‘The temporary shutdown of car factories could benefit manufacturers and customers’

Can there be any positives to appear out of short-term motor vehicle manufacturing unit closures across the world? For salt-of-the-earth workers battling to get paid a living from motor producing and linked industries, the clear answer has to be no. Such folk ain’t daft. They/we know that in these unprecedented situations, problems and problems will inevitably exist in and all around motor vehicle-linked workplaces and further than.   

As with most other people, I’m just longing to ‘get back to normal’. But frankly, as I’m trapped in the US even though writing this, I’m no for a longer time certain what normal is. 

In the motor vehicle environment we appreciate, the only certainty – the new normal, if you like – is massive alter. And alter is taking place, and will proceed to transpire, like never prior to. And to be apparent, such upheaval applies to Britain and the rest of the environment. This is not a British isles matter. It is a global matter. We’re in this collectively. 

Ironically, announcements of short-term manufacturing unit shutdowns in the course of the pandemic appear at a time when I’ve acquired figures exhibiting that global motor vehicle sales have nicely and really peaked. For years they’ve been declining – from more than 70million in 2017, to 64m in 2019. And even more reductions are possible in long term years.

Very last yr by itself, the world’s motor vehicle makers crafted almost a few million far more cars and trucks than they could sign up or promote. And this excess of merchandise was in addition to the oversupply of millions of autos in earlier years. 

In short, the sector has been making too quite a few cars and trucks for too couple consumers – resulting in some unsold products expending too prolonged on forecourts or saved on disused airfields. March’s common phone to suspend manufacturing will at least permit volume companies and their workers to redress the balance. 

Then, consumers can glance ahead to fresh new new cars and trucks – as opposed to stale illustrations that are technically ‘new and unused’ but ‘old’ in the perception that they could have been crafted quite a few months in the past and left to languish considering that. With main motor vehicle-making nations desperate to outdo every single other, no speculate source outstrips demand. In China very last yr, 21.three million cars and trucks – quite a few of them fewer than desirable – had been crafted. Japan did eight.3m, with Germany (four.7m), India and South Korea (three.6m apiece) making up the remainder of the global leading five. 

A different new norm is that the US – the ‘home of the motor car’ – has slumped to sixth place in the league desk (2.5m in 2019). In the meantime, not likely Brazil (2.4m) and humble Spain (2.2m) will have to fancy their prospects of overtaking the States. France (one.7m) and Russia (one.5m) total the Prime ten. The underdog Czech Republic (one.4m) and modest Mexico (one.4m) are now larger sized motor vehicle producers than the British isles (one.3m). Dread not, while. We’re still in the leading league of motor vehicle-making nations. And we have no strategies to depart any time before long. 

Our prestigious home-developed motor vehicle providers and the substantial-volume foreign makers who chose to appear in this article are identified to continue to keep us in the premiership. And so are their gifted ‘players’ – the faithful staff who are amongst the finest and most versatile in the environment. Truly, I have every single religion in these Brit-based providers and workers – in normal and abnormal, common and amazing, delighted and unfortunate situations.

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