Germany’s largest union, IG Metall, as well as the VDA have called on Chancellor Angela Merkel to allow car sales to resume as soon as it’s possible.
The two entities wrote a letter to the Chancellor, arguing that many companies within the industry are risking bankruptcy due to high inventory that can’t be sold. The VDIK importers group and ZDK dealer association also signed the letter, as reported by Autonews Europe.
“The companies cannot accommodate any more vehicles,” said the groups. “This means that delivery and production come to a standstill or cannot be started again.”
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One argument in favor of allowing dealerships to resume business is the idea that they can protect customers and employees against infection more easily than grocery stores, which remain open. The reason for that is the fact that showrooms have comparatively large areas and a small number of customers present at the same time.
Meanwhile, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has prompted German registrations to slump 38 percent in March, hitting 215,119 units.
Merkel has been in talks with the automotive industry, which remains the backbone of the German economy, in order to find a way to restart production. Those talks focused on how automotive suppliers might not be able to survive extended production shutdowns.
According to European car industry lobby group ACEA, factory shutdowns triggered by the crisis have resulted in the lost production of 1.47 million vehicles so far. However, carmakers like Mercedes and Audi hope to resume production at their German plants on April 27.
