactory.
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