shortage of electronic chips, difficult transition to electric vehicles but also Brexit difficulties: the British automotive industry is kneeling
by Eric Albert (London, Correspondence)
“We just spent three horrible years.” Mike Hawes, the director of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, which represents the British automotive industry, does not try to embellish the situation. In 2022, according to statistics unveiled Thursday, January 26, 775,000 vehicles left the country’s assembly channels, at the lowest since… 1956. This represents a drop of almost 10 % compared to 2021, itself catastrophic year. Compared to 2019, before the pandemic, the fall is 40 %.
The immediate reason of the shock is shared worldwide: the difficulties of supplying spare parts, and especially in electronic chips. Today, in the United Kingdom, to buy certain vehicles, you have to wait up to a year in the worst case.
But the evils of the British automotive industry are much deeper, with strong complications caused by Brexit, a significant delay in turning on electric vehicles and a government without strategy. “We see an increase in protectionism around the world, with inflation Reduction Act in the United States [which grants subsidies for electric cars which are built on site] and Europe which prepares a response. The United Kingdom must define a vision to face, “alerts Mr. Hawes.
a single investment in a large battery factory
The closure of two factories – one temporarily – particularly affected the production of vehicles. In the summer of 2021, the Honda factory in Swindon, in the southwest of England, definitively stopped turning. It essentially manufactured a model in decline, CIVIC, in particular diesel, and required significant investments to update it. Partly because of Brexit, which made trade relations with the European Union (EU) uncertain, the Japanese brand decided, in 2019, not to continue.
For its part, the Vauxhall de lesmemere Port factory (north-west of England) stopped, in spring 2022, the production of Astra, also an aging vehicle. But the manufacturer – which belongs to Stellantis – has decided to invest 100 million pounds (113 million euros) to produce electric vans this year, including Citroën ë -Berlingo. However, this temporary closure weighs on production statistics.
In the electric turn, the United Kingdom has been late. Certainly, 30 % of its production now concerns electric or hybrid vehicles. But the country has, for the moment, only one investment in a large battery factory, known as “Gigafactory”, that of invision, which must open in 2025, attached to the Nissan factory of the north of the England.
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