Nissan Joins Auto Manufacturers Shutting Down Due To Coronavirus

Nissan has announced the production at the Sunderland plant has been suspended as the coronavirus intensifies.

It made the announcement a day after Vauxhall’s parent company stated it would be temporarily shutting down at the Ellesmere Port and Luton plants.

Nissan, which employs 7000 personnel at the Wear-side Plant, claimed other actions could follow considering the scale of the disruption to the global economy. However, it did refuse to state whether this included the potential for layoffs.

The statement read that further measures are currently being studied as they assess the supply chain disruption and the drop in the market demand initiated by the coronavirus situation.

Several car plants also seem to be closing down across Europe as measures to fight the spread of the virus take effect.

Toyota, the largest manufacturer, stated on Tuesday, it was preparing for the closure of the factories in a bid to slow down the spread of the infectious virus.

Volkswagen did warn it expected 2020 to be a hard year as it announced the production would temporarily stop at certain plants in Spain, Slovakia, Portugal, and Italy before the end of the week.

PSA, the French auto giant, stated its decision to stop production was because of the acceleration that was observed in the recent days of COVID-19 infections close to particular production sites, supply disruptions from suppliers, and the decline within the auto markets.

It gave a statement claiming the management teams are going to implement the site closure procedures locally, and this is going to be done in conjunction with social partners.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is also stopping its production for two weeks at most of the European plants to protect the staff and adjust to the slumps in demand.

Just during the past week, some Spanish plants of the Nissan-Renault alliance, and, Seat had to shut down. The stoppage of production could last anywhere from days to weeks.

Most of Volkswagen’s other factories will start preparing to suspend their production for the next two or three weeks.

The chief executive Herbert Diess claimed that given the present deterioration within the sales situation and increased uncertainty on parts supplies to the plants, production would be suspended at the ones operated by group brands.

In the meantime, as the virus stabilizes in China, VW has opted to reopen most of the factories there. Other businesses have also restarted, and things are getting back to normal.