Semiconductor Shortage Hits General Motors, Production Of Pickup Trucks To Be Slashed This Month

Chip shortage seems to be far from over as General Motors has announced that it will have to suspend the production of some pickup trucks this month in North America. Production of most of the full-size pickup trucks will most likely be suspended from Monday. The company said that the suspension will continue for at least a week. Full-size pickup trucks and SUVs are the most profitable vehicles and among the best-selling cars of the company. General Motors beat the odds to continue the production as normally as possible for almost a year. It shifted the supply from less popular vehicles to profit-making pickup trucks. But the car manufacturer seems to have partially lost the battle which the industry has been fighting for almost a year.

But the emergence of the Delta variant across several countries is once again forcing shutdowns and restrictions. This has disrupted the supply chain once again. General Motors said that it is expecting this shortage to be a short-term issue. “Semiconductor shortages because of supply constraints at several countries have forced us to take these measures. These steps are temporary and have been taken to address the shortage. We are hopeful of resuming the production of our best-selling vehicles soon,” the company said in a release. GM has said that the production of pickups will be stopped at three plants in North America. Vehicles like Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500 will be affected because of the recent decision.

General Motors said that shift will be reduced to one from the usual three at the Flint Michigan assembly plant. The production will also be stopped at the Silao assembly plant in Mexico. Silverado 1500 Cheyenne are built in Silao. The heavy-duty versions of the Silverado are built at the Flint assembly plant. General Motors is not the only company that is going through a tough time because of a shortage of semiconductors. Recently there were reports that supply chain issues forced Toyota to shut plants in Thailand and even in Japan. Honda is also planning to shut its main plant in Japan. Sales of cars had nosedived during the coronavirus pandemic. Because of this, automakers cut back their order for semiconductors. However, they didn’t expect at that time that sales would rebound so quickly and car companies would be left without the chips. A report suggested that car manufacturers will have to cut production of 2.9 million vehicles this year. This would roughly cost the industry USD 110 billion worldwide.