The world’s car giants need to move fast and break things

WHEN CARMAKERS sold 95m cars and commercial vehicles in 2017 the 100m mark seemed just around the corner. After a disappointing 2018 and 2019, this year was forecast to be a turning point. And it will be—in the wrong direction. As governments around the world have ordered factories to close and locked-down buyers put off purchases, car sales are expected to plummet by a fifth (see chart 1), to a level last seen in the depths of the global financial crisis of 2007-09. A feared second wave of covid-19 makes prospects for 2021 uncertain. The industry, already facing a precarious and colossally expensive shift to electric cars, will emerge from the pandemic transformed—not necessarily for the better.