Stellantis, one of the world’s biggest car makers, has asked the UK government to renegotiate part of the Brexit deal with Brussels or risk losing parts of its car industry and suffer “significant job losses”.
The firm, which makes Vauxhall, Peugeot, Citroen and Fiat, had committed to making electric vehicles in the UK – but has now warned ministers it can no longer meet Brexit trade rules on where parts are sourced.
Stellantis makes electric vans at its Ellesmere Port factory in Cheshire, and the warning to government will raise questions over its future.
The revelation – first reported by the BBC and contained within a submission to a Commons inquiry into electric car production (read in full here) – comes hours after Nigel Farage admitted “Brexit has failed”.
The rules state that 45 per cent of the value of an electric vehicle must come from the UK or EU from 2024 to avoid penalties.
The carmaker urged the government to reach an agreement with the European Union about keeping the current rules until 2027, or else “trade between the UK and EU would be subject to 10% tariffs”.
Stellantis said its UK investments were based on meeting the strict terms of the post-Brexit free trade deal.
The Stellantis submission says that uncompetitive electric vehicle costs will mean “manufacturers will not continue to invest” and will “relocate manufacturing operations outside of the UK”.
In a stark line from the submission, the company said: “If the cost of EV manufacturing in the UK becomes uncompetitive and unsustainable, operations will close.”
It adds: “The closing of UK manufacturing will see significant job losses, the loss of a skilled workforce and a negative impact to the UK economy.”
Stellantis chief executive Carlos Tavares said earlier in the year that Britain’s car industry would be “in trouble” without UK-made batteries.
Meanwhile, the former UKIP leader said the Conservatives had failed to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the 2016 referendum result.
Farage said he “doesn’t think that for a minute” that the UK would have been better off staying in, but insisted the Tories had been worse than the European Commission at running the economy.
He said: “What I do think is that we haven’t actually benefited economically from Brexit.
″What Brexit’s proved, I’m afraid is that our politicians are about as useless as the commissioners in Brussels were.
“We’ve mismanaged this totally, and if you look at simple things such as takeovers, such as corporation tax, we are driving business away from our country.
″Arguably, now we’re back in control, we’re regulating our own businesses even more than they were as EU members. Brexit has failed.”