COVID-19 and its impact on the car leasing industry

UPDATE - 8th February 2021

It is pretty clear that Covid-19 has affected our lives for almost a year now, in more ways than we could have imagined! While it is an unpredictable situation to be living in, most industries have had to adapt to follow this new way of life, including the car leasing industry. We do hope that we have seen the worst of the pandemic and the major impacts that it has brought to our industry, but we are fairly certain that there are some changes that will be sticking around for a while, so we thought it would be good to share how our industry has adapted to these!

We have put together some information on how Covid-19 has affected car leasing that we hope may answer any questions you have. This covers predicted delivery times; safety precautions for deliveries; amending your mileage; extending or cancelling your lease; and what to do if you can’t afford your car lease payments.

UPDATE - 22nd May 2020

We have set out below an indication of factories opening around Europe, with some production already restarted and some replanned. Note that much of this production is on restricted operation with fewer units than normal so you can still expect delays in factory orders.

Source: Automotive News Europe

UPDATE - 15th April 2020

The British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA) has been working with the Government to establish new delivery protocols during the lockdown and have confirmed that vehicle deliveries can and should continue.

It is worth bearing in mind that there will be a backlog of vehicles awaiting delivery and as such we anticipate that deliveries will unfortunately still take longer than usual.

Here are the key things you should be aware of:

1. We are seeing car manufacturer factories close temporarily across the world. As a result, we anticipate a significant reduction in stock in the coming months.
2. Factory order lead times will increase and currently the length of any delay will be unknown.
3. People still need cars, even with enhanced restrictions around travel, and more and more of you working from home. As such, we encourage users to select ‘Stock’ cars in the filter to ensure you have more certainty around your enquiry choices.
4. As always, please remember that we are a price comparison site. Therefore, please always confirm lead times for stock or factory orders when making an enquiry with our leasing partners.
5. Now is a good time to reconsider your mileage requirements. Certainly in the short term, you will be doing less mileage so it would make sense to save money and reduce your contract mileage to reflect a short term reduction.

Finally, our thoughts and best wishes go out to you all in what is a very tough time for everyone.

Stay safe,

Team Loco