Tag Archives: Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders

EV Intentions in the UK

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A survey of UK drivers finds that 18% of those ages 18 to 34 say they will buy an EV as their next vehicle.

Eleven percent of older drivers—those over 55—say they’ll go EV.

When hybrids are included in the question along with EVs, 42% of the 18-42 cohort say that’s what they’ll go for and 36% of the older group, too.

These findings are from the Kwik Fit annual survey on the subject. Kwik Fit is a leading vehicle service provider in the UK.

Observation

Given that according to the UK’s Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) the year-to-date (through October) market share of EVs in the UK is 25.4%.

Add in the market share of hybrids and plug-in hybrids and the market share goes up to 50.8%.

All of which indicates there isn’t exactly a burgeoning future demand for electrified vehicles in the UK given the results of the Kwik Fit survey (although that demand would be awfully appealing to US OEMs).

Dan Joyce, operations director at Kwik Fit, said of the findings: “The overall proportion of drivers planning to switch to low emissions for their next car has remained the same since last year.  However, our study shows that younger drivers are much more open to moving to EVs – and new car brands – than many older drivers.”

(Which leads to a question of whether younger or older buyers are actually likely to buy a new vehicle, and my money is on the latter.)

The reference to “new car brands” in the quote goes to Chinese vehicles. According to Kwik Fix BYD had a year-over-year sales increase in September of 880%.

EV Issues in the UK

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There is the mandate. Then there is the market.

By Gary S. Vasilash

One of the questionable Christmas presents that car companies doing business in the UK happened just before the holiday, when the country’s Department of Transport, which has on the books a mandate that by 2030 there will be no new vehicles sold with gasoline or diesel engines under their hoods, announced an eight-week period during which the OEMs would have the opportunity to weigh in on how this can be achieved.

Note this is not an “If.”

As things stand, there are annual targets that must be achieved in terms of zero-emission vehicle—a.k.a., electric vehicles—by the companies.

The UK government is committed to this, apparently, although one wonders if the auto industry begins to crumble because of the penalties associated with not meeting the targets.

Penalties in the form of a fine of £15,000 for every vehicle sold that doesn’t meet the target.

For example, consider Ford, which has been part of the UK’s automotive structure since 1911.

The mandate has it that 22% of a carmaker’s sales in 2024 are electric.

How did Ford do? Apparently 6.8% for the first 11 months, so unless there was some massive change, it will be well below the government bogey.

Which means serious fines.

This is sort of an insult-to-injury situation in that the company has been investing billions of dollars/pounds/euros—pick your currency—in EVs, and because people aren’t as interested in buying them as they are other products, it costs Ford (and other companies that don’t meet the mandate) more.

Heck of a business.

Or as Mike Hawes, head of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders trade association for the auto business in the UK, put it:

“Aside from the billions invested in new technologies and products, it has cost manufacturers in excess of £4 billion in discounting in the UK this year alone. This is unsustainable and, with the 2025 market looking under even greater pressure, it is imperative we get an urgent resolution, with a clear intent to adapt the regulation to support delivery, backed by bold incentives to stimulate demand.”

Which probably means that the government is going to have to pony up more money in order to generate demand.

And Ford isn’t the only company with the lack-of-demand situation. It is estimated EVs will represent 18.7% of the UK car market in 2024, not the mandated 22%.

In 2025 that goes up to 28%.

Hawes’ “unsustainable” is an understatement.

This isn’t just a UK issue.

In the US, where EV sales in 2024 were on the order of 9%, currently standing EPA greenhouse gas regulations have it that more than 50% will need to be EVs by 2030.

The word for that may be “unachievable.”

U.K. Facts About EVs

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They’re concerned that people don’t know what they should about EVs. . .

By Gary S. Vasilash

In order to keep U.K. customers interested in the possibility of buying an electric vehicle, Auto Trader (a vehicle purchase platform), ChargeUK (an organization consisting of EV charging companies), and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (a trade association representing OEMs and suppliers) have gotten together to combat misinformation about EVs.

This past February the House of Lords’ Environment and Climate Change Committee came out with a report that indicated there was a need for “clear and balanced information” regarding EVs for consumers.

And Auto Trader discovered that the number of retailers offering EVs on its site was at 35% for both 2023 and 2024. It had been 57% in 2022.

So this is what the three groups have come up with:

One of the interesting points is the 71,459 available chargers.

In the U.S., as of late August, there were over 192,000 publicly available chargers, according to the U.S. Federal Highway Administration.

