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With 95K Unfinished Cars, General Motors Shares Gloomy Forecast on the Chip Shortage

Anticipating the evolution of the global chip shortage might seem like an easy thing to do in the short term, but at the end of the day, knowing precisely when the crisis would come to an end is pretty much mission impossible.
General Motors says the chips would continue into 2023 6 photos
Photo: GM
GM's Flint assembly plantGM's Flint assembly plantGM's Flint assembly plantGM's Flint assembly plantGM's Flint assembly plant
Carmakers in the United States, for instance, including Ford and General Motors, have previously been expecting a significant recovery in terms of local chip supply, mostly in the final months of this year.

But as far as GM is concerned, the chip struggle isn’t by any means easing up.

At this point, the company has no more, no less than 95,000 vehicles simply sitting in parking lots and waiting to get the systems they’re missing. In other words, they have already been produced without more or less critical systems because the parent company did not have the necessary chips to install them.

To avoid halting the production entirely, General Motors decided to keep the assembly lines up and running, therefore building incomplete cars and then moving them to storage to wait for a refill of the chip supply.

More recently, General Motors CEO Mary Barra has also confirmed that despite all the efforts to resolve the semiconductor struggle, the crisis would continue into 2023. In other words, the production challenges would continue for the American carmaker, though Barra hasn’t shared any forecast as to when the company would manage to deal with the current inventory of unfinished vehicles.

For the time being, however, all signs seem to suggest that the chip shortage would continue for at least one more year. The gloomiest forecast was released by Intel, as the tech giant believes the crisis would continue until 2024, despite all the investments in capacity.

Barra calls for rapid expansion of U.S. chip production, something that obviously can’t happen overnight but which in GM CEO’s opinion could help not only deal with the ongoing shortage but also prevent similar struggles in the long term.
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About the author: Bogdan Popa
Bogdan Popa profile photo

Bogdan keeps an eye on how technology is taking over the car world. His long-term goals are buying an 18-wheeler because he needs more space for his kid’s toys, and convincing Google and Apple that Android Auto and CarPlay deserve at least as much attention as their phones.
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