Carmageddon

When Nissan announced it would not, after all, produce its new X-Trail in Sunderland, this was reported as proof of an impending Brexit disaster. A Labour councillor in South Wales even suggested that ‘all those who voted to leave should be laid off first’. But Nissan’s decision has little to do with Brexit, and everything to do with the turmoil of the global car industry.

It is not that overall car sales are plunging — they grew by a modest 0.5 per cent across Europe last year. The problem is that established carmakers have failed to keep up, and their future now looks far more uncertain than it did even just a few years ago.

BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Nissan: for decades, the same names ruled. It was a complacent industry, and progress was incremental. Every five years or so, a new model of car would be brought out that was slightly better, slightly more efficient than the last.