Why North West is at the heart of the UK's electric vehicle transformation

The first electric vehicle I saw outside the SMMT conference was a white Tesla. The first I saw inside was a white Sinclair C5. The slideshows spoke of billions of pounds of upcoming hi-tech investment. Electric vehicles have been on quite a journey.

The North West is at the heart of Britain’s electric vehicle transformation with hundreds of millions of pounds of investment on the way - and there could be more success to come if the automotive industry gets the government backing it needs.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) this week held its Regional Forum in Liverpool for the first time, and chose to focus on electric vehicles.

The key local manufacturers were all represented at the conference - and all of them are seeing huge investments in their electric vehicle capacity and into reducing their carbon footprint.

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JLR employs thousands in Halewood, while more than 1,000 people work at Stellantis’ former Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port and hundreds work at Ford’s transmissions plant in Halewood.

Meanwhile Bentley employs 4,000 in Crewe, while Leyland Trucks employs more than 1,000 in Lancashire.

And beyond the big names there are many suppliers in the region, who also employ thousands and will also play key roles in greening the sector.

But the industry is not without its challenges - not least a need for more government support for EVs and their infrastructure, whoever wins the upcoming general election.

The Sinclair C5 was an 80s experiment in electric vehicles that failed. It's a reminder that electric vehicles haven’t always been fashionable, and traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles continue to dominate the market. But the sheer scale of the investments detailed at this conference show electric vehicles are now mainstream, and the industry is only going to get bigger.

Mike Hawes, chief executive of the SMMT, agrees the region is a European leader in the push towards electric vehicles - and says that is a tribute to the success of its plants and its workers.

He said: “Last year, some £20bn was committed to the UK automotive industry which was more than the previous seven years put together… and a significant portion of that has gone into the North West.

“Everyone has been setting out their strategy to shift from fossil fuel vehicles to electric vehicles because that is the future. It's not going to be a smooth road to get there but everyone recognises that that is the future.”

But the industry does face some major challenges if it is to keep growing. One such challenge - which came up several times in the conference - is that government needs to offer incentives to car buyers to encourage them to go electric.

The current Government has given lots of support to manufacturers to encourage them to build EVs, and manufacturers will have to make a certain proportion of their output electric to comply with net zero regulations.

But consumer demand for EVs has slowed - leaving manufacturers questioning their massive infrastructure investments.

Mr Hawes said: “Those investments only make sense if you have a relatively strong domestic market for those products. Otherwise why would you build them here?

“So to then have a statement from the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to say to the consumer we're not going to force you to buy a heatpump, to change a boiler, or to buy an EV, and to then publish a regulation which compels the manufacturer to sell these vehicles… if you're a consumer you're thinking 'What does this mean? I'm told I don't have to buy one, but the manufacturers are being told they must sell them…’

“Undoubtedly it's a new technology, so it's more expensive, so you need some form of incentive to help overcome that upfront purchase cost. We think halving VAT… would put about 250,000 EVs on the road.”

Another Government investment requested by many in the industry is a strong commitment to investment in public EV charging points.

Mr Hawes asked: “If I'm going to invest in one of these vehicles, can I be sure wherever I go, I'm going to be able to charge it?

“If you live at home with a driveway, that's fabulous. But if you don't, you live in an apartment, a flat, or a terraced house, and you don't have that dedicated space, you're at the mercy of public charging. That needs to accelerate. Its getting better, but it needs to accelerate.”

Mr Hawes also had an eye on the general election. He said the next Government, whatever its colour, would need to reiterate its support for the automotive sector - and should work to build trade relationships with the major markets on which it depends. And he said the Government also needed to offer support on regulations and red tape, particularly as the UK diverged from Europe following Brexit.

He said: “We're a very highly-regulated sector. Consumers don't see this necessarily because they only see the vehicle, but to put a vehicle on the road there is a huge amount of complicated regulation you must meet.

“What we don't want to see is UK regulation differing from other international regulatory frameworks.”

He added that the SMMT’s request was for the Government to “have an industrial strategy which supports manufacturing in terms of competitiveness, energy costs, skills, and obviously a strong market.”

Simon Reid, assistant director for business growth at Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, said the city region and its surroundings, including Ellesmere Port, was an “epicentre of automotive manufacturing”.

He said: “It’s in our interest to make sure the automotive sector sees growth because it’s high quality jobs, very productive, and secures our economic growth for the next 15/20 years.”

JLR, formerly Jaguar Land Rover, announced last year that Halewood was to become the group’s first all-electric plant under the group’s £15bn Reimagine strategy to “reposition the company as an electric-first, modern luxury carmaker by 2030”.

The plant is now undergoing an investment programme so it can start building a new all-electric mid-sized Range Rover that is set to go on the market next year. JLR has also confirmed that Halewood will then also build another electric vehicle based on the same EMA platform.

Trevor Leeks, operations director at JLR Halewood, said investment at Halewood over the past 18 months included a new body shop, and improvements to its Body Construction centre that will see robots used to automate the fixing of doors onto vehicles.

He added: “Vehicles have got larger, so we've had to make modifications in our paint shop. Last year we had to cut 1.5 metres of ovens down the middle and extend them by a metre because the cars are getting bigger.”

Meanwhile thousands of employees across the group are being trained in electrification.

Mr Leeks said: “The building work is coming to an end. The installation and commissioning is where we're at at