Adam Jonas covers the auto industry for Morgan Stanley. Barron’s spoke with Jonas recently about how the car industry can survive the shutdown, and how it might be left changed. His edited comments follow.

On differences between this downturn and the 2008 global financial crisis:

The global financial crisis, or at least the stimulus to alleviate it, happened after the election, whereas this one is leading up to an election. That’s not a subtle difference. The other thing is that the machinery of stimulus had been primed in...