Mahoning Valley - Coronavirus and stay-at-home measures are taking a heavy toll on the U.S. auto industry.

"Everybody's hurting, the car companies, the suppliers, the dealers.  Anybody with anything to do with the auto industry right now is hurting," said 
John McElroy, Founder and CEO of Autoline Daily.

MCElroy says sales figures for last month during the height of the quarantine tell the story. "We just got sales figures for April and they were down by fifty percent," .

So that means dealer inventories are still good, at least for now.  "Inventories will do down quickly, that's because manufacturers haven't built cars in six weeks in North America," Greg Greenwood of Greenwood Chevrolet said.

McEloy says the restart of auto assembly lines is totally dependent on the supply chain of parts. "You have to have every single part on the line before you can start building cars and parts come in from all over the world. Even vehicles with a  big North American footprint have got to rely on Canada  and Mexico to come up to speed," according to McElroy.

 Dealerships like Greenwood and Diane Sauer in Warren are having employees wear masks, keeping six foot distances and constantly disenfecting. And with new incentives, such as delayed payments and zero interest for up to 84 months, it's actually a great time to strike a deal.
"You're going to find the best deals that we've seen probably in our lifetime, said McElroy.
"Things you haven't seen for quite a few years in the car business," Greenwood said.
"If they need to upgrade their car they can do so right now with no cost out of pocket or get very favorable financing," added Diane Sauer.

With so many people out of work, it's hard to say how long it will take for the industry recover.