UK car manufacturers are suffering from a lack of vision - Yorkshire Post Letters

Your article about the UK motor industry (Yorkshire Post, April 19) illustrates the disturbing lack of vision and ambition amongst its leadership.

They seem to be obsessed with exports to the EU whilst ignoring the far more significant factor of imports from the block.

In 2022, the UK share of our own market fell to little more than 10 per cent. The industry is coy about the origins of the other 90 per cent, but indications are that German manufacturers alone account for 60 per cent.

Surely, now that we have left the EU, we should aim to reverse these figures. Our manufacturers should be encouraged to concentrate on the home market and, with time, should be able to sell one million more cars per year in the UK than currently.

There would be many knock-on advantages, such as greater prosperity, shorter supply chains and reduction in traffic crossing the channel.

Right now, we have a golden opportunity to implement such a policy. We could take leaves out of the EU and USA books. We could introduce tariffs against any vehicle which does not have a minimum of 45 per cent of UK content which is similar to the measure the EU is due to introduce at the end of this year.

Let no-one say that a market share of 60 per cent would be impossible to achieve. We actually had much more than that before we joined the then Common Market fifty years ago.