To put that into context, the U.S. is 40 times larger than the U.K.; it has five times as many people, and nine times as many automobiles. Yet it has just 120,500 more public chargers.

According to the U.K. group there is one charger per four miles of road in the U.K.

The U.S. federal infrastructure plan is building out one charging station on the Interstate Highway System—per every 50 miles.

If there is concern about the lack of a significant uptake of EVs it should be in the U.S. far more than in the U.K.

EVs in the UK in May

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Yes, more are being bought. By fleets. . .

By Gary S. Vasilash

Although the number of vehicles sold in a given month in the UK isn’t particularly large, from a percentage standpoint there are undoubtedly some people at US OEMs who wish they’d have the kind of EV registration numbers that exist in the UK:

According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), in May EVs have 17.6% of the market.

While the whole market was up 1.7% in May, SMMT figures show that EV sales were up 6.2%. Clearly, EVs in the UK are doing rather well.

Do British consumers know something that American consumers don’t?

Well, maybe not.

Turns out that consumer retail EV sales were actually down 2%.

The uptick in the EV market came from fleets.

In the UK there is something called the “Vehicle Emissions Trading Scheme” that mandates zero-emissions vehicles represent 22% of a manufacturers’ annual sales.

Apparently there are incentives available to businesses for getting EVs that are not open to consumers. The SMMT believes that it is necessary for “the next government to provide consumers with meaningful purchase incentives.”

Conservative leader Rishi Sunak, current UK prime minister, will square off against Labour leader Keir Starmer on July 4.

Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive:

“As Britain prepares for next month’s general election, the new car market continues to hold steady as large fleets sustain growth, offsetting weakened private retail demand. Consumers enjoy a plethora of new electric models and some very attractive offers, but manufacturers can’t sustain this scale of support on their own indefinitely. Their success so far should be a signpost for the next government that a faster and fairer transition requires carrots, not just sticks.”

While of the subject of incentives and such, it should be noted that in May plug-in hybrids were up 31.5% are regular hybrids up 9.6%, both handily outperforming EVs.

And while the May ’24 market share for plug-ins is 8% and hybrids 13.2%, each below the EV’s 17.6%, combined they represent 21.2% of the market.

Evidently consumers aren’t against reduced emissions but are in favor (favour?) of the convenience and range provided by hybrids.

UK Invests in Green Manufacturing

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By Gary S. Vasilash

The UK government has announced a £4.5 billion investment in “strategic manufacturing sectors.” The auto industry will be getting the greatest part of the spend, which will be rolled out over five years, staring in 2025.

Auto gets >£2 billion.

The focus of all of the funding is environmentally oriented, as in zero-emissions vehicles.

While manufacturing isn’t given a whole lot of attention by people who aren’t in some way involved in manufacturing, in the UK it makes up 43% of all exports and employs 2.6 million people. In terms of economic output (as measured by percentage of gross value added), it is third in the UK, following real estate and retail and wholesale.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, said:

“Britain is now the 8th largest manufacturer in the world, recently overtaking France. To build on this success, we are targeting funding to support the sectors where the UK is or could be world-leading.”

While part of this might be sticking it to France, it is clear that there is an understanding that investing in making stuff is important to the economy in the UK.

According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), a trade organization, eight out of 10 cars manufactured in the UK are exported—so if it wants to continue to have that happen, then the manufacturers located in the UK are going to have to produce the types of vehicles that are in demand, which is increasingly (though certainly not entirely) electric.

And getting the wherewithal to produce electric vehicles takes big money, whether measured in pounds or dollars.

About the British Car Build in July

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Things are not going as planned. . .

By Gary S. Vasilash

According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), the British automotive trade association, this past July the UK vehicle production number was 53,438.

In July 2020—when the pandemic was still shockingly smacking every economy everywhere—the number of vehicles produced was 85,696.

Which means that production has declined 37.6%.

Now maybe it was just something to do with the month of July.

SMMT points to the shortage of chips. The contact tracing system that is in place in the UK (leading to many people getting alerts on their phones about contact, something called the “pingdemic”), and some companies just shutting down for a break to accommodate supply change changes.

The good news in all of this is that the production numbers year-to-date in 2021 are 18.3% higher than they were in 2020.

That said, it is clear that there are still challenges being faced in the UK auto industry, which, according to the SMMT, accounts for 12.8% of all UK exports and directly employs some 168,00 people.

Which means it is non-trivially important to the overall UK economy.