Dr. Andy Palmer

My apprenticeship gave me some of the best days of my life & equipped me with the skills needed to lead businesses at the forefront of the auto industry. For employers & employees alike, apprenticeships add huge value. Find out more in this film with @TheTimes & @BizSupportGovUK.

According to @transenv European 𝐁𝐄𝐕 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐚 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫 🇪🇺 Both BEV and petrol sales are at 22% market share in Q2 2026. ICE volumes (petrol + diesel) are down 17% in the first half of 2026.  Renault and Mercedes saw the strongest BEV growth in the first half of 2026 (+50% and +45%) while Volkswagen and Volvo saw the slowed BEV growth (+8%, +16%). European BEV models account for 7 out of 10 of the top selling BEVs (2 are Tesla and 1 Chinese).

Personally I’m loving the new regulations. They have shaken up the grid, Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren have all been genuine contenders, and Kimi Antonelli’s emergence has added a fresh storyline. We’ve seen more variety in winners, less predictable races and a tighter championship fight. The fears that the 2026 rules would hurt the spectacle haven’t materialised. If anything, this season has reminded us that regulation resets can be exactly what the sport needs.

Hate the way Domenicali talks about ‘the fans’ as if we are all one big happy family. His 60,000 ‘Fan Voice’ programme that gives him the feedback he wants are doubtless mainly Drive to Survive addicts. Anyone following a part of it??

@afneil @British_Airways Standard operating procedure for all “Gold for Life” member - the status of which they often can’t find on their system - or better still, lose!

Hey @British_Airways — I sent an important email to bapriorityteam@ba.com over 24 hours ago after you bumped me from my JFK to Heathrow flight yesterday, without even telling me. I only discovered when I tried to check in yesterday morning. Still no response to my email. So much for ‘priority’. Despite the obvious fact we clearly have different definitions of ‘priority’, do you think someone at BA might give it some attention? I’m only a humble former GL member, with gold status for life and I had paid top dollar for my first class seat, so I understand I might not count as much of a priority for the ‘new’ BA these days.

Completely agree on the need for apprenticeships (although I don’t have any evidence of indoctrination and radicalisation by monocultural left-wing university staff in all my visits to universities around uk and the world - normally just kids working hard - maybe less PPE’s would be good though!) But let’s not reinvent the apprenticeship system again. The ONC / HNC / C&G system of the 1950/60/70’s worked pretty well. Let’s not invent T-Levels and V-Levels. All this does is set a standard perceived as a lesser qualification. Let’s ensure that which ever route the individual takes, there is a precise equivalency to the alternatives. Two last points 1) It needs to be attractive to employ an apprentice- recent changes to employment rights diminish this. 2) You need an industry to exist in which to train people eg Steel making. The continued lack of an Industrial Strategy is central to our deindustrialisation

Pushing as many young people as possible towards university was Tony Blair’s biggest mistake. Even his own son Euan, who has built a massive business helping young people get into apprenticeships, has publicly said this. So it’s great now to see Burnham promising to reverse this decades-old catastrophe. For all but the most academic of young people, and those with a handful of specific professions in mind, university is worse than a waste of time. Students rack up debt, get nothing done, and leave with graduate degrees mostly not worth the paper they’re written on. And along the way very large numbers of them become indoctrinated and radicalised by monocultural left-wing university staff who despise our western civilisation and its emphasis on individual freedom and who, from the comfort of their lifelong tenure with all the trappings, fetishise Marxist totalitarians the world over. All those student marches bedecked with Hezbollah, Hamas and Khameini flags did not appear in a vacuum; the Lenin, Mao and Castro adornments; trendy demands for communism (and the annihilation of the world’s tiny singular Jewish state); it’s all manufactured in our universities which have been taken over by some of the worst people in Western society. A fifth column. The universities have become cesspools which are ruining too many young people and corrupting our democracy. Far better to create an environment in which the vast majority of young people choose vocational training and the learning of real skills, and leave university to an academic few. 👏 @andyburnham telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/…

@Lord_Sugar 6

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It’s reasonable to distinguish between ignition and spread. Climate change doesn’t flick the match, drop the cigarette or start the arson. But warmer, drier conditions can leave vegetation more combustible, allowing a small ignition source to become a much larger fire. Human actions still cause most wildfires.

