The UK may no longer be in the EU but our relationship with the bloc remains critically important. The issue of defence and security looks likely to dominate that relationship and rightly so but we must also remember that our sector, like many others, is integrated operationally, with, in our case, massive volumes of vehicles […]
Automotive manufacturers are facing a perfect storm of international trade uncertainty, challenging manufacturing conditions and a global EV transition that’s proving tougher than expected – issues that affect the UK amid key model changeovers on factory lines. It’s not unexpected, therefore, that the latest SMMT data published this week showed a -17.7% dip in UK vehicle production […]
Specialist motor insurance loss adjuster Claims Management & Adjusting (CMA), part of the QuestGates group, has praised the police and carmakers as new Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) figures show UK car thefts down 4.5% and recoveries up 2.3% year-on-year. Cars stolen and recovered in UK 2023-24 Year Total Cars Stolen Total Cars Recovered […]
The scale and pace of automotive transformation demands an influx of new skills. Upskilling, reskilling, cross-skilling and bringing fresh talent into the workforce are major undertakings for the whole industry. So it was hugely inspiring to kick off National Apprenticeship Week 2025 with SMMT’s annual Automotive Apprentice Showcase at Portcullis House, part of the Parliamentary Estate. […]
Ahead of National Apprenticeship Week, the UK’s most trusted car repair platform, FixMyCar, has investigated barriers to hiring apprentices amongst its large network of garages to identify possible solutions to recruitment struggles. Running a poll with a sample of 112 independent garages on their network, FixMyCar found that interest and enthusiasm for hiring apprentices is […]
Driving up market confidence and economic growth is crucial in 2025 and the latest SMMT figures reflected that this week, with new car and light commercial vehicle registrations declining in January. It was the fourth consecutive monthly decline in the new car market amid difficult economic conditions and weak consumer and business confidence to invest. EVs delivered more positive […]
Growing pains are inevitable as automotive manufacturers ramp up the transition to zero emission vehicles and, with significant retooling underway in UK factories, the publication of SMMT’s annual production figures this week revealed no real surprises. Car production is at its lowest level for some 70 years as manufacturers turn more than £20 billion of EV and […]
It’s often said people are creatures of habit and that certainly bears out in the UK’s new car market with grey proving the most popular car colour for the seventh year. More than a quarter of all new cars registered in Britain last year, some 543,464, were picked in the shade – a higher volume than ever […]
The UK’s automotive industry is inherently global, touching every continent as an export sector. It remains Britain’s largest exporter of goods by value, with many of the products developed here the result of massive investment from overseas businesses. Yet more evidence of that came yesterday with £50 million announced to build a new component manufacturing […]
2024 delivered record levels of EV registrations with almost 382,000 joining UK roads, new data from SMMT this week shows, a fantastic achievement which reflects industry’s unswerving commitment to zero emission mobility. Indeed, with the overall new car market up by 2.6% last year, the very greenest vehicles represented almost one in five deliveries thanks to EV […]
