UK automotive manufacturing registered a 27.1% year-on-year decline in March 2024 to 59,467 models, in accordance with the Society of Motor Producers and Merchants (SMMT).
This downturn, the primary since August 2023, aligns with the anticipated fluctuations for the yr as producers retool their manufacturing strains for next-generation automobiles, together with electrical automobiles (EVs), and part out present fashions.
SMMT stated the discount in manufacturing additionally coincided with an early Easter financial institution vacation in 2024, leading to fewer working days in March.
Home manufacturing witnessed a marginal lower of 0.3% to 19,995 models, whereas export manufacturing fell by 35.9% to 39,472 models.
Regardless of this, greater than six out of ten automobiles produced in March 2024 had been destined for worldwide markets.
The European Union remained the most important export vacation spot, receiving 57.9% of the UK’s automotive exports.
Entry probably the most complete Firm Profiles
available on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of analysis. Achieve aggressive edge.
Firm Profile – free
pattern
Thanks!
Your obtain e-mail will arrive shortly
We’re assured in regards to the
distinctive
high quality of our Firm Profiles. Nonetheless, we wish you to take advantage of
useful
choice for your enterprise, so we provide a free pattern you could obtain by
submitting the under kind
By GlobalData
It was adopted by the US (11.4%), China (5.9%), Australia (4%), and Japan (1.8%).
Export volumes to those high markets, besides the US, all skilled declines.
Manufacturing of electrified automobiles, which incorporates battery electrical, plug-in hybrid, and hybrid automobiles, accounted for 38.4% of whole manufacturing with 22,865 models.
Nonetheless, this represented a 29.7% lower from the earlier yr, reflecting the broader challenges of mannequin changeovers.
Within the first quarter of the yr, UK automotive manufacturing remained 1.1% larger than the identical interval final yr, totalling 222,371 models.
A 33.9% enhance in home output helped to offset a 7.4% decline in exports.
However, exports nonetheless comprised 72.7% of all automobiles manufactured within the UK in the course of the first quarter.
The newest impartial manufacturing outlook report from March 2024 tasks that UK automotive and lightweight van manufacturing will drop by 6.2% to roughly 940,000 models this yr, primarily as a result of ongoing mannequin changeovers.
Nonetheless, the report forecasts a return to progress in 2025, with manufacturing anticipated to exceed a million models from 2026 and doubtlessly attain 1.2 million by the tip of the last decade, pushed by a rise in EV manufacturing.
SMMT chief government Mike Hawes stated: “This fall just isn’t surprising given the wholesale modifications happening inside UK automotive factories as current fashions are run out and extra vegetation transition to electrical car manufacturing. We will count on additional volatility all through 2024 as producers lay the foundations for a profitable zero-emission future.
“Current funding bulletins have boosted confidence and enhanced the UK’s repute however there must be an unrelenting dedication to competitiveness. Free and honest commerce offers have to be secured, vitality prices diminished and the workforce upskilled if we’re to draw additional funding to enhance productiveness and decarbonise automotive manufacturing and its provide chain.”
