Plants in Oxfordshire and Derbyshire affected as coronavirus affects carmakers
BMW makes Minis at its Cowley plant near Oxford.
Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images
BMW and Toyota have joined a rapidly lengthening list of carmakers shutting down European operations, affecting UK plants in Oxfordshire and Derbyshire, as the coronavirus brings the automotive industry grinding to a virtual halt.
More than 10,000 car workers have been laid off across the industry as Nissan, the Mercedes-Benz parent, Daimler, Volkswagen, Ford, Fiat and Peugeot have already announced suspensions of their European output. Jaguar Land Rover kept its UK sites operating but has frozen output at its Slovak factory.
Germany’s BMW and the Japanese auto giant Toyota followed suit on Wednesday, extending the roster of factories that would normally make millions of cars every year but are on pause for the time being.
“From today, we will shut down our European car factories and the Rosslyn factory in South Africa,” BMW’s chairman, Oliver Zipse, said, adding that the interruption is expected for now to last until 19 April.
BMW, which makes Minis at its Cowley plant near Oxford, said its profits this year would be significantly lower, given that it is shutting factories that accounted for half of the 2.6m cars it built in 2019.
Toyota said it had stopped output at more of its plants in Europe and Asia as the spread of the coronavirus prompts countries to instruct non-essential businesses to suspend operations.
The pause includes its Burnaston, Derbyshire plant in Britain, while factories in Poland, the Czech Republic and Turkey will also be affected.
Jaguar Land Rover, which has plants at Castle Bromwich, Solihull and Halewood, said it was following government advice, including staggered shift patterns and working from home where possible but had not yet decided to stop work at UK factories.
“All of our UK plants remain open and we plan to keep building cars until at least the end of the week subject to the ongoing supply of parts, the company said.
“We will continue to closely monitor and review the situation as it evolves.”
However, it will suspend work at Nitra, Slovakia, although some staff will remain to support the launch of the Land Rover Defender.
Fresh suspensions at BMW and Toyota come a day after Nissan closed its Sunderland factory, Britain’s biggest car plant, joining a number of automotive firms and the aerospace giant Airbus in ceasing production.
The Japanese carmaker, its US rival Ford and Germany’s Volkswagen cited global economic turmoil that has choked off demand, as well as concerns about workers’ safety.
Nissan’s decision means work will stop at its Sunderland factory, which employs 6,000 staff and produces about 440,000 vehicles a year.
Automotive firms with operations in the UK have been examining ways they can assist with a drive to manufacture 20,000 ventilators to help treat coronavirus patients.
Vauxhall, owned by PSA Group, has said it can 3D-print parts for the medical devices and even assemble them at its Ellesmere Port plant, making use of excess capacity created by a freeze in production there.