UK car production UP again in November

UK car production was up in November – the sixth monthly rise in the last seven months – but still well below pre-Covid levels.

Apart from a bit of a hiccup in September, when new car production in the UK fell in comparison to 2021, car production numbers have been rising since April, and November 2022 saw another rise in production numbers.

November saw 80,091 cars built in the UK – a rise of 5.7 per cent compared to November last year – despite ongoing problems including a still shaky supply chain for Chips, Covid, Ukraine and rising interest rates.

But despite the rise in numbers in November, volumes are still down by 44.1 per cent on the pre-Covid five-year average for November.

The production trend for electrified cars inevitably continues as we grind towards an end to non-electrified cars in 2030, with BEVs, PHEVs and HEVs accounting for 36.6 per cent of all production, a figure up by 18.3 per cent on 2021.

Despite the overall increase in production numbers, cars built for export fell by 5.0 per cent, but that was more than compensated for by a 59.1 per cent rise in cars built for the UK market, although cars built for export – 57.3 per cent of which were heading for the EU – accounted for almost three-quarters of all cars built.,

Mike Hawes, SMMT boss, said:

These figures bring some Christmas cheer to UK car makers in what has been another incredibly tough year. Supply chain shortages, overseas lockdowns and some structural and product changes have combined to throttle output for much of 2022 but there is renewed hope these issues will begin to ease in 2023.