#coronavirus

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has had an interesting few days. It all kicked off when he went off on the politics behind coronavirus lockdowns — suggesting that state mandates had surpassed what should be deemed reasonable and that civil liberties were being infringed upon — during Wednesday’s earnings call. By week’s end, he was using social media to announce Tesla’s stock price was too high.

Despite it not being his first time making such a claim, and with the automaker turning a surprise first-quarter profit, the company’s share price still lost 10 percent in a single day. Musk then announced he would sell practically everything he owned. Initially, it seemed to be another partial joke taken completely literally by some followers and the media. But Musk began making good on the claim, listing two properties over the weekend.

It’s something we’ve touched upon in the recent past: the fact that, in these pandemic times, a private vehicle is the safest way to get around (from a contagion standpoint). It seems we’re not the only one to rethink the attributes of a personal car. Japanese driving schools are suddenly doing a booming business. Cars.com reports a sudden surge in non-car-owning visitors.

According to data accumulated from numerous countries, automakers could find a slew of newfound buyers once the strictest lockdown measures end.

Barring some health miracle and a financial windfall distributed evenly across the country’s populace, U.S. auto sales are in for a grim 2020. IHS Markit predicts a 26.7-percent slump for the year. April, which bore the full brunt of state-level lockdown measures, saw numerous automakers, perhaps all, return their worst monthly showing in years — or decades.

Amid all this dismal sales news and OEM financial bloodletting is a ray of hope for automakers and dealerships alike. States are opening up, and with declining COVID-19 cases in several major markets — and the approval of online sales in others — volume is on the upswing.

Thursday’s health and safety update from Ford offered up details on that automaker’s back-to-work plan, with new info provided on how the company plans gradually ramp up production amid a pandemic. Ford seemed to suggest that its new protocol had the backing of a crucial organization: the United Auto Workers.

While neither the company nor the union can do anything to ease Michigan’s lockdown order, which runs through May 15th, UAW approval is needed to bring the Detroit Three’s plants back online. On Friday, the union’s stance seemed as firm as ever.

Ford Motor Company’s chief operating officer, Jim Farley, joined the company’s chief human resources officer, Kiersten Robinson, and manufacturing and labor affairs boss Gary Johnson for a media Q&A Thursday, offering up details on what it will look like when the automaker returns to the business of cranking out cars trucks and SUVs.

That’s already begun in China, where 90 percent of the company’s employees are now back to work. It’s Europe’s turn to come back online now (the region is due to start a ramp-up on May 4th), as the Blue Oval awaits the go-ahead from the state of Michigan.

It all hinges on Michigan, apparently, given the critical mass of manufacturing and suppliers in that locale. When Gov. Whitmer eases shelter-in-place orders, Farley said, the company will leap into action.

I believe we’re all entitled to our opinions.

Except when those opinions are A) factually wrong and B) dangerous to public health.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk expressed an opinion this week that ran afoul of both A and B.

The generally agreed-upon early-May production restarts floated a couple of weeks ago were clearly not set in stone. Not for everyone, anyway. While Fiat Chrysler tossed its tentative May 4th restart to fall in line with the Detroit Three and placate the UAW, other automakers are reaching their own conclusion that earlier might not be better.

Count Toyota and Volkswagen among them.

Ever since Illinoisans were asked to stay at home by our governor in March, a new trend has popped up – people celebrating birthdays or other milestones by driving past the house of the honored person, sometimes honking horns and displaying signs.

It’s meant to be a nod to normalcy in these decidedly abnormal times, as well as an acknowledgment of celebrations that can’t be held at homes or restaurants for the time being. I don’t know if it’s happening only in the Chicago area or also elsewhere, but it’s a nice gesture during these trying times.

Amid steep drops in operating profit and a dismal sales outlook, both Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler are appealing to the state in a bid to generate sales demand.

Both automakers appealed to the German government for assistance on Wednesday, Reuters reports, ahead of a meeting of auto industry leaders. With vehicle production making up a big part of Germany’s GDP, the shutdowns enacted to slow the spread of COVID-19 has left the sector hurting. That pain is expected to last through 2020.

Call it the coronavirus crash. Ford Motor Company released its first-quarter 2020 financial results late Tuesday, revealing a deep dip into the red as March’s production shutdown and and domestic (and overseas) sales dive ate into earnings.

Free cash flow was negative $2.2 billion last quarter, Ford said, as it reported a net loss of $2 billion. Recall that a big deal was made over the company’s less-than-stellar Q4 2019 earnings report, which carried the weight of recalls and a botched product launch. That report now looks rosy.

As bad as Q1 2020 looks, Ford cautioned investors to brace themselves for an even grimmer Q2.

Nissan can’t catch a break. Instead of the new decade heralding sunnier skies and calmer seas for a financially compromised Nissan, the first quarter of the year (and counting) brought nothing but grief.

Declining sales and shuttered plants spurred by the coronavirus pandemic further destabilized the automaker’s balance sheet. It was the kind of out-of-the-blue event both beancounters and executives feared, occurring just as the automaker was preparing (hoping?) to exit its present crisis with the help of a new CEO and a new plan.

Clearly, that recovery will have to wait, as analysts are now mentioning 2008 in the same sentence as “Nissan.”

Unlike their foreign rivals, Ford, General Motors, and, belatedly, Fiat Chrysler held off on nailing down a specific date for a production restart. The latter company was expected to begin ramping up production starting May 4th, but last week’s announcement by UAW President Rory Gamble made it the odd man out. The plan’s now off the table.

According to one report, the three automakers will present a united front, with each operation coming back online on the same day.

Following two weeks of unseasonably cold weather that seemed to put spring on hold, Saturday was a gorgeous day in this writer’s city. Warm temps, endless sunshine, and a pandemic that compelled public health officials to tell everyone to stay indoors for the fifth weekend in a row. Or was it the sixth? Time feels more fluid than it once was.

Anyway, yours truly was on the road, seeking an escape from humanity. With too many potential walking or running spaces overrun with people or, oddly, closed off for public safety, I realized I needed to go further afield to distance myself from this constrained, antsy populace. And so I hopped on the highway… and found myself driving in a near-normal level of traffic for the first time since this all began.

Was everyone being an asshole? Was I?

Burning through piles of cash as plants sit idle, sales plummet, and the bulk of its vast workforce still demands payment during the virus-borne production shutdown, General Motors is taking new measures to protect its finances.

On Monday, the automaker announced a number of steps designed to anger shareholders in the short term, but a production restart date remains as elusive as before.

Sales fell 27 percent. Brands such as Chrysler, Infiniti, Jeep, and GMC were in torments; shedding volume as demand withered. Subaru showed signs of relative strength, however, as did the Toyota RAV4. Passenger car market share was on the rise and…

Wait a second — we’re clearly not talking about the frightening first quarter of 2020. Scan the auto sales reports from 11 years ago and aside from a few familiar patterns, the U.S. light vehicle market of 2008 and 2009 did not resemble the U.S. light vehicle market of 2020.

Year-over-year, 2009 volume plunged 27 percent in the United States as a global recession melted home equity, eliminated jobs, and sent some of the biggest automakers in the world into a tailspin. Over the course of two years, auto sales actually dropped 35 percent, a loss of 5.7 million units.

Yet by 2012, three years after the collapse and three years into a recovery that would eventually produce record annual volume, 17 major auto brands (more than 100,000 U.S. sales/year) were selling in greater levels than they had in 2008. Meanwhile, seven other auto brands had yet to fully bounce back.