Commercial vehicle production figures for the first half of this year show that the UK is making fewer vans and trucks, and more of them are being exported.

The UK’s commercial vehicle manufacturers are increasingly dependent on export markets for their survival.

In June, home sales of UK-made vans and trucks fell by 45%, reducing reducing the market share of British-built CVs to 37.2%.

Exports rose by 12.2%, absorbing some of the slack and taking exports up to 62.8% of total production. By my reckoning, that translates as an overall reduction in production, something that has been the trend throughout the last two years, as this graph shows:

CV (commercial vehicle) production has failed to keep up with the recovery in car production.

Year to date

Looked at over the longer period of the first half of this year, the picture looks even more bleak. Overall production of commercial vehicles in the UK has shrunk by 8.7% so far this year, with exports falling by 4.9% and home sales dropping by 14%.

It’s worth noting that car production is doing much better and rose by 14% in the first half of this year. Total UK car production so far this year is 756,116, while van production is just 56,096 — so the increase in car volumes more than compensates for shrinking van volumes.

Who makes vans?

The two biggest commercial vehicle manufacturers in the UK are Ford and Vauxhall. Ford’s Southampton plant makes some Transit variants, while Vauxhall’s Luton factory manufacturers the ever-popular Vivaro medium van.

There are a number of other smaller manufacturers of more specialist vehicles.

What’s next?

I have long believed that vans registrations are a barometer of the overall health of the economy. New van registrations have fallen more or less continually throughout this year.

The decline in commercial vehicle sales — especially vans — is indicative of the fact that the UK economy has not really recovered from the 2008/9 downturn and is some way from doing so. Van registrations have remained much lower than they were before the recessions, despite a growing shortage of decent quality second-hand vans.

It all adds up to a pretty bleak picture.