UK car production suffers longest closure in Europe

Covid-19 puts brakes on car production lines, as the UK has the worst shutdown in all of Europe. Although the global automotive industry has been hard hit due to COVID-19, the UK market has suffered severely.

Scrap Car Comparison , share the harsh impact on European production, manufacturing and vehicle sales in the automotive industry.

UK vehicle production lines have been shut down for a total number of 41 days so far, the longest closure in Europe alongside Italy.

Currently, the average shutdown duration is 30 working days. The UK has far exceeded this, and has suffered a production loss of 262,715 vehicles.

In comparison, Sweden experienced a production shutdown duration of only 15 days, with 26,464 vehicles not produced. Data shows that Finland experienced the lowest loss in manufacturing across Europe, with only 11,604 cars not produced.

There is currently a projected loss of 2,446,344 vehicles across Europe, including cars, vans, trucks, buses and coaches due to the sudden closure of production plants.

Scrapping a car can also be an option, with competitive prices, and a simple guide to the process. The Scrap Car Network is one of the leading providers for those wishing to go down this route.

The lockdown impact across Europe

Country                 Production loss       Closure (days)

Germany                   616,591                           30

Spain                         452,155                           34

France                       278,425                           34

United Kingdom       262,715                           41

Italy                           157,933                            41

Czech Republic         155,060                           29
Hungary                     51,552                             22

Portugal                     41,525                             35

Belgium                      33,360                             25

Netherlands                30,819                            25

Austria                        26,480                            34

Sweden                      23,464                            15

Finland                       11,604                             25

Effects on the automotive industryThroughout the UK and across Europe, over 13.8 million people work in the automotive industry. From design and production to maintenance and retail, roughly 6.1 per cent of UK and European jobs are based within the automotive sector.

As the production of vehicles came to an abrupt stop, this had a knock-on effect to the car sales market.

The closure of showrooms has impacted sales figures significantly:

• April 2020 saw a drop of 97.3% in car sales in the UK, a figure not seen since 1946, a year after World War Two.
• Only 197 cars were produced by British factories in April and only 4,321 cars were sold, compared to 161,064 cars sold in Britain in April 2019.

The full story of the COVID-19 impact on the Car Market can be viewed here.  

Dan Gick, founder and owner of Scrap Car Comparison, said, “In these unprecedented times, it is evident that the global automotive industry has been hit severely. The figures highlight the EU-wide impact of the crisis, we only hope the industry begins to recover as soon as possible.”

Scrap Car Comparison continue to urge any owners who are thinking about scrapping a vehicle during lockdown to use its no-contact Donate a Car scheme to give vital funds to one of their amazing partnered charities!

Scrap Car Comparison remains open for business and is operating a strict no contact quotation, booking and collection service in line with government guidelines throughout the duration of COVID-19.