Hyundai Motor India, which is gearing up for the re-opening of its manufacturing plants and dealerships across India, has enough stock to cater to immediate demand, a senior company official said.

“We have been in touch with almost all consumers who have booked vehicles with us. For the new Creta alone, which was launched just days before the lockdown, we have received close to 20,000 bookings. Many buyers are looking at immediate delivery... We have enough stocks at the dealership for now... BS VI stock is available,” Tarun Garg, director (sales, service and marketing) at Hyundai Motor India told The Hindu.

“Zero sales (in April) does not mean zero demand.

In April, we were not allowed to open and customers could not come to us. We firmly believe that they want to buy and will come out once lockdown is over,” he said.

He, however, added the company did understand that because of the state of the economy, general anxiety and consumer sentiment, the demand may take some time to pick up. “... it is difficult to put a time and number to it.

“We need to see how the next few weeks turn out in terms of COVID-19 (pandemic),” said Mr. Garg.

The company, which had issued a detailed SoP to dealerships, does not plan to postpone any new launches planned for this year as well. Mr. Garg said that an SoP was sent to dealerships about 15-20 days back and the company had been conducting online video training sessions for dealership manpower on what measures need to be taken. “It is a detailed manual which covers aspects such as staff thermal screening, wearing of masks, sanitisation of washrooms every two hours, display car complete interior sanitisation, windows of display cars to remain open, test drive preparedness, appointment-based entry as much as possible and sanitisation of workshops.”

The company plans to restart its preparatory operations at the Irungattukottai factory on May 6, 2020.

To assist dealerships, Hyundai Motor India and Mobis India Limited, part of Hyundai Motor Group, will dispatch 6.8 lakh masks as well as 20,000 half litre and 1.5 lakh 100 ml cases of sanitisers for consumers, sales, service and back-end staff.

Customers will also be given an option for remote car demonstrations through online video-conferencing application.