UK aftermarket gets ready and set for EV growth

With an estimated 1.6 million electric cars already on UK roads, and regulation that requires EVs to account for 80% of all new car registrations by 2030, the ability to service, repair and maintain these vehicles is increasingly important. Now is the time, therefore, to invest and prepare for EV growth – and the UK aftermarket sector is doing just that, as SMMT’s latest report, Jobs, Growth, Mobility – What the aftermarket needs to deliver, sets out. More than four in five workshops surveyed for the report are equipped to service EVs, with most expecting to spend more on this capability over the next year – while at the same time upskilling and retooling to handle increasingly advanced driver assistance technology, which now features in eight in 10 new cars.

These developments reflect the aftermarket’s importance to the economy, contributing £17.1 billion to GDP, maintaining at least 339,000 jobs, and supporting the wider automotive ecosystem – keeping people and businesses moving with the latest, safest technology. Keeping up with rapid change on UK roads, however, requires huge investment in workshop equipment, skills and jobs, often by smaller and family-run businesses. It’s a massive undertaking in the current economic environment, where capital investment relief and delivery of Apprenticeship Levy funding, would fundamentally support.

Vehicle manufacturing is also a critical economic contributor and employer of hundreds of thousands of highly skilled, well-paid workers across the country. While August is always a low volume month with summer maintenance planned, SMMT’s latest figures published this week showing an -18.2% decline in car and commercial vehicle volumes is disappointing, breaking a two-month growth run. There are positives, however, notably a 40.9% rise in electrified car production, now representing almost half of all output.

The focus is now on September’s performance, and the impact of the cyber incident at the UK’s largest automotive employer. JLR is working at pace, supported by NCSC cybersecurity specialists, to return to full operations as quickly as possible. Indeed, the announcement yesterday that some systems are being restarted is encouraging news for all those affected. SMMT continues to engage with the company, suppliers and government, and yesterday held a second extraordinary meeting of the Automotive Components Section to identify what measures may be needed to support critical suppliers, many of them SMEs, which are under severe stress. A range of measures will be necessary given the supply chain is complex and diverse and further announcements are expected in the coming days. Delivery of the Industrial Strategy and Drive35 programme must also remain a priority so that UK Automotive can drive greater domestic growth, jobs, global trade, and decarbonisation.