The UK-EU Trade Deal: What Does It Mean for UK Automotive?

By Ian Henry (Below Left), Owner and Managing Director - AutoAnalysis  & David Bailey (Below Right), Professor – Aston Business School 

 
 
That a trade deal was agreed late last year between the UK and EU came as a big relief for manufacturing sectors like automotive, which would have faced tariffs of 10% on exports and imports of cars in the event of no deal – an outcome widely viewed as potentially ‘devastating’ for the sector.
BMW for example stated in December that a no-trade deal scenario would push up costs by several hundred million euros, and that longer term it would look at where to assemble the Mini model. On the component side, tariffs would have been lower: between 2% and 4% on imports and between 2.7% and 4.5% on exports.

 
It’s hoped that the deal could now usher in major investment in the UK that had been stalled amidst Brexit uncertainty, such as that by Stellantis (made from the recent merger of PSA and Fiat-Chrysler) to assemble a new model at ...