North American factories cut 26,000 more vehicles from their production plans last week because of the global microchip shortage, a significant increase from the reductions manufacturers were making at the beginning of the month, according to the latest estimate by AutoForecast Solutions.
Globally, about 115,000 vehicles were cut from automakers’ production schedules last week, compared with about 280,000 the week before. Europe led the way, eliminating about 44,000 vehicles. Chinese plants cut about 17,000 units from their schedules, while those in Japan and the rest of Asia lost about 27,000 vehicles.
The 26,000 North American cuts were still an improvement from the 84,000 vehicles the region eliminated the prior week. But it is more than six times as many vehicles as the region’s factories trimmed in the first full week of October, when fewer than 4,000 units were cut.
How soon the microchip shortage will be corrected is unclear. Pat Gelsinger, CEO of tech giant and semiconductor manufacturer Intel, told CNBC last week that he did not expect the shortage to end until 2023, though he said it will get “incrementally better” every quarter next year.
Meanwhile, the president of the Malaysia Semiconductor Industry Association told Reuters last week that it will take “at least two or three years” for chip capacity to match demand. Malaysia is the world’s fourth-largest producer of microchips, after Taiwan, China and the U.S.
The U.S. Commerce Department said last week that Intel, General Motors and other companies have signaled that they will cooperate with a voluntary request for data on the chip crisis, Reuters reported. The White House said such information would help it to better understand where bottlenecks exist in the supply chain.
