Mazda dealerships and production plants worldwide return to work

Mazda has announced it’s returned to pre-coronavirus production levels at its factories and dealers worldwide are almost all back to business.

Plants in Japan, Mexico and Thailand, which build cars for European markets including the UK, have ended adjustments to their work patterns which were brought in during the height of the coronavirus global pandemic.

The company also said nearly all dealerships around the world have reopened.

In a statement, Mazda said it will continue to monitor the coronavirus situation as well as the trends of automobile demand in each market where our vehicles are shipped’.

With factories and dealerships now back to business, Mazda’s focus will likely switch to how it operates in a post-pandemic world.

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Last month Mazda UK sales director, Peter Allibon, told Car Dealer the coronavirus has catalysed plans to bring to market a full end-to-end online buying service for its model range.

‘We haven’t got an online buying solution for new cars – an end-to-end and click-and-collect process. In April we had very few registrations and in May we had a few more.

‘Mazda UK has wanted an online selling solution for some time, but it needs to go into the priorities of Mazda Europe. Coronavirus has certainly accelerated that and we are now working on a full end-to-end system and it’ll come in phases.

‘It’s been accelerated not least because customer behaviour has changed, but also because we need to protect ourselves from a potential second wave of coronavirus.

‘We need to make sure we are available and have that service for customers and dealers looking to serve customers if we are in another lockdown situation.

‘We are grabbing this opportunity to elevate the importance of it within our European team.’

You can watch the full interview at the top of this story or read more here.

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