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- BMW and Toyota have joined a rapidly lengthening list of carmakers shutting down European operations, affecting UK plants in Oxfordshire and Derbyshire, as the coronavirus brings the automotive industry grinding to a virtual halt.
More than 10,000 car workers have been laid off across the industry as Nissan, the Mercedes-Benz parent, Daimler, Volkswagen, Ford, Fiat and Peugeot have already announced suspensions of their European output. Jaguar Land Rover kept its UK sites operating but has frozen output at its Slovak factory.
Germany’s BMW and the Japanese auto giant Toyota followed suit on Wednesday, extending the roster of factories that would normally make millions of cars every year but are on pause for the time being.