As the chip shortage issue continues, what are car companies doing to adapt?
Jerrica · Sep 22, 2021 05:43 PM
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The semiconductor shortage is proving to be a massive bane for automotive companies all over the world. It doesn’t help that chip factories in Malaysia are forced to close due to the Covid-19 pandemic. To make matters worse, a factory in Japan that supplies chips to Toyota, Nissan, and Honda burnt down. So, what are automotive companies doing to get on top of the matter?
According to a video from Wall Street Journal (WSJ), car companies have been forced to drop certain features in a car to use as few semiconductor chips as possible.
Unisem factory in Malaysia is the latest chip factory to close down due to the pandemic
Peugeot has declared that they were dropping features like the full-digital instrument cluster while Tesla will be removing the lumbar support feature in certain cars.
Other than that, car companies have chosen to halt production of less popular cars to redirect chips to more popular models. Even Perodua is required to start rationing production of all their models to stem the tide of falling sales.
But these are efforts made to overcome the issue in the short term, in the long run, WSJ reports that automotive companies are rethinking their supply chain process rather than operate on a just-in-time model like they currently are.
Watch the video below to find out what else automotive brands have had to resort to in order to overcome the chip shortage issue.
There isn’t a time in memory that doesn’t involve staring at cars. After discovering the excitement of watching Schumacher vs Hakkinen, Formula 1 became a major part of life. The love for cars and F1 ultimately led to a job with CAR Magazine. The untimely death of the magazine meant a hiatus from cars at lifestyle women’s magazine Marie Claire before another opportunity came knocking again.
