“If we are looking for green shoots, it depends on how close we look, and where we search for them,” he said Iveco’s business director for the UK and Ireland Sascha Kaehne.
“I think the period where we just saw everything stop, with downward expectations, and people adjusting for the worst, is definitely over from our point of view. I think we have seen the worst of it.” But he stressed that you have to put any signs of recovery into perspective, and that it is no good comparing today with pre-Covid-19. “There are green shoots, but we are starting at the bottom, and not the top,” he said.
Iveco has managed to keep all of its dealerships open throughout the crisis, albeit with the introduction of safety measures, adjustments in working procedures, and reduced opening hours. According to Kaehne, at the peak of the crisis workshops were operating at 50% capacity, but this figure has since risen to 66%.
Iveco’s new vehicle orders have fallen by two-thirds when compared with pre-Covid-19 levels. According to Kaehne, sales have largely been in the supermarket, home delivery, municipal and utility sectors.
While Kaehne believes the impact of Covid-19 will be “longer and deeper than we think”, he stressed that the situation is improving on a weekly basis, and he is confident that the industry will make a full recovery. “We can come back to normal levels, even if we have to consider that normal is not what we experienced for the last few years,” he said.
