2020 Ain't Looking Bright, According to Moody's
The growing spectre of coronavirus, an illness currently knocking on every country’s door (and waltzing past the threshold of many), has led Moody’s Investor Service to take an axe to global car sales projections.
On Wednesday the firm erased earlier predictions of a mild cool-off in 2020, replacing it with a steeper volume loss. Given recent reports of automakers scrambling to circumvent supply chain disruptions, idling plants, and a near-total drop in new vehicle sales in China, the prediction has legs.
As reported by CNBC, Moody’s has revised its earlier estimate of a 0.9 percent global drop to 2.5 percent, and even that figure is based on an assumption that the spread of the coronavirus outbreak can be halted before the end of the first quarter.
As the wildly infectious disease shows no signs of easing — and no respect for land borders — that figure could be due for another revision before long.
While the viral outbreak factors heavily into the firm’s forecast, it’s not the sole element at play. Europe’s imposition of strict emissions mandates factors in, too. Should world events play out the way Moody’s anticipates, 2020 will see sales fall 2.9 percent in China, 4 percent in Western Europe, and 1.2 percent in the United States.
It goes without saying that the firm’s outlook is “negative.”
Last year, global new vehicle sales took a 4.6-percent haircut. In the U.S., volume decline was roughly 1.5 percent, though the industry managed to stay north of 17 million units for a fifth consecutive year. That goalpost stands to recede into the sky in 2020, regardless of what happens with the virus.
[Image: welcomia/shutterstock]
More by Steph Willems
Comments
Join the conversation
If COVID-19 goes world wide and we don't see a vaccine or it hopping back to an animal reservoir, we will see around 320 million deaths based on a 4% mortality rate and 5.5 billion humans. I'd say that it would actually be closer to double or triple that since poor countries won't have the resources to treat sick people.
I think climate change is more urgent issue. We're all gonna die.
Wouldn't be the first time in history that a plague or pandemic has reduced human population. As for climate change I wonder if we as a species have reached the tipping point--the Earth might survive and adapt but we as a species might become extinct.