Volkswagen expects German auto market to recover in summer

Volkswagen expects the German auto market to make a recovery in the summer after the automaker was forced to stop output due to the coronavirus pandemic, an executive said.

The company has initially stopped production until April 3, but Juergen Stackmann, management board member for the VW passenger cars brand, provided an upbeat assessment to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, saying that the Chinese auto market has already started to pick up.

“We assume that Germany will return to normal in the summer,” Stackmann said.

“We must learn how to live with the virus,” he said, and that he did not expect the virus to disappear soon.

“The standstill cannot last longer than summer … Society and the economy cannot withstand that … We are preparing ourselves for the moment when it starts again.”

Volkswagen is also looking into new regulations to make sure factory workers can maintain their distance from each other on the production line.

He added that one of the lessons from the current times was the need to invest more in e-commerce, saying Volkswagen had already started initiatives in online car trading that it would now accelerate.

Coronavirus has so far infected over 531,804 people and killed 24,073 worldwide.