Shutdowns Continue

As COVID-19 continues to spread, a growing number of automotive companies have decided to close their doors.

The tsunami of closures continues to swell with Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and VW announcing production suspensions in their North American factories.

In addition, companies like Manheim have announced changes to the way they’re doing business. “The majority of our employees are continuing to deliver all our usual business solutions while working from home,” Cox Automotive, Maheim Canada’s parent company, said in a statement. “Our auction teams are temporarily hosting all in-lane auctions across Canada via Simulcast and through digital auction platform, MUVIT.”

In like manner, Adesa announced that “all US and Canadian auctions will run Simulcast-only sales until further notice.”

As we search for a sliver of a silver lining in this time of pandemic, Canada’s banks have announced plans to offer consumers a bit of relief.

Effective immediately, the Bank of Montreal, CIBC, National Bank of Canada, RBC Royal Bank, Scotiabank and TD Bank “have made a commitment to work with personal and small business banking customers on a case-by-case basis to provide flexible solutions to help them manage through challenges such as pay disruption due to COVID-19; childcare disruption due to school closures; or those facing illness from COVID-19,” TD said in a statement.