HAVERHILL — New car dealers in the area say they have plenty of inventory and don’t anticipate delays in the supply of new cars and trucks due to the recent Baltimore bridge disaster.
Car dealers across the Merrimack Valley that depend on the Port of Baltimore, however, admit they are keeping an eye on the situation.
Ben Coppola, general manager of Smith Motor Sales on River Street in Haverhill, said new Mercedes Benz vehicles shipped from Germany typically arrive at Baltimore’s Vehicle Preparation Center, where the vehicles are inspected for damages and to ensure they meet U.S. standards before they are released to the wholesale market.
He said the idea behind the inspections in Baltimore is to prevent a reoccurrence of the 2015 Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal.
“It takes two weeks on a boat from Germany then a minimum of 10 days before vehicles can be released,” he said.
Coppola said he hasn’t receive a Mercedes factory bulletin announcing any delays in shipping new vehicles and, at this time, he does not anticipate any delays.
“We receive between 10 and 12 in two deliveries per week as a truck can hold up to six vehicles,” he said. “Now that people are back to work (after the pandemic) we have plenty of inventory.”
He said the bridge collapse could impact new shipments of vehicles, but expects Mercedes will figure out how to transfer its vehicles to another location.
“If there is going to be delay, Mercedes will let us know,” he said. “It could create a wrinkle for us as the Baltimore port is the one that ships (cars) to the Northeast.”
Dan Wood, general manager of Auto Fair Subaru of Haverhill, said he doesn’t expect any major impact at the dealership and that his inventory is at a healthy level.
“We have 60 days of cars lined up and a ship with 1,000 cars on its way to New England just before the bridge incident,” he said.
“We’re not seeing any delays at this time but our logistics teams are working on plans for future cars that were to be routed through Baltimore. We don’t know if they still will be using a different route but we don’t see any major delays or supply issues. We have a little over a 30 day supply — which is healthy for the last four years but traditionally a little light. If this had happened two year’s ago there would have been a lot of panic.”
Rick Trottier, general manager of Patriot Nissan in Salem, New Hampshire, said he has plenty of vehicles on hand, but is staying on top of any possible disruptions that might happen due to the bridge disaster.
“Our rep mentioned it could possibly impact us depending on how long it takes to open that lane for ships to get through,” he said. “It’s a big port for carmakers and Nissan does deliver to that port. Short term it might not affect us much but there isn’t a whole lot we can do to plan for something like this. During COVID times we knew production would be off, but this is isn’t going to have the same kind of impact. It could impact cars coming into the port in April but I’m sure they’ll have the shipping lanes opened by then.”
Trottier said he expects things will return to normal pretty quickly.
“They are looking at bypassing Baltimore and delivering to New Jersey,” he said.