#Coronavirus

On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf announced that the Real ID deadline — which had previously been delayed indefinitely due to the coronavirus outbreak — has been pushed back until October 21st, 2021, as directed by President Trump.

Enacted in May of 2005, the Real ID Act was basically Congress over-responding to 9/11 by mandating that state-issued driver’s licenses be updated so they can be used for official purposes by the federal government (as defined by Homeland Security). While the primary goal is to mitigate air travel of undocumented immigrants between states, the aforementioned “official purposes” applies to whatever the federal government thinks prudent on any given day — including barring citizens without the ID from military bases or federal buildings, in addition to air travel.

If you haven’t heard of Real IDs (indicated by a little gold star in the corner), you’re not alone. The issue only gets a smattering of coverage every couple of years; plenty of states spent the period following 2005 pushing back against the plan, delaying its implementation several times via extensions. It was initially supposed to come into effect in four phases starting in 2008, but changes didn’t actually start until 2014. At this point, the nation is at phase three (which restricts access to federal facilities), with phase four applying new rules to U.S. air travel.

With Ford looking to get pickups rolling off the assembly line again by April 6th, where does its rivals stand?

The list is far from complete, and schedules for resuming production are fluid as a 1950s executive’s lunch, but there’s details to share on when certain U.S. autoworkers might be headed back to the factory.

While Ford Motor Co. plans to reopen several factories by early April, it’s not doing much of anything at present. That’s a standard problem among domestic brands with the coronavirus afoot, and two of them — Ford and General Motors — are coming off sizable restructuring efforts that included staffing reductions in the thousands. Additional cutbacks aren’t desirable; not with everyone watching how these companies handle the outbreak.

As it secures extra spending power from credit lines, Ford knows the steep financial cost of having the majority of its workforce stuck at home (to say nothing of its customers) will be steep. A plan is now afoot to keep jobs secure.

Given the level of uncertainty out there, even best-laid plans rest on a quivering foundation of JELL-O. It’s the same for automotive plant shutdowns in North America — most temporary idle periods carry an open-ended end date. We’ll reassess at that point and make a decision, automakers are saying.

Just two days ago, Ford Motor Company said its shutdowns would go well past the original March 30th end date; now it’s saying some facilities will come back online earlier than thought.

Driving schools in Japan are reporting an increase in attendance from individuals who already possess a driver’s license. According to The Japan Times, the new trend is epitomized by Paper Driver School Kitakanto in Maebashi. The school has seen influx of already licensed drivers this month in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Roughly 10 percent of new students are said to have signed up as a direct result of COVID-19. As Japan’s population has a lower percentage of drivers than in North America, many are dependent upon public transportation to move about — a mobility type that’s become problematic overnight, what with fears of contagion spreading as quickly as the virus itself. To avoid sharing space, some Japanese drivers are attempting to brush up on their skills in order to feel more comfortable behind the wheel.

For a brief while, it looked like BMW’s Spartanburg, SC assembly plant would be the last such factory in the U.S. still in operation. Nope.

The German automaker announced Wednesday that pressures from the coronavirus pandemic have forced its hand, prompting a shutdown scheduled to begin Sunday.

The UAW has announced the death of two Fiat Chrysler factory workers who contracted the novel coronavirus, extending sympathies while urging members to exercise safe practices during the ongoing health crisis. With COVID-19 infections ramping up across Europe and the United States, this was to be expected. The deaths are simply the first known to impact autoworker union members directly.

FCA declined to offer the names of the men, citing a respect for privacy. For our purposes, we’re only interested in their places of business, noticing the facilities where the two individuals worked — FCA’s truck plant in Sterling Heights, MI and transmission facility in Kokomo, IN — previously reported cases of employees contracting the virus.

Road traffic across the United States is dropping drastically, thanks to social-distancing efforts taking place to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus. For yours truly, traffic in New York City has gone from frequently hectic to downright pleasurable and relaxed. While there’s a statewide initiative in place to keep residents in their homes, the days leading up to the shelter-in-place order saw a decline in roadway activity I’d only previously witnessed during Hurricane Sandy.

According to INRIX, a Washington-based firm providing traffic analytics, road use in the United States dropped by about 30 percent last week — with regions affected by state-mandated shutdowns seeing even larger declines. The study compares the national traffic volume from the 14th to the 20th of March to volumes recorded between the 22nd and the 28th of February — noting that March 13th was the first day traffic started trending downward in most regions. Moving forward, INRIX says it wants to continue offering up a weekly synopsis of national traffic volume until the health crisis ends.

Everything seemed hunky dory after the New Year’s celebrations wrapped up and all the party hats and disposable drink cups were swept from the floor. Unbeknownst to the auto industry, however, the ship was heading into a sea roiled by a storm no one saw coming. Now, with the first quarter of 2020 almost in the rear-view, the radar mast is overboard, the bilge pumps are running non-stop, and the crew can only guess when the skies will clear.

The impact of COVID-19 on U.S. auto sales is far from set in stone, but the best-guess picture is becoming clearer. Clearer, and worse for the industry.

Far be it for us to don the cloak of an uptight, finger-wagging, very online scold. That’s the job of other outlets, at least when their staff finish fantasizing about authoritarian purges on social media.

With that in mind, BMW’s electrified “i” sub-brand earns a measure of understanding from us that it might not receive from others. Still… this is truly a ham-fisted attempt at combining an important social message with product marketing.

Following in the footsteps of rival Ford, General Motors is drawing on credit to bolster its cash reserves. The company, which announced a temporary shutdown of its U.S. assembly plants last week, is in the same basket as pretty much any other automaker operating in the country.

As well, GM — again, like Ford — sees no value in its now-outdated guidance issued for 2020. That bit of predictive analysis, like a lot of things, fell victim to the sudden and disruptive appearance of the coronavirus.

A national health crisis has prompted Ford to go into the PPE (personal protective equipment) and ventilator business.

Tuesday morning, the automaker announced a joint effort with 3M, GE Healthcare, and its UAW-represented workers to bolster production of the life-saving gear — at the same time not missing an opportunity for a little self-promotion.

Much talk has been made over the past week of turning the auto industry’s manufacturing might into a so-called Arsenal of Health. In the U.S. and Canada, federal governments have turned to automakers for production of much-needed ventilators to save lives of coronavirus patients. Meanwhile, breweries and distilleries have swapped to hand sanitizer production.

Turning on a dime to crank out ventilators and face masks isn’t an overnight proposition, but an emergency effort to expand the availability of life-saving supplies would go a long way to save lives. The Detroit Three are already on it. Tesla, too.

According to the signs standing proudly outside local gas stations, there’s almost never been a better time to hit the road. At the same time, there’s never been more reason to stay at home.

The bizarre tug-of-war between today’s shockingly low pump prices and the need to self-isolate seems tailor-made to frustrate drivers everywhere; it’s a situation that only benefits those with a cabin in the deep, dark woods in some remote corner of the continent, as well as whatever commercial fleets are still in operation. Your author envies those folks with cabins.

Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess knows the viral headwinds facing his company won’t ease in a few weeks, nor will the need to curtail production in the face of rampant coronavirus infections.

Following a week that saw the auto giant idle production in Europe and the United States, Diess said the temporary plant shutdowns are just the beginning. His words no doubt echo the thoughts of most, if not all, Western auto execs.