BMW to stop producing electric Minis in the UK
The carmaker BMW, owner of the British brand Mini, announced last year that the battery electric Mini produced in China would also be produced in Europe from 2026, at the Oxford site in England, for the European market, following the same strategy as Volvo with its EX30 model which is currently produced in China but will also be produced in Europe (in Ghent in Belgium) from April 2025 for the European market. This strategy makes it possible to avoid the European additional tariffs system applied to battery electric models produced in China and in certain countries to avoid the system which removes ecological bonuses on battery electric cars produced in China.
 
But BMW has just announced at the start of 2025 that it is abandoning the production of the battery electric Mini in the United Kingdom and will therefore only maintain production in China.
 
This decline can be explained by the anticipation of electric car sales not being as high as expected (sales stagnated in Europe in 2024), even though the figures for January/February 2025 highlight a real increase of the European BEV market (+31.4%). Another possible explanation is the high cost of industrialization in the United Kingdom since the BREXIT. Japanese company Honda closed its Swindon factory because of this.
 
Note that BMW could reverse its 2025 decision if circumstances become much more favorable. In 2024, the Mini Cooper Electric was sold at 21,000 units in Europe.
The Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Corvette are resisting

For the past ten years, the strategy of the two largest American manufacturers, GM and Ford, has been to eliminate sedans from their ranges sold in the United States . This has seen the disappearance of:

1. at Ford: Focus (C segment) in 2018, Fiesta (B segment) in 2019, Taurus (E segment) in 2019, Fusion (D segment) in 2020.
2. at Lincoln: MKS (E segment) in 2016, MKZ (D segment) in 2020, Continental (F segment) in 2020.
3. at Chevrolet: Aveo (B-segment) in 2017, Cruze (C-segment) in 2019, Volt (D-segment) in 2019, Impala (E-segment) in 2020, Bolt (B-segment) in 2023, Malibu (D-segment) in 2024. The Camaro coupe was discontinued in 2023.
4. at Buick: Verano (C segment) in 2016, Regal (D segment) in 2017, La Crosse (E segment) in 2019.
5. at Cadillac: ATS (D segment) in 2019, CTS (E segment) in 2019, XTS (E segment) in 2019, CT6 (E segment) in 2020. The CT4 and CT5 are on borrowed time.
 
The only cars still in production today are the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Corvette, the only two Ford and GM vehicles that are neither SUVs nor pickup trucks. This observation would have seemed completely unrealistic in the early 2000s, when sedans still accounted for nearly 2 million units produced each year. Ford and GM are thus leaving the field open to the Japanese and Koreans.
Global automobile production (passenger cars and utility vehicles) remained stable in 2024
According to Inovev estimates, the volume of global automotive production (PC+UV) remained stable in 2024 compared to 2023, with a production volume of 91.5 million vehicles (passenger cars, light utility vehicles, heavy and medium utility vehicles and buses), which tends to demonstrate that carmakers continued to destock last year, but less than the previous year, the global automotive market having grown by 1.7% last year.
 
Europe and Asia produced fewer vehicles than the previous year. In Asia, the increase recorded in China (+1,115,000 units) could not offset the decline recorded in Japan (-685,000 units), Thailand (-375,000 units), Indonesia (-205,000 units), and Korea (-145,000 units). The two Americas recorded a slight increase (around +1.5%). Finally, the most dynamic region is Russia, which increases from 615,000 units in 2023
to 756,000 in 2024, thereby compensating for the temporary halt in production in Serbia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
But we are still far from returning to the levels reached before 2022.
Segment C represents 35.4% of the European passenger vehicle market (30 countries) in 2024
The-segmentation of the European passenger car market in 2024 shows that the C-segment remains predominant, with a 35.4% market share, a slight increase compared to 2023 (34.9%).-segment B is close behind C-segment, with a market share of 32.7% in Europe in 2024, a slight increase compared to 2023 (31.8%). These two-segments are therefore consolidating their lead over all others.
 
The D-segment is rather stable (14.9%) but has lost influence compared to the early 2000s (it then represented 16% of the market between 2005 and 2008).The E-segment has been in constant decline for around twenty years. It will represent only 6.0% of the European market in 2024, compared to 6.7% in 2023 and 7.0% in 2022. The D and E-segments are probably victims of high prices and the constant improvement in the performance of more compact models (particularly the C-segment) whose dimensions and performance are regularly increasing.
 
The A-segment (4.2%) has been completely neglected by carmakers, but it could be reborn in the coming years, as the increase in the size, features and price of B-segment cars creates an increasingly gap below the B-segment.
 
When analysing the European market by body type, the year 2024 shows an increasingly strong dominance of SUVs (54% of the market) against sedans (42%). Sedans still represented 80% of the European market between 2005 and 2009, and SUVs less than 10%. MPVs have practically disappeared from the market (1.5% of the market in 2024 compared to 15% in 2005). As for Vans (passenger transport versions of light utility vehicles), they have regained some strength in 2024, with 2.5% of the market.
Light Utility Vehicle production in Europe increased by 12% in 2024
Since 2005, the production volume of light utility vehicles (LUVs) in Europe 30 countries (EU + United Kingdom + Switzerland + Norway) has followed the sales curve of these vehicles on the continent, with a figure close to two million units in 2024, is comparable to the LUV market in Europe (+12.0% compared to 2023).
 
We can therefore say that the volume of LUV exports is very close to the volume of imports, mainly from Turkey (Ford Transit, Transit Custom) which remains the country from which Europe imports the most LUVs (200,000 units in 2024) and from Thailand (most pick-ups, i.e. 80,000 units in 2024). Europe therefore exports nearly 300,000 LUVs to other regions of the world, which represents 15% of total European LUV production in 2024.
 
Among the carmakers producing LUVs in Europe (there are only seven major LUV carmakers on this continent), the Stellantis group is the clear leader thanks to its Citroën, Peugeot, Opel and Fiat brands, with 40% of total LUV production in Europe in 2024, ahead of Renault (17% of production), Mercedes (12% of production), Volkswagen (11% of production), Ford (8% of production), Toyota (4% of production) and Nissan (3% of production).
 
The European countries that produce the most LUVs are France (612,000 units in 2024), ahead of Spain (389,000 units), Poland (300,000 units), Italy (230,000 units), Germany (206,000 units) and England (105,000 units).
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