On le sait tous mais on se tait C’est plus simple, c’est plus pratique La cigarette qu’on jette depuis sa fenêtre de voiture, le barbecue, la bouteille de bière qu’on abandonne dans la nature sèche car la poubelle est trop éloignée… On oublie que @Greenpeace a envoyé des drones sur une centrale nucléaire, bien avant la guerre entre l’Ukraine et l’état Russe Ils vont nous pourrir la vie longtemps c’est factuel

Comme beaucoup de gens, j’ai des proches touchés tragiquement par les incendies en Gironde 😢. Mes pensées vont à tous ceux qui ont tout perdu, et tout mon soutien et mon respect immense 🫡 à ceux qui combattent ces monstres de flammes. Ici une vue depuis un Canadair.

Popularism has a short memory The remarkable aspect of Britain’s air defence in 1940 was not just that the RAF had good aircraft—it was that the UK transformed itself into a mass-production system in less than two years. Between the Munich Crisis (1938) and the Battle of Britain (July–October 1940), production of both the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane increased dramatically. By the end of the Battle of Britain: Around 4,300 Hurricanes had been built. Around 2,800 Spitfires had been built. Britain was producing roughly 450–500 modern fighters per month—more than Germany was replacing lost Bf 109s. This was one of the decisive industrial victories of the war. During the Battle of Britain itself, the RAF often lost aircraft during the day but factories delivered enough replacements to rebuild squadrons continuously. Car companies assembled major components. Engine factories supplied Rolls-Royce Merlins. Final assembly took place at multiple dispersed sites. Austin Morris Motors Rootes Rover Standard Motor Company Daimler all became major aerospace suppliers. A Spitfire typically consisted of thousands of components from hundreds of U.K. suppliers. Examples included: Rolls-Royce Merlin engine Dowty de Havilland Rotol Rolls-Royce and Bristol) Lucas Smiths Dunlop Thousands of small machine shops produced: castings forgings gears hydraulic fittings fasteners bearings control cables Many furniture manufacturers even built wooden jigs and tooling. Successive governments, but most notably Conservative, have allowed this critical and strategic capability to disappear. We could not rise to this challenge today because we simply no-longer have the skills - Austin, Morris, Rover, Routes, Standard no-longer exist because Govt allowed them to fail. If we had to face the Battle of Britain today, our industrial base could not replicate what the hidden hero’s of 1940 did - and of that we should be ashamed!

Tim you’re right; but it is the establishment view and it gets you to a place where you can’t make virgin steel which means you can’t make cars. Where you can no longer make precision castings because the skills are lost…… and follow that through to a logical conclusion, you are no longer able to build your own defence products. Market forces are a great score keeper but it has to be tempered with an industrial strategy for vital capabilities - and for most of my career (mostly spent outside U.K.), the U.K. hasn’t done this well.

@JohnRentoul @AndyatAuto I'm not sure that justifies your claim that buying British is against the national interest. Rather it suggests you think it might be true in the short term for some projects but the national interest isn't short term, it's a gross generalisation at best...

“Buy British” is against the national interest (and contrary to the EU Trade & Cooperation Agmt and WTO rules)

Buying a part from a specific source is not mutually exclusive to buying at best economics. Where it fails is where the specific source is no longer capable, or has been hollowed out as for example is much of the U.K. automotive supply chain. In 1990’s Nissan Sunderland complied with 80% local content regulations (EU) without sacrificing its economics - basically by concentrating on total delivery cost economics rather than simply ex-works costs.

@AndyatAuto Because it means not buying the best or cheapest; it is a form of protection

@OliverKamm Sourcing origin is not mutually exclusive with competitive sourcing. Where it breaks down is where the supply chain no longer exists as is the case for automotive sourcing in U.K.

It sounds patriotic but it’s bad policy. The task should be to get value for money in procurement decisions. Protectionism doesn’t do that. In particular, linking defence procurement with industrial policy all but ensures cost overruns & profligacy.

How do we define “buy British”? Taking to what I know, cars; it’s absolutely impossible to buy an all British car; the supply chain no longer exists (this is the dirty secret no one talks about and can be largely attributed to not supporting /bailing out, UK owned companies like Rover). We can buy a vehicle assembled in Britain, but much of the BoM is coming from EU, Japan and China. Assembly costs are a relatively small part of the CoGs. So we might argue that Brexit gives autonomy to buy British assembled cars, but it complicates the supply chain of imported parts and constantly exposes us to the spectra of tariffs and therefore price competitiveness. Swings & Roundabouts!

