The British car industry this year experienced its worst November since 1984. The disappointing results are of course mainly the result of the corona crisis and the associated shortage of parts.
That this year was not going to be great for the British car factories, insiders already saw it coming in the summer. Initially, at least even more was built in 2021 than in 2020, but we have now passed that phase as well.
This is more evident in November than ever before. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) reports the worst November in 37 years. A total of 75,756 cars left the British factory gates, compared to 106,243 in 2020. That amounts to a decrease of 28.7 percent. Even if we look at the entire year so far, 2021 turns out to be worse than 2020. Up to and including November, British factories built 797,261 cars, 6.2 percent less than the 849,525 units that had passed quality control at this time last year.
Within this sad trend, the only bright spot, if one can speak of that, is that the share of hybrids, plug-in hybrids and EVs is growing. Over the year as a whole, this now amounts to more than 25 percent. 13.7 percent of the total is fully electric. This is mainly because the Nissan Leaf rolls off the production line in the United Kingdom, but Opel also builds the Combo-e on the other side of the North Sea, for example. In the AutoWeek Year Special 2022 you will find a complete overview of the European car industry from page 144. Here it is also worked out which models will be built where.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl