Production is to restart at some European car plants as the automotive industry seeks to recover from the COVID 19 shutdown.  

Volkswagen has said that it will resume operations at its plants in Slovakia on April 20th, while it hopes to reopen factories in Germany, Portugal, Spain, Russia and America from April 27th. Other plants in South and Central America and South Africa will come on stream in May.

VW have indicated operations will begin gradually with "maximum health protection" at the centre of a 100 point plan. This will initially include short time working on many production lines. The German giant also pointed out that production has already resumed at its many component plants.

Other car makers are expected to make similar moves in the coming days.