UK car production fell 7% year on year to 116,159 units in October while export output was off 3.7% to 95,780 units or 82.5% of production.
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Year to date, car production was down 9.1% to 1,228,777 with exports off 5% at 937,920.
In contrast, October commercial vehicle output rose 7.9% to 19,689 units with exports up 9.6% to 13,557 or 68.2% of the total output.
YTD CV production was off 1% to 111,533 but exports were up 5.1% to 59,954 (65% of the total).
Total UK vehicle production was off 8.2% to 1,400,264 at the end of last month; exports were down 4.1% to 1,049,453 and accounted for 74.9% of total output.
“Although car production fell in October, increased industry investment did in fact result in increased volumes for some plants,” said SMMT chief executive Christopher Macgowan.
“However, we should not be complacent because manufacturers are likely to have one eye firmly on low-cost production – a fact we expect to be confirmed when the fourth annual SMMT issues survey is published next week.”
“Commercial vehicle production has shown its second successive increase in October, due to high activity on the van front,”’ he added.
“Interestingly, heavy truck volumes dropped with the passing of the 1 October Euro 4 deadline, which was the likely cause of the distortion to production trends in this sector of the market.”
