Photo: United Nations
After the first few days of the week were flooded with news coming from Europe about most of the carmakers based there closing down production facilities for an undetermined period of time, now comes the turn of American carmakers to do the same.
As the world is racing to find a solution to the coronavirus pandemic, one of the ones that seems to be working is social distancing. And the only way to achieve that in a manufacturing plant is to shut it down. Until now, the Detroit Big Three have been reluctant to do so, but as the number of reported infections soared to nearly 10,000 in the States, this drastic decision has finally been made, and all three, Ford, GM, and FCA, announced they would be shutting down operations for the foreseeable future.
Ford said production at its facilities in North America would be halted at the end of Thursday's shift until March 30 “to thoroughly clean its facilities to protect its workforce and boost containment efforts for the COVID-19 coronavirus.”
GM said roughly the same thing, announcing a freeze in production until March 30 for the same reason as Ford, but hints the period might be extended following week-to-week reevaluations.
“We have been taking extraordinary precautions around the world to keep our plant environments safe and recent developments in North America make it clear this is the right thing to do now,” said the company's CEO Marry Bara.
FCA will gradually be stopping production as of March 18 and till the end of March.
“Working with the UAW, and having visited many of our plants yesterday, we need to ensure employees feel safe at work and that we are taking every step possible to protect them. We will continue to do what is right for our people through this period of uncertainty.”
With these latest announcements, the global auto industry has for the first time in history ground to almost a complete stop, and there's no telling how big the impact of these decisions will be for its future.
Ford said production at its facilities in North America would be halted at the end of Thursday's shift until March 30 “to thoroughly clean its facilities to protect its workforce and boost containment efforts for the COVID-19 coronavirus.”
GM said roughly the same thing, announcing a freeze in production until March 30 for the same reason as Ford, but hints the period might be extended following week-to-week reevaluations.
“We have been taking extraordinary precautions around the world to keep our plant environments safe and recent developments in North America make it clear this is the right thing to do now,” said the company's CEO Marry Bara.
FCA will gradually be stopping production as of March 18 and till the end of March.
“Working with the UAW, and having visited many of our plants yesterday, we need to ensure employees feel safe at work and that we are taking every step possible to protect them. We will continue to do what is right for our people through this period of uncertainty.”
With these latest announcements, the global auto industry has for the first time in history ground to almost a complete stop, and there's no telling how big the impact of these decisions will be for its future.
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