Thursday, August 19, 2021
Components are missing
VW only produces with one shift in the main plant
Europe’s largest car manufacturer is cutting back on production. After the summer break, many employees go on short-time work. At the main plant in Wolfsburg, the belts are only switched on for one shift.
Due to the lack of semiconductor components, production at Volkswagen’s main plant in Wolfsburg will only start to a limited extent after the summer break. As a spokesman for the company announced, production will only be carried out in one shift on all production lines in the coming week. Short-time work is requested. The spokesman was initially unable to say how many employees were affected.
The reason for the loss of work is the persistently restricted delivery situation for semiconductors. As a result of the pandemic, the company had to adjust the production program several times. The semiconductor components are in numerous electronic systems. Demand from the auto industry had risen for years, but then collapsed in the Corona crisis. The chip producers found new buyers, for example from IT, entertainment electronics or medical technology.
Other car manufacturers are also lacking microchips. At Audi in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm, around 10,000 employees have to extend their summer vacation and short-time work, as the company announced. Several thousand planned cars can therefore not be built. In the main plant in Ingolstadt, all production lines will be idle until August 30th: on line 1 due to conversion work for the start of production of the fully electric Q6 etron, on the other two lines due to a lack of chips. That’s why 6,000 employees are on short-time work here. In Neckarsulm, the greater part of production with around 4,000 employees pauses for several days.
According to CFO Nicolas Peter, BMW could probably sell 70,000 to 90,000 more cars this year without the bottlenecks. “At the moment, however, all plants around the world are well supplied,” said a BMW spokesman. In Leipzig, production is running normally, in Munich and Dingolfing it will start again as planned after the summer holidays on Monday, and Oxford will also start again next week.
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