I don’t really understand the desire by successive governments to build more and more cars. FGS the roads are already full. If road capacity had kept pace with car production we’d have by now a motorway network that worked and was the envy of the world, but it didn’t.
Like all other major infrastructure HMG declined investing in things that would make life better, more efficient. Instead they encouraged foreign companies to come in and build ever more cars – Where was the balance?
Now I have no time for the reasons behind the decline of car production, it’s all about destruction of our ability to live better lives, but surely apart from the services industry there should be something we can replace cars with as a major manufacturing object – but not while net-0 is still alive and kicking.
In the days of Harold Wilson HMG used to publish the import/export balance on a monthly basis, showing generally how much we were indebt due to us importing more than we exported. Time to bring that back – It would be another thing to attack the government with, but please, no more car factories until we’ve done something about the roads.
Need to factor in the impact of the current racket called 'Mobility'. I saw figures suggesting one in five new cars were bought under the scheme subsidised by taxpayers. How many are manufactured/assembled in UK vis imported? And what numbers would we produce in this country if the scheme did not exist?
I did some analysis of the relative costs of EV's and petrol cars once the tax differences are removed - here - https://kevinlangford1.substack.com/p/are-evs-cheaper-as-well-as-greener?r=66q7a Still a way to go unless you are comparing a Chinese manufactured EV with a European petrol verhicle - though the evidence seemed to suggest that they would be cheaper eventually.
“Output peaked at 1.92m cars during 1972, our last year before entering the European Economic Community (EEC).”
Prior to the EEC when we were able to trade freely with the Commonwealth Countries, they being mostly agricultural with some industry, we being mostly industrial with some farming, they shipped us agricultural produce, in exchange we shipped manufactured goods - particularly motor vehicle. It was an easy market, they drove on the left, steering wheel on the right, so our cars needed no modification and it was easier for them to buy from UK than Europe, USA or Japan. The EEC put an end to that, and EEC Countries didn’t want our cars, they had enough of their own.
I don’t really understand the desire by successive governments to build more and more cars. FGS the roads are already full. If road capacity had kept pace with car production we’d have by now a motorway network that worked and was the envy of the world, but it didn’t.
Like all other major infrastructure HMG declined investing in things that would make life better, more efficient. Instead they encouraged foreign companies to come in and build ever more cars – Where was the balance?
Now I have no time for the reasons behind the decline of car production, it’s all about destruction of our ability to live better lives, but surely apart from the services industry there should be something we can replace cars with as a major manufacturing object – but not while net-0 is still alive and kicking.
In the days of Harold Wilson HMG used to publish the import/export balance on a monthly basis, showing generally how much we were indebt due to us importing more than we exported. Time to bring that back – It would be another thing to attack the government with, but please, no more car factories until we’ve done something about the roads.
I think NSO publish monthly trade stats.
I notice that as an economy measure the Govt are due to cancel a number of road schemes in the pipeline, but not, of course, rail schemes.
Congestion charging?
Need to factor in the impact of the current racket called 'Mobility'. I saw figures suggesting one in five new cars were bought under the scheme subsidised by taxpayers. How many are manufactured/assembled in UK vis imported? And what numbers would we produce in this country if the scheme did not exist?
I did some analysis of the relative costs of EV's and petrol cars once the tax differences are removed - here - https://kevinlangford1.substack.com/p/are-evs-cheaper-as-well-as-greener?r=66q7a Still a way to go unless you are comparing a Chinese manufactured EV with a European petrol verhicle - though the evidence seemed to suggest that they would be cheaper eventually.
“Output peaked at 1.92m cars during 1972, our last year before entering the European Economic Community (EEC).”
Prior to the EEC when we were able to trade freely with the Commonwealth Countries, they being mostly agricultural with some industry, we being mostly industrial with some farming, they shipped us agricultural produce, in exchange we shipped manufactured goods - particularly motor vehicle. It was an easy market, they drove on the left, steering wheel on the right, so our cars needed no modification and it was easier for them to buy from UK than Europe, USA or Japan. The EEC put an end to that, and EEC Countries didn’t want our cars, they had enough of their own.