REUTERS: Texas auto dealer Hayden Elder says March was his worst month in 42 years selling cars thanks to the coronavirus, but April brought days that were"almost normal" and he expects bigger customer discounts to help him sell more Dodge Ram pickup trucks this month.
Jeff Schuster, president of the Americas for consultancy LMC Automotive, said the market should rebound in the second half of the year, but 2020 sales could be up to 25per cent lower than 2019."Until we get plants up and running and the economy restarted, we're in uncertain territory," he said.Automakers have been burning through money while their plants are shuttered.
As states begin to reopen, the next months will be turbulent and the pace of recovery will vary by state, industry officials, analysts and dealers said. "My belief is that demand will come back fairly well," Ford Motor Co Chief Executive Jim Hackett said on Friday during an online interview with the Washington Post."Certainly we believe that some level of government stimulus post crisis to help customers and the auto industry to recover would be appropriate," Ford’s U.S. sales chief Mark LaNeve told Reuters last month.
Scott Cooke, chief financial officer of Toyota's U.S. captive finance arm, said the Japanese automaker does not have excess inventory on dealer lots, but is seeing a build-up of customers in lockdown states unable to return vehicles that have reached the end of their lease.