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Production downtimes and short-time work: Chip shortages and Corona plague the global auto industry so much

2021-08-19T17:04:59.559Z


Numerous car manufacturers cannot ramp up production as planned after the summer break due to corona outbreaks and the shortage in semiconductors. The corporate dilemma at a glance.


Enlarge image

Final acceptance at Toyota (archive picture)

Photo: Everett Kennedy Brown / picture alliance / dpa

The supply bottlenecks for semiconductors are becoming a real nuisance for the automotive industry.

The lack of chips at the industry leader

Toyota

leaves

production in September by 40 percent behind the target.

The company announced that 14 factories are now affected by production downtimes.

All of a sudden, the production of around 360,000 new cars is delayed.

Toyota had come through the chip crisis better than others thanks to stockpiling, but had warned of ongoing shortages.

However, the world's largest carmaker confirmed the sales forecast of 8.7 million vehicles in the fiscal year that runs until the end of March, as did the production target of 9.3 million units.

Production is also stalling at the German car companies.

Because corona outbreaks in Southeast Asia, for example in Malaysia, led to factory closings at chip manufacturers.

The

VW

parent plant in Wolfsburg

could

only restart to a limited extent after the summer break in the coming week, said a VW spokesman.

Production is only carried out in one shift on all production lines.

The group assumes that the supply will remain tense in the third quarter.

Therefore, further production adjustments cannot be ruled out.

The situation should improve by the end of the year, so that the production backlog will be made up in the second half of the year, it said.

The Wolfsburg-based group was unable to produce a high six-digit number of vehicles in the first half of the year due to the lack of chips.

At the VW subsidiary

Audi

, the conveyor belts in Germany will still be still in the coming week, said a spokeswoman.

Actually, some lines should have started up after the factory break.

Audi has already announced that it will not be able to make up for all losses by the end of the year.

The rival

Mercedes-Benz is

throttling production at the Bremen plant this week and on individual days in Rastatt and Sindelfingen, as Daimler announced.

In the case of

Stellantis

,

which emerged from the merger of Fiat Chrysler and the French PSA group,

two factories in France will have to stop production next week.

According to a spokesman,

BMW,

on the other hand, will start up again as planned after the summer holidays, after the Munich-based company previously had to restrict production comparatively little.

The auto supplier

Hella

expects a longer chip crisis.

"We will still have to do with it for the entire fiscal year," said Hella boss Rolf Breidenbach.

The bottleneck will probably not have been overcome until mid-2023.

Despite the production problems, the auto companies expect rising profits in 2021.

Because demand has recovered from the corona shock of last year, so that manufacturers can enforce higher prices.

Due to the lack of chips, they are concentrating on large, high-margin vehicles and reducing the production of compact cars.

ssu / Reuters

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-08-19

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