About 75,300 vehicles were cut from factory schedules worldwide last week because of the shortage of microchips, AutoForecast Solutions estimates.
The bulk of the new cuts occurred in North America, which dropped about 34,800 units, and in Asian nations other than China, where 31,300 vehicles were cut.
Auto plants in South America axed about 9,200 vehicles.
No further microchip-related cuts were reported in Europe, China, the Middle East or Africa. European assembly plants have been hit hardest by the semiconductor shortage so far this year, accounting for about 46 percent of global losses, according to AFS.
But the relentlessly growing number represents a fraction of the vehicles lost from scheduled production because of supply chain disruptions of all kinds. COVID-19 lockdowns in China, the impact of the war in Ukraine and the normal Golden Week holiday downtime in Japan contributed to further cuts beyond those related to the microchip shortage, said Sam Fiorani, AFS vice president of global vehicle forecasting.
“The chip shortage is also being accompanied by other supply chain issues and weather-related production interruptions that are not counted in these losses but would increase the totals considerably,” Fiorani wrote in an email.
