UK car production fell sharply in July, mainly due to dire chip shortages that carmakers are grappling with. According to the British trade association Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), production shrank by 37.6 percent to 53,438 cars compared to a year ago.
This put production for a July month at the lowest level since 1956, according to SMMT. In addition, it is the first production drop since February.
The largest carmakers in the United Kingdom, Jaguar Land Rover and Japan’s Nissan Motor, have had to shut down production on several occasions due to shortages of semiconductors. But the quarantine measures in the United Kingdom against the coronavirus also disrupted production, according to SMMT.
In the first seven months of this year, production was more than 18 percent higher than a year earlier, but compared to the same period in 2019, this is a drop of almost 29 percent.
“These numbers indicate the very challenging conditions British automakers are facing,” said SMMT chairman Mike Hawes. He says there are no signs yet that global chip shortages are easing.