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The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.

Bentley shows plug-in hybrid concept ahead of Beijing, will power SUV in 2017

From its more mainstream, popular origins in the original Honda Insight and Toyota Prius, the hybrid powertrain has worked its way up to the the corner office, the big chair, the top slot in the corporation. Bentley has announced that it will introduce a plug-in hybrid option on its SUV due in 2017. Before then, we'll see what an electrically assisted Bentley looks like at the Beijing Motor Show when the Crewe automaker shows off a copper-accented Mulsanne that's been reworked into its Hybrid Concept, pictured above.
We don't have any official specs just yet, the only major announcement being that any Bentley hybrid will be able to travel at least 50 kilometers (31 miles) on pure electric thrust and get a power boost of "up to" 25 percent from its electric side. We use the phrase "any Bentley hybrid" because the company's CEO says "we will gradually introduce this powertrain across our model range" to 90 percent of the brand's lineup.
We'll know more when the Beijing show commences. For now, there's the press release below and the high-res gallery above.

Lamborghini and Bentley rack up record sales in 2022

Sister companies Lamborghini and Bentley independently announced that they set a sales record in 2022. Both firms posted a big increase in deliveries, and their announcement comes shortly after Bugatti and Rolls-Royce released their own record-breaking 2022 sales figures. Lamborghini delivered 9,233 cars in 2022, an increase of 10% over 2021 (which was a record year as well). Its best-selling model is the Urus, which accounted for 5,367 deliveries (a 7% increase over 2022). That's not surprising; SUVs sell well. What's rather stunning is that Huracan deliveries soared by 20% to 3,113 examples in 2022. Finally, Lamborghini delivered the last 753 examples of the Aventador. Geographically, the United States remains Lamborghini's biggest market; the company delivered 2,721 cars there in 2022 (an increase of 10% over 2021). China takes second place with 1,018 deliveries (up 9%) followed by Germany (808 cars; up 14%), the United Kingdom (650 cars; up by 15%), and Japan (546 cars; up 22%). All told, deliveries in the EMEA region(Europe, Middle East and Africa) jumped by 7% to 3,484 cars. The company's outlook for 2023 is bright. It will notably unveil the Aventador's hotly-anticipated successor, and the yet-unnamed model will stand out as its first series-produced hybrid model. Its historic factory in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy, will keep busy as well. "We now have the opportunity to focus on our next objectives also thanks to an 18-month waiting list," said company boss Stephan Winkelmann. While it's too early to tell if 2023 will be another record year for Lamborghini, executives stress that they want to keep the company's growth in check. The aim isn't to rival, say, BMW in terms of volume. "The idea will always be to have one car less than demand," Andrea Baldi, the head of the Americas region for Lamborghini, told Autoblog in 2022. "We will never become unexclusive. That is a promise." Bentley is celebrating for many of the same reasons: It sold 15,174 cars in 2022, an increase of 4% over 2021 and its first annual result above the 15,000-unit mark. Here again, there are some interesting surprises hidden in the numbers. Its best-seller was the Bentayga, it represented 42% of the firm's sales, and 2022 was the big SUV's most popular year — that's an impressive feat for a car released in 2015. The Continental GT range represented 30% of sales and the Speed variant accounted for 31% of those. The Flying Spur represented the remaining 28%.