UK Car Production in May up 10-Fold on 2020 – but just HALF of 2019’s

UK car production in May 2020 was up by 934.3 per cent in May, but just half of May 2019’s figures as shortages and Covid restrict production.

Rather unsurprisingly, car production numbers in the UK for May 2021 are significantly greater than for May 202, up by an impressive 934.3 per cent from a tiny 5,314 last year to a more robust 54,962.

But impressive though the increase is, it still represents numbers half of those in 2019 – pre-Covid – when the UK built 116,035 cars.

There’s still some Covid hangover going on, but the biggest obstacle to increasing numbers is a global shortage of semiconductors, affecting not just UK car production but production worldwide too.

As cars have become mobile computers, semiconductors are a core part of production, but demand has risen massively in the past year as chips are needed for phones and computers – in big demand as we work from home and want to be entertained – and that’s left car makers scrabbling around for supplies.

Of the cars we did produce last month, around one in five came with an alternatively fuelled powertrain, although just one in 16 were actually BEVs, with the majority built for export – most to the EU.

Mike Hawes, SMMT Boss, said:

The recovery of car production is…still massively challenged here and abroad by global supply shortages, particularly semiconductors. If the UK is to remain competitive, therefore, it must ensure it has a globally attractive policy framework for both vehicle production and the supply chain.