The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has announced that it expects light vehicle production in the United Kingdom to break a previous record by 2020. The trade association's chief executive Mike Hawes was quoted by Reuters as saying that it anticipates surpassing a 1.92-million-unit level for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (LCV) previously reached in 1972. However, he added that he expected that production in the country will be around 1.8 million units during 2017, behind an expectation of 1.95 million units that it previously set. Hawes said, "We had an expectation that Europe would grow much more rapidly out of recession than it has done."
Significance: The comments coincide with the SMMT publishing a long-term forecast paper called "The future of UK automotive manufacturing in 2025 and beyond." In it, it has said that its expectations are that light vehicle production in the country will hit 1.75 million units during 2015 before hitting 2.09 million units during 2020, and flattening at around this level during the next decade. However, this over-2-million-unit level could even be reached earlier depending on the success of new models and export markets. IHS Automotive believes that these expectations could be on the optimistic side, though. We see that light vehicle production in the country will hit just 1.63 million units this year, a peak of 1.83 million units will be hit in 2017, before falling back to 1.60–1.65 million units by the end of the decade.
