COVID-19’s Impact on the Automotive Industry

2020-12-01 By Brian Collie, Alex Wachtmeister, Albert Waas, Raphael Kirn, Kristina Krebs, and Hamza Quresh

This ongoing series explores the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on automotive demand. Our May and November analyses are below.

Over the last few months, the auto industry has shown tremendous resilience. From the economic depths experienced in spring 2020, it has rebounded to deliver year-over-year growth in new-vehicle sales over the last few months across China, Europe, and the US. However, despite encouraging reports on progress toward a vaccine, numerous risks remain and we continue to forecast that sales in Europe and the US will not rebound to pre-COVID levels until 2023 at the earliest. Meanwhile, China’s rebound continues to accelerate, with the potential to approach 30 million new vehicles sold by 2025. Check out our latest demand forecast to learn more.

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To see how things have evolved since the earlier days of the pandemic, compare the information above with our analysis from May 2020. Download the PDF or explore the slideshow below.