INTERVIEW
An agile disruptor: How MG is rewriting the corporate playbook
MG Motor’s new director fleet EU and UK outlines how the brand is managing a volatile multi-fuel landscape across the continent. By Simon Harris.
The modern fleet sector is moving through a period of historic transformation, but the core principles of best-practice fleet management remain entirely constant. While technology, powertrains, and legislation shift, the fundamental operational requirements do not change. In an industry currently operating at a high-pitched, frantic volume, finding a steady anchor is difficult. This is especially true given the deafening background noise of UK politics, following the sudden resignation of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and the resulting regulatory limbo surrounding the Zero Emission Vehicle, or ZEV, mandate.
For Karl Howkins, the recently appointed director fleet EU and UK at MG Motor Europe, navigating this volatility requires a balanced mix of traditional, relationship-driven fleet discipline and the rapid, agile development cycles characteristic of a modern Chinese automotive giant.
Managing complex residual value risks and large contract hire portfolios is practically a family tradition for Howkins. His father was a long-serving, highly respected fleet director at Vauxhall during the brand’s fleet heyday, meaning corporate automotive strategy has shaped his perspective from a young age.
Before taking the reins at MG, Howkins built an operationally grounded résumé across Europe, serving as the managing director of Citroën UK and managing director of Opel Switzerland, ahead of moving into the flexible leasing space to head up Sogo Mobility and Peter Vardy Leasing as managing director. Reflecting on the current climate, Howkins notes how the landscape has dramatically shifted over his 36 years in the industry. “You look back on it and it was a bit easier,” he says. “There’s always something there that’s an extra or unforeseen challenge, whether it’s Brexit, Covid-19, semiconductor shortage, fuel prices and so on.”
“If you launch something and it doesn’t work, they’ll say, ‘Okay, well, it didn’t work’, and we stop with that product. That can be two and a half years versus seven years with other OEMs. It’s the old adage: ‘If you fail, fail fast.’”
Karl Howkinsm, director fleet EU and UK, MG Motor
Balancing the European matrix
Managing a unified corporate sales strategy across the UK and continental Europe is a complex task. The relationship with Chinese manufacturing varies significantly between the two regions, creating distinct operational environments. “In some markets, they’re flying, you know, so they can do 5% market share, perhaps above the UK, and the UK’s doing pretty well,” Howkins explains. “Retail always seems to be strong everywhere. But there are other markets where they’re probably not strong enough in all the fleet channels. Some markets where fleet is performing well, it’s challenging to balance the used car stock. We need to work to ensure things are in sync as much as possible in all our markets.”
The primary challenge right now sits in the used vehicle market, meaning he must divide his time carefully to maintain operational balance. “I’ll probably spend 60% of my time in the UK and 40% in the EU,” Howkins says.
This geographical split requires a tailored approach that respects local legislation and consumer preferences, as different countries require different powertrain types to meet their respective climate and tax targets. “We’ll focus on certain countries with what they need from a legislation point of view, versus other countries,” Howkins says. “I mean, in the UK we sell HEVs, we sell PHEVs, we sell ICE, we sell BEVs. In Spain, we recently launched BEVs.”
Howkins is no stranger to the intense pressure of vehicle launches. “I’ve been in other roles where you launch your car. You’re in a segment that’s 10% of the market, and everyone expects you to be 30% of the market. So you’re already flogging yourself to death, trying to get car there.” Today, the competitive landscape is even more unforgiving. “You’ve got 75 vehicle brands in the UK now. It’s probably going to be 90 next year before it goes back the other way. And I think it will reduce, curtail, whatever you want to call it.”
The fail fast philosophy
The sheer scale of the market makes rapid expansion a high-stakes game. “Purely and simply, because the new car market in the UK’s 2.1 million, isn’t it? Last year was probably the best market for six years. The EU market is 13.5 million. And with new products, if you don’t hit the ground running in the first year, you’re in trouble.” It is here that the unique philosophy of a Chinese parent company provides a distinct operational advantage over traditional European manufacturers.
In a conventional European volume operation, a vehicle is typically locked into a rigid seven-year lifecycle. The Chinese OEM approach is entirely different. “I think the difference between, say, a Chinese OEM approach – and we class ourselves as Chinese despite being a British brand – if you launch something and it doesn’t work, they’ll say, ‘Okay, well, it didn’t work’, and we stop with that product,” Howkins explains. “And that can be two and a half years versus seven years with other OEMS. It’s the old adage, ‘if you fail, fail fast’. They don’t waste time trying to solve that particular problem.”
