Double-digit growth in demand for British-built cars last month helped deliver the biggest February for UK car production in 17 years, said the SMMT.
UK production lines turned out one car every 16 seconds in the month, with total output of 153,041 up 8.0%, as exports grew 13.4% to 118,898 units.
The performance helped to drive overall year-to-date production past 300,000 for the first time since 2002, with output rising 7.8% to 301,004 units.2 In the first two months of the year, exports of UK-made cars grew 12.1%, with 236,834 units shipped abroad, offsetting a decline in domestic demand of -5.6% to 64,170.
CV production fell by 6.3%, with the home market sales down over 30% while exports rose 15.6%.
The famous London Black Cab is going electric.
London Taxi Company opened a new Coventry factory to produce electric taxis which it also hopes to sell overseas for the first time.
It’s Britain’s first electric vehicle factory and will help the firm to expand overseas as part of a £300 million-pound investment. The TX5 model will use EV powertrain with a petrol engine working as a generator to ensure the vehicle completes a day’s work without having to return to base to recharge.
BMW has selected NEDCAR in the Netherlands to build the next X1.
It leaves a question mark over the future of MINI Plant Oxford as BMW said future investment would depend on the outcome of Brexit talks and the small BMW is closely related to MINI models, which could be moved to Holland as a result of unfavourable terms.
With distracted driving causing a dramatic rise in “swerve to avoid” crashes, Claims Management & Adjusting has welcomed a clarification by the Information Commissioner’s Office that traffic flow CCTV is not personal data.
In a stance criticised by drivers, fleet operators and insurers, Highways England has used the Data Protection Act to justify the deletion of footage after only seven days, even when it might prove liability in a serious accident and it also cited the cost of storing the recordings but now it will have to keep the footage and make it available in claims actions.
Volvo has passed 500,000 sales in a year for the first time.
The Chinese owned business recorded 535,000 sales last year and it grew at nearly double to rate of the industry average, thanks in the main to rising Asian sales.
Renault has signed its 100,000th electric vehicle battery leasing contract via RCI Bank and Services, the financial services arm of Groupe Renault.
It began with the Fluence in 2009 and leasing is now the most popular way of driving the evs, typically costs £110 a month to rent the battery.