What’s happening
The global semiconductor shortage is causing more than 100,000 vehicles to be dropped from North American production schedules this week.
Why it matters
It means North America has surpassed Europe as the hardest region hit by the automotive chip shortage.
What’s next
Industry experts expect more than 3.8 million vehicles to be cut by the end of the year.
The ongoing worldwide semiconductor shortage will cause more than 100,000 vehicles to be cut from North American production schedules this week, Automotive News reported Sunday. Over 180,000 vehicles are expected to be dropped globally.
The data, which comes from AutoForecast Solutions, says North American factories have been forced to cut nearly 1.06 million vehicles from production schedules this year due to the chip shortage. This puts North America as the most heavily impacted region so far. AFS’ data shows nearly 3 million vehicles have been cut so far in 2022, and the agency expects that number to grow to more than 3.8 million by the end of the year.
In addition to entire vehicles, many automakers have had to reduce the number of features offered on their products. Back in November, General Motors was forced to exclude heated seats and heated steering wheels on a number of its vehicles due to the chip shortage. This was just one of many issues affecting car companies around the world.
The auto industry may not recover from the chip shortage until 2023 or beyond. Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AFS, affirmed this reasoning earlier this year: “This is not a quickly solvable issue.”
