"It was a huge relief. When I was told 'It's ok, come on', I said 'Phew'." In front of the Hyundai dealership in Chambourcy, in the Yvelines, this motorist is reassured. Thanks to the deconfinement, she will finally be able to change her tires. "I could not change them during confinement, because everything was closed. I could not have waited any longer. My car is my office. Without it, I cannot work," he says. her Wednesday on Europe 1.
Customer feedback that "gives hope"
Now is the time for recovery for dealers and the entire automotive sector. A restart however still approached cautiously by its professionals. For Lionel French-Keogh, general manager of Hyundai France, the return of customers on site "gives hope". But the latter are "those who had already ordered before the containment", he nuances Wednesday at the microphone of Europe 1. "Will new customers come to the concessions in the coming weeks and months? That's the big issue. "
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General manager of the automotive supplier Novares, Pierre Boulet shares this questioning. "The real challenge is going to be the post-Covid demand. Who will be the French, the Europeans and the global buyers who will acquire cars in September or October?" He asked on Wednesday morning about Europe 1 .
The trajectory of his company during the crisis also illustrates that the restart of the sector is not without difficulty. The group's holding company, which employs 12,000 people worldwide and works in particular for the Renault, Peugeot and BMW brands, recently placed itself in receivership. "To be able to maintain our relationships and our deliveries to our customers", explains Pierre Boulet. At the start of 2020, the company nevertheless claimed a historic record for its margins.
But "in late January and early February, we saw the shutdown of our factories in China and the complete shutdown of our factory in Wuhan," said the boss. "In mid-March, we saw the shutdown of European factories and at the end of March that of American factories. In the middle of April, we had 40 of our 45 factories shut down." Consequence: a cash hole of around four million euros per day for the company.
Positive indicators
On the manufacturers' side, however, there are positive indicators regarding the recovery. "The first indicator is our internet traffic. Today, we know that before buying a car, the basic step is to start to learn online about the product. And what we has measured over the last three or four weeks, since the announcement of the end of confinement, is that from one week to another we have a growth in our internet traffic which is + 20% ", says Lionel French-Keogh.
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Another indicator used by Hyundai: the number of requests for car tests. "Over the past week, we are at a level of demand for road tests which is equivalent to that which we had last year on the same week, to within 15 or 20%, which is rather good", continues Lionel French-Keogh. "On the after-sales part, we have workshops that are already filled almost for the next fortnight. There, for once, people have made an appointment in dealership in a fairly massive and fearless manner." So many elements which, for him, "give hope for a reasonable resumption of activity".
In an interview with the newspaper Le Monde , the president of Medef Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux called for the establishment of "whiplash devices" to stimulate demand, citing for example a premium for electric vehicles and hybrids.