As Jaguar Land Rover cut 4,000 jobs in Coventry, Professor David Bailey tells the Byline Times Podcast the automotive industry is vital for the UK’s manufacturing base.
Regarding fossil fuel phase out, and the question of market demand for EVs, if the government wants this to work they need to take some serious intervention into supporting EV charging infrastructure. It's the Achilles heel. The primary issue is public charging costs, where the price is over 10 times that of home off-peak. Unless this is tackled seriously, no-one without a driveway (which is a high proportion of car owners) is going to buy an EV. There also needs to be massive investment into chargers in parking places, i.e. wherever you park, you should be able to plug in (for low speed charging, expensive rapid chargers are not required here). It can be done, but needs public direction and investment, leaving it to the market will not work.
in 2016 the UK produced 1.7m cars in a EU wide integrated industry. Now 717,371. 42% of what we did before and still declining. Brexit the vote that continues to destroy the UK economically, industrially and more.
Regarding fossil fuel phase out, and the question of market demand for EVs, if the government wants this to work they need to take some serious intervention into supporting EV charging infrastructure. It's the Achilles heel. The primary issue is public charging costs, where the price is over 10 times that of home off-peak. Unless this is tackled seriously, no-one without a driveway (which is a high proportion of car owners) is going to buy an EV. There also needs to be massive investment into chargers in parking places, i.e. wherever you park, you should be able to plug in (for low speed charging, expensive rapid chargers are not required here). It can be done, but needs public direction and investment, leaving it to the market will not work.
in 2016 the UK produced 1.7m cars in a EU wide integrated industry. Now 717,371. 42% of what we did before and still declining. Brexit the vote that continues to destroy the UK economically, industrially and more.
Fascinating and illuminating stat Patrick…thank you