Recently Ford Motor company informed the general public that they plan to temporarily stop production at its plants in North America and Europe. Unfortunately, this means a lot of people are going to be losing their jobs due to plants shutting down as well as other industries experiencing strain in the nation. Many employees and customers will be facing economic hardship during this time, and Ford is offering customers six-month payment relief to help.

Ford Offers Customers Six Month Payment Relief

Ford plans to incorporate a new program called “Built to Lend a Hand.” Under this new program, Ford is offering up to six months of payment relief for qualified new car customers who invest through Ford Credit. This program is intended for consumers who plan to purchase the new 2019 and 2020 model year vehicles, not including the 2020 F-Series Super Duty.

Ford’s “Built to Lend a Hand” plan

The “Built to Lend a Hand” plan adds onto another Ford Credit program reported earlier this month, which allows existing United States customers affected by COVID-19 to talk about options if they are having payment troubles, which includes payment deferral. Ford also endorsed dealers’ efforts to help consumers affected by the COVID-19 with a newly made vehicle disinfection process for their new and loaner vehicles.

They are taking these efforts to protect the health, safety, and economic security of employees and future customers. The hope is to have as little downtime as possible and resume production safely and effectively within the coming weeks. Efforts are being made to work with labor representatives to determine when this will be a reality.

“We understand this is a challenging time for our team, but these steps are necessary to position Ford for success today and yet preparing to thrive in the future,” says an anonymous source. This may give hope to some, but also keep in mind that social distancing, and not being around a large group of people is what the best move is for most automotive companies.

What is Ford’s plan?

Ford Motor Company is taking a chain of actions to strengthen the company’s position in the middle of the coronavirus health crisis. They maintain planned flexibility to support their team and customers. Most importantly they are focused on what comes after the outbreak to keep itself competitive within the automotive marketplace.

“As America’s largest producer of vehicles and largest employer of autoworkers, we plan to emerge from this crisis as a stronger company that can be an engine for the recovery of the economy moving forward.” says Jim Hackett, CEO of Ford.“Like we did in the Great Recession, Ford is managing through the coronavirus crisis in a way that safeguards our business, our workforce, our customers and our dealers during this vital period,”

From Ford dropping production at its factories to creating programs to help aid customers falling victim to this recent coronavirus outbreak, they have developed a solid plan. The hope is that with this in place everything will be back up and running for the Ford Motor Company, its employees and customers once the world has recovered from these trying times.