This hardline protectionist ‘Buy British’ approach to public procurement is only possible because of Brexit. How do you square it with the desire, oft proclaimed by Keir Starmer and now Andy Burnham, that we need to align much more closely with EU rules? Also — don’t we have a number of agreements with other countries, in and out of the EU, for fair dealing when it comes to procurement? Won’t we be in breach of them?

Regrettably, we cannot achieve perpetual motion. In other words, the energy used to propel a vehicle will always exceed that generated in coast down regeneration. That said, we can improve energy usage efficiency by utilising regeneration mode in our EV and by allowing the car to feed part of its stored energy back to the grid - V2G If you are smart, you charge the car when the tariff is low and sell it when the tariff is high Maximum opportunity is with an EV, V2G, a home battery and solar for those lucky enough to have a driveway.

I understand that wind turbines produce electricity on the basis of rotation providing continuous movement. If so, could car wheels do something similar? Could that electricity be used to charge a battery? Could that battery power an engine? Could that engine be the basis of a self-powering vehicle? I’m sure that professional engineers could create positive responses to these questions. That is if the oil companies allowed them to do so.

@japan_nobunaga So much misinformation on here. Simple check. About 40 countries: safe to drink routinely with reasonable nationwide confidence. Perhaps another 20–30: safe in major cities, but not reliably throughout the country. US and U.K. are both safe.

@ShaunRicha96463 True but we are competing with countries who have excellent infrastructure and are consequently more efficient than us

@AndyatAuto Come on guys, how did we ever manage without phones over the decades

When I served as Chairman of the Productivity and Skills Commission of the new West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) from 2016, one of the major blockages to productivity improvements outside London was infrastructure. Since then, my perception of infrastructure, whether road conditions, rail infrastructure or telecommunications, is that it’s got worse not better. Today I’m on a train into London that is standing room only trying to communicate on a cellular network that doesn’t work. Recent independent analysis has found the UK now performs poorly compared with many comparable countries for reliable mobile connectivity. In calls overseas, U.K. has a very poor reputation for its mobile coverage. The main reasons appear to be: 1) 3G has been switched off @Ofcom allowed operators to retire 3G because the radio spectrum is more efficiently used for 4G and 5G. The intention was that operators would upgrade affected areas to 4G before switching off 3G so customers would not lose coverage. In practice, many locations where 3G provided the strongest indoor or rural signal have not received an equivalent 4G service, leaving coverage gaps. 2) 4G doesn’t always travel as well as 3G Although both technologies can use similar frequencies, operators have often reconfigured their spectrum after 3G retirement. In some areas this has reduced indoor penetration or rural reach, especially where the 4G network hasn’t been fully optimised. Network capacity is now the bigger issue. So what looks like “poor coverage” is often actually network congestion rather than lack of radio signal. 3) Huawei equipment had to be removed. Following UK national security decisions, operators have had to replace Huawei equipment from their 5G networks. This has diverted billions of pounds and engineering resources that would otherwise have been used expanding coverage, delaying upgrades by several years. 4) Planning and mast issues The UK has slow planning approval for new masts and small cells. So this appears to be largely an Ofcom problem. One might draw some comparison with Ofwat and Ofcom

@ListerLawrence Lawrence I love this colour - but a little lighter would really pop

I think I’m gonna paint the Costin Blu Julie. It’s a Ferrari colour but it really pops in the sun and I think it will compliment the Costin’s lines beautifully.

@andrew_lilico Because the jobs in legal services, management consulting and AI won’t exist without a manufacturing foundation. Who do you imagine the consultants and lawyers are going to sell their services to!

There's that "reindustrialisation" meme again. Why would the UK benefit from reindustrialisation? Why should we think jobs in making lamps & cabinets are better than jobs in legal services, management consulting & AI?

@ShaunRicha96463 @afneil Better to stick it where the sun shines and charge it for free with solar!

@AndyatAuto @afneil Stick your EV where the sun don’t shine

And so it begins: the next phase in Trump’s War on Iran starts to take its toll: Shipping transiting the Strait of Hormuz has all but stopped since July 15. Brent crude hit $95/barrel this morning. More important, prices of refined products spiking. For example, jet fuel is over $150 a barrel in Europe and just under $150 a barrel in North America. Huge cuts in global supply of refined products from China, Russia and the Gulf — a dangerous triple-whammy for the global economy.

@ShaunRicha96463 @afneil $100 / barrel today!