Up to 90,000 jobs could be lost in UK car manufacturing unless the government increases support for electric car production to German and US levels, the industry body has said.
Industry leaders accused the government of being long on words but short on action to help the UK build capacity for electric vehicles, both to support the industry and reach climate emergency targets.
Not only were more incentives needed for multinationals to build electric battery factories in the UK, but grants for consumers to purchase vehicles, and at least 2.3m charging points nationwide before the end of the decade, according to a new industry report.
“We are still falling behind the competition, so we must build back better than our competitors, match the words with deeds,” Mike Hawes, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, told the industry’s annual summit.
He said the UK was home to one of the biggest car and commercial vehicle manufacturing bases in the world but support on the supply and the consumer demand side failed to match rivals in Europe and the US.
Nissan is expected to unveil plans for the country’s first “gigafactory” next to its Sunderland plant but the industry needs many more, the report says.
Even if the UK delivers on its targets for electric engines it would have about 12 gigawatt hours (GWh) worth of lithium battery capacity by 2025, compared with an expected 91 GWh in the US and 164 GWh in Germany.
More stimulus was also needed to encourage the public to buy electric cars with the UK offering grants of up to £2,500 compared with $7,000 in the US and €9,000 in Germany, Hawes said.
“If ambitious words were currency, the UK could indeed be rich. The lack of investment suggests a lack of commitment,” he said.
The industry’s blueprint is outlined in a new report, Full Throttle: Driving UK Automotive Competitiveness.
It says the government is already working with industry to attract additional electric battery manufacturing to the UK but calls for a “binding target” of 60 GWh of battery capacity by 2030 to enable it deliver its promise to “level up” across the country.
The shift to electric cars and electric or hydrogen-fuelled commercial vehicles is an urgent challenge as the sale of new cars powered only by petrol and diesel is due to be outlawed by 2030 in the UK, while hybrids will be phased out by 2025.
A lack of investment would most affect constituencies the Tories switched from Labour in the last election – in the north-east, the north-west and the West Midlands, Hawes warned. If the “impact is going to be a negative … it will undoubtedly be more profound on those areas”, he said.
By contrast, there is the potential for 40,000 new, well-paid and high-skilled jobs to be created in the “best-case scenario” of a successful transition to a zero-emissions future combined with “ambitious global trading terms”, the study concluded, a big boost to the “auto heartlands”. Meanwhile, Allison Jones, the country manager of Stellentis, the owner of Vauxhall, warned the future of its plant at Ellesmere Port was still in the balance.
The company is in talks with the government “and those were part of the equation” in relation to a final decision on the Vauxhall plant, she said.
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The Stellentis chief executive, Carlos Tavares, recently said talks were “extremely positive and productive” but these “aren’t enough” to safeguard the plant.
“On Ellesmere Port, we’re moving in right direction but can’t proceed until we have agreements on relevant authorities that have power to say yes or no. That’s the reality of the legal framing,” he said in May.
Hawes also called on the government to do more to protect the EU market for British cars, saying that international trade deals should “never be at the expense of existing neighbours and existing trade deals”. He added: “Australia is a sizeable market. It’s nowhere near as big as Europe but it’s an important one.”