Automotive Industry Faces Challenges

Reports on how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the automotive industry and discusses the challenges companies who manufacture and sell automobiles face both in the short and long term. The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the automotive industry hard, and long-term effects cannot yet be predicted. The short-term effects have ranged from missing parts in factories for assembling previously ordered vehicles to drastically decreased order intakes during the spring. Due to the insecurity in employment at large throughout society, people postpone investments in more luxury products such as cars. The transport industry continues to move goods and people but at levels far lower than before the pandemic. It has been said that one person laid off at a vehicle manufacturer corresponds to three people in the supplier chain facing the same fate. Unfortunately, the first economic measures to take place inside companies entering recession are reductions in research and technical development since these areas are financed by the profit of selling products and services. © 2020 IEEE.