Britain’s car industry: heading for a crash?
From 2024, EVs traded between the UK and the EU will need to have 45% of their parts sourced from either region, or they will face 10% tariffs

A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
Let’s be clear, said Sean O’Grady in The Independent. We will be witnessing, in the coming months and years, “the slow death” of the British car industry – another success story sacrificed on the altar of Brexit.
Honda in Swindon is closing. Nissan in Sunderland is considering its options. Last week, Stellantis, the maker of Vauxhall, Peugeot, Citroën and Fiat cars, stated bluntly that if the cost of making electric vehicles (EVs) in the UK becomes prohibitive, then “operations will close”; its electric vehicle plant in Ellesmere Port in Cheshire is at risk.
Ford and JaguarLand Rover issued similar warnings. Why are they worried? It’s a question of “rules of origin”, a fiddly issue that Boris Johnson somehow forgot to mention when he trumpeted his “zero-tariff” EU trade deal. From 2024, EVs traded between the UK and the EU will need to have 45% of their parts sourced from either region, or they will face 10% tariffs. And since, unfortunately, the UK has to source so many parts from Asia, that threshold is unlikely to be met – particularly because Britain does not have a viable domestic car battery business. The resulting 10% tariffs will make UK-made cars uncompetitive in the crucial European market.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
‘Likely to be left behind’
“With wearisome predictability”, Remainers who can’t accept the referendum result blame everything on Brexit, said the Daily Mail. But the blame here doesn’t lie with Johnson’s EU deal. It lies with the failure of successive governments to invest in battery factories, leaving Britain almost entirely reliant on imports. There’s still a hope that the EU might renegotiate the trade deal, said the FT. But the Government will have to be quick: car manufacturers have to plan their complex supply chains many years ahead, and the import rules are due to change in January.
The real concern is that the UK simply does not have a viable industrial strategy. The EU and the US are thinking far ahead about how to build up green manufacturing. The UK looks disturbingly likely to be “left behind”. The fashion now among Brexit supporters is to concede that it’s going badly, said Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian – but to argue, as Nigel Farage did recently, that this is only because “useless” politicians have “mismanaged” it. They sound like deluded Western Marxists who insisted that communism hadn’t failed; it had just never been implemented properly. Seven years on, we ought to be able to face the reality: that “Britain is becoming poorer and falling behind its peers”. But as “the damage caused by Brexit piles up”, its supporters seem ever more inclined to “blame others for not doing it right”.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
A downside of starting a business
And more of the week's best financial insight
By The Week Staff Published
-
How Birmingham went bust
Why Everyone's Talking About Bankruptcy of Labour-run local authority – the largest in Europe – has been a long time coming
By The Week Staff Published
-
The AI stock market wave: chancing an Arm?
Talking Point The SoftBank-owned British chip designer has started the countdown for a Nasdaq IPO in a snub to the London Stock Exchange
By The Week Staff Published
-
Interest rates: more ‘trauma’ for households
Talking Point Latest hike will cause ‘plenty of pain for borrowers’
By The Week Staff Published
-
Early retirees: should they get on their bikes?
Talking Point Mel Stride suggests over-50s should consider joining Deliveroo
By The Week Staff Published
-
Inflation crisis: is a recession the only answer?
Talking Point Experts suggest sharp slowdown may be necessary to avoid economic spiral
By The Week Staff Published
-
The ousting of Crispin Odey
Talking Point New sexual assault claims have felled one of London’s most prominent financiers. Why did it take so long?
By The Week Published
-
The rise and rise of Center Parcs: ‘the paradise machine’
In Depth The holiday resort chain is up for sale, with a price tag somewhere north of £4bn. What is the secret of its success?
By The Week Staff Published