This rapid pace means the brand is realistic about the pressures of chasing market share. “We launched our fleet-targeted products at the right time. But maintaining that pace with all the new entrants coming into the UK some of the established players is a challenge for everyone. Some of them won’t survive because you can see their volumes naturally coming down in a place where it’s over-saturated.”
Strategic expansion and residual value protection
Growth is being driven by natural portfolio expansion rather than forced discounting. “We are trying to manage in a place where you can naturally grow because you are launching new products in sectors we were absent from,” Howkins says. “For example, with the MGS9, we didn’t have a seven-seater plug in hybrid. Now we’ve got one, so we’re in a new segment with that car. The IM5 and IM6 have taken us to a space where we are naturally able to grow through salary sacrifice, not giving ourselves the challenges of too much short-cycle business.”
Protecting residual values is a central pillar of this corporate strategy. “You have to keep an eye on residual values as well, because in that residual value space, you can easily get carried away by doing a short cycle activity,” Howkins warns. “If you do, it’s going to give you that pain. So you have to balance all of this by giving yourself the right routes to market.”
In the UK, this cautious approach has created an unusual but welcome problem. “Here we’re in this strange situation at the moment where we’re doing really well. We’re actually a bit short of used cars because we were a bit overcautious on some of the short-cycle business,” Howkins reveals. “We’re having to accelerate a little because we’re launching a new used approved scheme in July. In all of the countries, to kind of make sure we’ve got routes to markets that serve us well enough. But with so many cars, we have to move fast. Sometimes it feels like we don’t launch cars, we let them escape!” Ultimately, the frantic pace of the brand requires an open, grounded leadership style. “I’m the simplest bloke. I hate arrogance. It irritates the arse out of me,” Howkins says candidly. “But it’s just being able to go to the guys, look, if you got a problem, let’s know what a problem is on day one, whether it’s new cars or anything else, let’s stop and then work out a plan to get out of it. We are pretty good at selling new cars in some countries, but sometimes not so good selling used cars and we need to pay closer attention to that.”
The new seven-seat MGS9 plug-in hybrid takes MG into a fresh segment, supporting natural fleet growth without relying on short-cycle business.
The roadmap to one hundred thousand units
MG Motor UK has a total volume target of 100,000 units in 2026, and Howkins talks about how the brand might get there. The corporate sector will be the primary engine driving the brand toward that milestone, and the numbers for the year to date demonstrate strong momentum. “For IM5 and IM6 we’ve had 7,000 orders for the year to date,” Howkins says. “We were recently able to secure extra production for the UK. It’s obviously driven a lot by salary sacrifice, so we do we do really well on that.”
The rest of the vehicle portfolio is supporting this upward trajectory. “MG4 Urban started slow but now is going really well. Obviously, we’ve still got MG4 and S5 and S6. S5 is going great guns on fleet. So most of our range is doing very well, and at worst we’re average for residual values,” Howkins notes as we talked at lunchtime on 30 June. “For the 100,000 target in 2026, we’re there or thereabouts. We’re having a great June. It’s going to be our best June ever this month. I can say that with half a day to go.”
To support a 100,000-unit operation, the fleet department is undergoing a significant restructuring. Howkins believes that personal engagement remains the foundation of corporate success. “With fleet, you’ve got to do the basics well, and the rest of it is about relationships,” he explains. “My father always taught me the importance of relationships. We’re expanding the fleet team quite considerably. We appointed leasing managers north and south two months ago. We’re expanding the field team by 50%.”
Restructuring the dealer network
The retail dealer network is also being segmented to better serve different corporate audiences. “We’ve split the fleet dealers into business centres for major fleets, with others looking after SME customers,” Howkins explains. “Not every dealer can supply 2,000 cars, PDI and deliver all over the UK. Some people want to do the SME stuff or, you know, the broker stuff, which is fine. But we have to grow the SME share of our business. We weren’t strong enough with SMEs so we’ve launched an SME programme with the dealers. We launch an MG Approved programme in every country in July.” This network segmentation is running alongside broader infrastructure and technology investments. “True fleet has been our biggest growth this year, both through leasing companies and obviously our own team as well. And we’ve put a bit of investment into tech to help support the fleet business.”
