Global Chip Shortage May Drag on into 2022

• So says Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares.

• GM forced to idle truck assembly lines.

• Meanwhile, Biden administration officials are seeing signs of relief.

The semiconductor shortage is the auto industry’s biggest story of 2021, of that there can be no doubt. All automakers are dealing with the crisis in their own way but the most prevalent has been temporary assembly plant shutdowns. For the most part, less-profitable models are the ones being put on ice but this is not always the case.

GM has just decided to cut its high-profitable truck production at three of its plants for a few weeks because of the crisis. Stellantis is looking into changing the diversity of chips it intends to use by possibly re-engineering certain features. Other manufacturers have decided to deliver new vehicles without some accessories due to the lack of required chips.

The semiconductor crisis, from everything I see and I’m not sure I can see everything, is going to drag into ’22 easy because I don’t see enough signs that additional production from the Asian sourcing points is going to come to the West in the near future,” Tavares said.

U.S. Commerce Secretary, Gina Raimondo, has organized meetings between semiconductor manufacturers, their suppliers, and their customers including automakers according to Automotive News. These steps are encouraging enough that the Biden Administration believes that the end of the shortage isn’t too far off. As well, based on Goldman Sachs analysis, chip production should increase in July.

So far, in the US alone, the shortage has taken a $110 billion toll on the car industry.