JLR sales defy the gloom as UK car market goes into reverse

BRITAIN’S biggest car company, Jaguar Land Rover, has defied the slump that has hit the UK automotive market, with annual sales holding steady.

The Coventry-based company said that it had retail sales of 118,213 vehicles in the UK in 2017 – flat on the prior year – in what it described as a “tough” market. Official annual data from the Soci- ety of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), which is based on registrations of new cars, showed a 5.7pc drop across the industry in 2017, the first decline in six years.

Overall registrations of new cars fell from the record 2.7m in 2016 to 2.54m last year.

The trade body’s data – which can differ from retail sales – showed JLR experienced a 3.4pc sales rise during the year. The SMMT said the industrywide decline was caused by a combination of faltering consumer confidence and confusion over the Government’s policy towards diesel. Ministers are trying to drive motorists away from diesel with taxes on the sale of new cars powered by the fuel because it produces higher levels of nitric oxide pollution than petrol cars.

The policy – which comes in the wake of the Volkswagen scandal – has resulted in a collapse in diesel sales during the year. They fell 17.1pc on an annual basis and now make up 42pc of the market, down from 47.7pc a year ago.

Sales of petrol cars rose 2.7pc in the year, giving them a 53.3pc market share, and alternatively fuelled cars such as battery-powered ones made up 4.7pc of sales, a rise of 34.8pc. Almost 90pc of JLR’S vehicles are currently diesel powered, but it has swerved the problems affecting the majority of the UK diesel market.

Jeremy Hicks, managing director of JLR UK, said he was “delighted” by the performance “amid what has undoubtedly been a tough marketplace with ongoing Brexit negotiations and continued misconceptions around clean, modern diesel technology causing consumer uncertainty”.

The company – which builds more than 500,000 cars a year at its West Midlands plants and has more than 40,000 UK staff – said the sales highlight a continuing resurgence. Last year’s UK sales were more than double the 57,000 it had in 2011, as its new owners Tata were pumping billions of pounds in investment into the business after buying it from Ford for £1.5bn.

Land Rover still dominates JLR sales, outselling Jaguar in the UK by more than two to one, a ratio the company is trying to reverse by moving the Jaguar into the SUV sector.