AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/14 Report--

Although the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has been basically controlled in China, and most enterprises have returned to work and production in an orderly manner, due to the expansion of overseas areas affected by the epidemic, the employees of many multinational car companies have been infected.

A few days ago, employees at a Volkswagen factory in Baunatal, Germany, were diagnosed with novel coronavirus, which Volkswagen confirmed on March 13, according to foreign media reports.

It is understood that the employee was diagnosed after returning to work on holiday and is currently quarantined at home in good health, while the other five employees in contact with him are also quarantined at home. At the same time, Volkswagen said the group reported the situation to local health authorities and paid close attention to the development of the epidemic.

After Volkswagen was exposed that its employees had been infected with novel coronavirus, senior executives within Volkswagen, including Volkswagen CEO Dis (Herbert Diess), union president Bernd Osterloh, personnel director Gunnar Kilian and union vice chairman Daniela Cavallo, jointly signed a letter to Volkswagen employees, saying: "the next few weeks will be very tense and may be very difficult, but as a Volkswagen team, we can overcome these challenges." Stick to it together, this is the corporate culture of the masses. It means that the factory did not take the behavior of large-scale shutdown observation and disinfection as some enterprises did.

In the letter, Volkswagen also mentioned that in order to deal with the impact of the epidemic, Volkswagen had previously limited the number of official business trips, cancelled activities with more than 100 people, and that the seats in the company canteen must be one meter away. Employees need to be quarantined for 14 days after returning from the affected country. The group has held daily meetings on the epidemic and group safety issues since January 2.

Earlier, the first employee in Germany to be infected by novel coronavirus was an employee of the global auto parts supplier Weibaster, whose diagnosis led to the temporary closure of its headquarters and factory in Germany. In addition, an employee at Hyundai's Ulsan plant in South Korea was also diagnosed with novel coronavirus, which led to a complete shutdown of the plant. And BMW has caused the Munich R & D center to be closed immediately and 150 employees have been quarantined because of an employee infection.

In fact, since the outbreak of the epidemic in China, Chinese enterprises have responded positively to the state's request to suspend production and self-isolation. After half a month to a month, the spread of the epidemic in China has been clearly brought under control, and even the worst part of the country, Wuhan, has resumed work one after another.

However, the impact of the epidemic began to wreak havoc outside China. As of March 14, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 outside China has rapidly risen to 64000, far more than the current 1.2in China, including 3675 in Germany. Obviously, the current overseas situation is also very serious, and corresponding measures should be taken to prevent it.

Because car assembly is a hands-on job, most car companies need thousands of people to work in the same factory, usually very close to each other, so it is easy to spread the epidemic. But the shutdown means that it will face greater losses. Once the shutdown affects the entire upstream and downstream supply chain and terminal sales, it will bring further reduction in sales and profits to the car companies.

Affected by the epidemic, production has been halted in many overseas areas, not only in terms of employees, but also due to supply chain shortages, including Ford, GM, FCA and other expanded car companies.

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