{"id":25190,"date":"2020-04-16T18:03:24","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T22:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=25190"},"modified":"2020-04-16T18:03:24","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T22:03:24","slug":"pressure-to-restart-auto-industry-grows-but-it-faces-major-hurdles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2020\/04\/pressure-to-restart-auto-industry-grows-but-it-faces-major-hurdles","title":{"rendered":"Pressure to restart auto industry grows, but it faces major hurdles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Technician<\/p>\n<\/div>

Technician Cory Elsarelli manufactures face shields inside the prototype lab at Mahindra’s North American Technical Center in Troy on April 15, 2020. The shields are given to first responders to help provide protection when treating patients with COVID-19.\u00a0(Photo: David Guralnick, The Detroit News)<\/span><\/p>\n

As COVID-19 cases\u00a0show signs of\u00a0flattening\u00a0even as deaths continue to rise, pressure is intensifying to restart the economy in Michigan and across the country.<\/p>\n

Michigan CEOs, medical professionals and labor leaders are consulting with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, she said Wednesday. And\u00a0President Donald Trump hosted a call with top executives\u00a0of the nation’s four automakers and other industrial firms to\u00a0push\u00a0preparations to reopen the economy as early as next month.<\/p>\n

The moves come as\u00a0stay-at-home orders have grown to cover most Americans and as revenue-starved businesses cut back, forcing millions to lose their jobs. In few places is the pain more acute than Michigan, an industrial and politically vital state that is among the nation\u2019s leaders in jobs lost so far.<\/p>\n

“This is an unprecedented event in modern automotive times, even if you look back to World War II,” said Stephanie Brinley, principal analyst at IHS Markit Ltd. “The plants still operated and things still came out of it. Your workforce wasn’t sidelined.”<\/p>\n

The urgency to return to work is rising as the threat from COVID-19 eases. Protesters crowded Lansing streets in vehicles and stood outside the state\u00a0Capitol on Wednesday to\u00a0protest Whitmer’s latest order aiming\u00a0to protect public health being too restrictive. Meanwhile, Whitmer says she is in talks with the governors of neighboring\u00a0Indiana, Illinois and Ohio\u00a0over when and how to restart the economies in their major auto-producing states.<\/p>\n

“The automotive industry is important to the U.S. economy, but it is also quite different than many other businesses,” said Doug Betts, president of J.D. Power’s automotive division, during a webinar this week.\u00a0“The combination of high capital investment, heavy involvement of regulations, and the franchise model for going to the retail market makes it very different and\u00a0somewhat non-intuitive versus other businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

The industry also has a global supply base. Companies must navigate a\u00a0patchwork quilt of rules determined by each country and state for which\u00a0industries are “essential” during the outbreak. Some say auto manufacturing is essential, while others do not.<\/p>\n

The bottom line, experts say, is that restarting vast chunks of the U.S. economy is neither easy nor uncomplicated. Sprawling supply chains, partisan political concerns and varying arcs of COVID-19 infections can influence the real-world balancing of prudent public-health policy\u00a0with deepening economic concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are larger partners that are at play, including federal guidelines, state guidelines, and as we\u2019ve gotten into this, there’s\u00a0county-wide rules that are baking into our process all the time,\u201d said Jim Glynn, General Motors Co.\u2019s vice president and global head of workplace safety. \u201cThe question about restarting for us, for me and our time is when we do get the green light to start up we want to make sure we are prepared \u2014 whenever that date comes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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