The UK car industry is in crisis as the number of vehicles being built drops to a 72-year low. In the first six months of 2025, just 417,000 cars and vans were built in the UK.
According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), this is the lowest production number for that period since 1953. Output for the year as a whole is expected to be 755,000 vehicles, lower even than during the pandemic. In comparison, in 2016, the UK produced 1.82 million vehicles, the highest rate since 1999. Santiago Arieu, senior autos research analyst at Fitch Solutions, said a major player in the decrease was the UK leaving the EU and investment suffering. He told the BBC: "Obviously, Brexit had a big impact. It created uncertainty and complicated future visibility." Then came Covid, when output globally dropped by nearly a third, revealing just how expensive it was to build cars in the UK due to labour and energy costs.
Felipe Munoz of JATO Dynamics said: "Car makers operating in the UK also have factories in Europe and elsewhere, so it's not hard for them to find a replacement for their UK production.”
The Government has said it wants to increase the number of cars and commercial vehicles built annually to 1.3 million by 2035. Production will have to increase fast, with the SMMT believing 803,000 vehicles will leave production lines next year.
Greg McDonald, the CEO of injection-moulded component producers Goodfish Group, is unsure, saying: "I don't think many people think there's going to be a resurgence.
"Suppliers like us are used to being constantly bid at for price and cost reductions, and there's a limit to how much you can do."
The industry's decline also impacts smaller businesses. Burnett's Manufacturing, based in Northampton, produces rubber and plastic parts and relies on the car industry for 40% of its business.
Technical sales manager, Rich Dixon, said: "I think we're lucky in some ways, because 60% of our business is diversified across many different industries.
“The last thing you want to be is 100% automotive. The difficulty is that higher up the food chain, there are some big companies that are very reliant on automotive."