Catch up TV

Series 1: 3. Cars

Presenters Ed Balls, Ade Adepitan and Cherry Healey delve into the hectic world of Britain’s imports and exports. As our trading relationships face their biggest change in decades, they explore how much we really know about the logistics that enable Britain to buy and sell millions of cars around the world on an unprecedented scale.\n \nEd is at the port of Southampton. He sees how cars are driven on and off vast vessels at speed, looks at the exhaustive checks that BMW cars must go through before they reach their owner, gets on board a tug boat that is used to gently guide ships safely into the port and learns how to pilot the enormous ships that bring cars to and from our shores in a scale model of the real thing.\n \nCherry visits Toyota in Derbyshire to see how they turn millions of imported parts a day into shiny new cars – and is amazed to learn that all the components arrive less than four hours before they are needed. If there is major traffic or border delays, the whole production can grind to a halt!\n \nNext, Cherry sees how the iconic London taxi is designed and tested – with passenger doors being opened and closed over a million times before they are ready for market. Finally, she visits the grand headquarters of Norton Motorcycles, a British manufacturer that is cashing in on Britain’s great reputation for craftsmanship, exporting 80% of their bikes.\n \nAt the Ferrari factory in Maranello, Italy, Ade learns that the UK is the second biggest buyer of these supercars in the world. He also travels to the Tesla Gigafactory in Nevada, to see how their batteries are made and what the future holds for British car manufacturing.

Source: BBC 2