Free trade agreement.

[Corcory]

People keep going on about the fact that we can't be in the single market without agreeing to freedom of movement but why can't we negotiate a free trade agreement like the other countries in the world that are not in the EU?

[Mistigri]

Carol off the top of my head, UK car production is about 1.6 million (of a total world market of 70 million +). Of those, about half are exported to the EU. UK car exports to China are around 150k (rough figures, again) - mostly upmarket brands like JLR.

Brexit isn't going to stop JLR exporting to China, but it's not clear that it will make it significantly easier either. JLR will still have to compete with other luxury brands, and in any case, that's not the segment of the Chinese market that is growing fastest right now.

OTOH, the Japanese car companies, ie Britain's volume car makers, need local markets for their production.

[Mistigri]

I should put that 150k in context (actually it's a bit less but rounded figures are good enough here).

Volkswagen sells about 2.5m cars a year in China. Audi over half a million. BMW, Porsche and Mercedes close to a million combined.

Not all of those German cars are made in Germany of course; the big German car companies have transplants in China. The lesson for the UK is that it's probably not possible for, say, JLR, to significantly expand its Chinese sales without making cars locally.

Note that MG recently stopped assembling cars in the UK, it's done in China now.