Jaguar warns of factory shortage due to coronavirus

COVENTRY car giant Jaguar Land Rover has warned it may run out of parts in its UK factories because of coronavirus.

The firm’s chief executive Sir Ralf Speth admitted he didn’t know when things would be back up to speed amid the outbreak in the Far East which has led to more than 2,000 deaths.

Already it had forced JLR to close down a factory in China, now it is affecting further west.

Sir Speth reportedly said parts have been flown into the country from China in suitcases.

In Coventry, to launch a selfdriving electric vehicle dubbed

Project Vector, he said JLR’s factory in China would re-open next week.

But he admitted uncertainty over whether the company would have enough parts to maintain production in the UK.

“At the moment, we are safe and we have checked everything for the next two weeks and we are also safe for the very first week in the production in China, starting next week,” he told Sky News at the National Automotive Innovation Centre on Tuesday.

“We don’t know how long it will take until the supply chain in China comes on stream again.”

Apple, meanwhile, is warning investors it won’t meet its secondquarter financial guidance because the coronavirus outbreak in China has cut production of iPhones.

The California-based company said on Monday all of its iPhone manufacturing facilities are outside Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak, and all have been reopened. But the company said production was ramping up slowly.

“The health and well-being of every person who helps make these products possible is our paramount priority, and we are working in close consultation with our suppliers and public health experts as this ramp continues,” Apple said in a statement.

The death toll from Covid-19, a disease caused by the new coronavirus, was 1,770 as of Monday.