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It said it could start to run out of Chinese parts for its UK factories after two weeks. The virus has killed more than 1,800 people in China sparking a shutdown that has seen factories close across the country. That is having an impact on global supply chains. On Monday, Apple warned that disruption as a result of the virus would affect supply of iPhones. Meanwhile, digger manufacturer JCB has cut production because of a shortage of components from China. Why much of 'the world's factory' remains closed JLR is the UK's biggest carmaker with three factories across the country that produce nearly 400,000 vehicles a year. But those factories are running out of parts, the firm's boss Ralf Speth said. "We are safe for this week and we are safe for next week and in the third week we have ... parts missing," Mr Speth said at an event in Coventry. "We have flown parts in suitcases from China to the UK," he said. Guenter Butschek, the boss of Tata Motors, which owns JLR, echoed the words of Mr Speth. "We are safe for the month of February and for a good part of March," he said. "Are we fully covered at this point of time for the full month of March?" "Unfortunately... not." Many car companies had expected to restart operations in China this week. But even those firms that have re-opened some locations have warned it will take longer to return to full capacity than expected. Fiat Chrysler last week announced it would shut a plant in Serbia due to missing parts from the country; labour union officials in the US have also said they fear production halts at firms such as General Motors due to shortages. In a statement, JLR said its direct supply chain is "primarily European and in the UK, with a small percentage in China". "The coronavirus may impact us in the medium term, we are working with our suppliers to minimise any potential impact," it said. Production is not the only part of the firm's operations affected by the outbreak.

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Several major car brands have launched new models exclusively online after the Geneva Motor Show was cancelled due to the coronavirus. If the unveilings are seen as being successful it could mark a shift away from big industry events. Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have live-streamed new models on their own channels as an alternative to the show. Car makers have been hit hard as the virus has affected supply chains and consumer demand. BMW was one of the major brands that had planned to launch new models at the Geneva Motor Show, which was due to open to the public today. It is one of the most important events in the global car industry's calendar. Instead, the German luxury car maker held a "digital press conference" to unveil its i4 electric concept car, while Mercedes-Benz announced its new E-Class in a similar way on Tuesday. The motor show was cancelled last Friday after the Swiss government banned gatherings of 1,000 people or more due to concerns over the coronavirus. It's the first time that the show has been called off since the World War Two. China turns to online car sales as virus spreads Coronavirus: Twitter tells staff to work from home Car sales in China fall 92% as coronavirus hits "The entire automotive industry is undergoing a transformation, especially with regard to digitalisation. Of course, this also includes the way we present our products in the future," said Mercedes-Benz spokeswoman Katja Rechtsteiner. But she added: "We ask ourselves the question: what is the best platform for our various topics? May it be digital or physical - we will therefore not opt for one or the other option in the future". Audi also unveiled its new A3 Sportback over the internet, again due to the cancellation of the Geneva show. "There is no question that the virus will accelerate the already strong movement away from traditional car shows," according to Michael Dunne, chief executive of auto consultancy ZoZo Go. "Consumers can gather tremendous information about products via the internet - and they do, especially the younger generation," he added. 'The show must go on' McLaren introduced its new super car, the 765LT, on Tuesday from its headquarters in Woking, UK. Dubbed the "McLaren Motor Show 2020", its chief executive Mike Flewitt said: "We are sorry not to be in Geneva due to the concerns raised by the coronavirus and we do need to be respectful of the situation. But the upside is we are here coming from the McLaren Technology Centre and the home of McLaren." While he fully supported the decision to cancel the show, Mr Flewitt added: "We also have a business to run and have responsibilities to our customers, our suppliers and our employees. As they say, the show must go on." McLaren said the event was "a phenomenal success with a huge global audience watching the live broadcast" but not to write off motor shows. "While this is an exciting format we will continue to explore further, motor shows remain an effective platform for engaging both with media and our customers," a McLaren spokesman said. Geneva Motor Show managing director Olivier Rihs said the online launches from the likes of BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi "is a big challenge for us and we need to be more digital". The motor show's own website live-streamed 20 new car presentations this week, as it looks to become more digital-focused. But Mr Rihs believes the online launches don't herald the end of motor shows. "People still want the emotion. To see the car, to feel it, to exchange comments with others. We provide that experience. It's like watching a football match without the fans." The annual showcase, which is one of the biggest events in the motor industry calendar, was due to host some 150 exhibitors and 90 global or European car premieres. The event attracted about 600,000 visitors last year.

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My EXA, a digital bug-looking thing made of code, scurries out into rooms representing nodes in a factory's network. Following the program I painstakingly wrote for it, the EXA disrupts this network with precision before running the HALT command to self-destruct. There is no trace of the fact I have hacked this factory, except that the snack bars it produces no longer contain peanuts. It's the little victories. Later I hack a street sign so it reads WAKE UP SHEEPLE and want to punch the air in triumph. Exapunks is the latest from Zachtronics, creators of tricky puzzle games like Opus Magnum and Infinifactory that are all about moving things from one place to another, and hacking games like TIS-100 that are all about typing made-up but believable code into computers. Exapunks connects the two, providing space for code and a visualization of that code's effect, which is mostly moving things about. In this alternate dystopian 1997 I've got the phage, a disease that slowly turns my skin into useless microchips like a crap cyborg. I can only afford medicine if I agree to perform arbitrary hacking jobs for a mysterious lady who doesn't understand human emotions and is totally not an AI. Sometimes that's making ATMs dispense cash for free, sometimes it's the peanut job. Exapunks doesn't mess around. The tutorial throws you right in it, expecting you to learn by reading a manual that comes in the form of an in-universe zine you can print out or just alt-tab to in a pdf reader. This zine, Trash World News, is a lovely little artifact that, as well as teaching commands like LINK to switch hosts and GRAB to interact with files, implies a whole community of helpful cyberpunks. So do the conversations on Chatsubo in the corner of my screen between levels and the occasional visitors at the door. That's more than just world-building, it's a hint about how to get the most out of this game. You shouldn't go alone. There's a real-world community on the Steam forums and the subreddit that's grown during its time in Early Access, and seeking them out for advice is essential. This is a game that requires a kind of programmer thinking you either have or you don't, and as someone who very much doesn't, I needed help. My solutions are ugly and often involve multiple EXAs programmed with slight variations on the same code to deal with every possible eventuality. Cleverer players use commands like REPL to make replica EXAs containing cloned code that doesn't hurt their score. They're efficient in ways I not only don't think of, but never would. The programming language is robust enough it can even be used to make games within the game. When I got hold of a GameBoy-looking cyberpunk handheld called the Redshift I could write my own arcade games onto it, and play ones made by other people for a break when solving puzzles started to feel like work. There are a couple of minigames to unlock as well including a Russian solitaire variant, and there's a competitive mode that tests your code against against another player's. Both these things give me headaches. Exapunks shares with Zachtronics' previous game Opus Magnum the idea it's OK to brute-force a puzzle. You'll still unlock the next level and story snippet, but you won't make the leaderboards. To do that you need to try harder, tweaking commands to use fewer lines of code, create fewer EXAs, be more elegant. Exapunks is a two-coffee game, one that requires focus and alertness. Even then, there's a hard limit on how good I'll ever be. I feel out of my depth, like a smart dog who graduated puppy school and has been put in a physics class. Infinifactory and Opus Magnum remain the Zachtronics games I'd recommend to people, but if you aced both of those and are ready to graduate, Exapunks is the next level.

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