In 2022, there will be many challenges for the automotive sector. Gas prices have increased dramatically as a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, after two years of battling the global health crisis and a chip shortage that affected the entire sector. The Japanese automaker announced on Thursday that it would reduce output in two factories because of a scarcity of semiconductors.
The automaker claims that through the end of March, Honda will 10% lessen output at two domestic operations. The move is being motivated by geopolitical unpredictability and the global semiconductor problem, according to Reuters.
Oil and gas costs may not have a direct impact on the production of automobiles, but crucial gases from Ukraine, including neon and krypton, are essential for the creation of microchips. For automakers, the sum of these tiny setbacks is a production nightmare.
Due to a crisis affecting the whole semiconductor industry, bad weather, and supply chain concerns, Honda temporarily reduced output in all of its plants in Canada and the United States in March of last year.
Not just Honda is stopping production, though. Due to a scarcity of microchips, Ford this week stopped operations at two American facilities. The automaker claims that two of its North American facilities would be shut down this week to give engineers more time to perfect the illusive part inventory.
Industry experts predict that while the chip scarcity won’t certainly end this year, it will have eased somewhat by the end. Dr. Yuh-Jier Mii, senior vice president of research and development at TSMC, predicts that the recovery will start this year and last between two and three years.
The consequences of the chip dilemma fall on the consumer who is forced to pay more than the sticker price for a new automobile because they can no longer take advantage of rebates and incentives.
Although many people assume that the global pandemic was to blame for the chip crisis, professionals in the field contend that a rise in the demand for equipment that uses microchips would still have caused it to occur.
In This Article...
Is there a chip shortage at Honda?
On August 23, 2016, a worker assembles a Fit vehicle headed for North America at the Honda facility in Suzuka, Japan.
Due to chip shortages and COVID-19 lockdowns, TOKYO Honda Motor Co. plans to reduce output by roughly 50% on two lines at one of its Japan factories in early May, the company announced on Thursday.
The factory in Suzuka will also lower output by nearly a third for the month of April, double the size of the reduction from an earlier announcement.
Which auto manufacturers are most impacted by the chip shortage?
The chip shortage in 2021 significantly decreased global automobile production. Ford was struck the hardest and early, according to Jeff Schuster, president of LMC Automotive’s Americas operation and global vehicle forecasting. This is due to the fact that it had a number of extremely high-profile debuts, including a new F-150. Schuster claims that the Blue Oval lost out on 1.25 million potential sales last year.
Ford wasn’t the only automaker to falter, though. Volkswagen went roughly 1.15 million shy of its projected production, GM and Toyota both fell short by about 1.1 million, while Stellantis fell short by about 1 million. But not every business was equally impacted. The Japanese and Korean OEMs, according to Schuster, “were a little more sheltered as a group.” China, where many chips are produced, is nearer to them. Chinese manufacturers experienced less of an impact than their international rivals because of this.
According to a US Department of Commerce study, users, including automakers and producers of medical devices, retained a median inventory of computer chips for less than five days in 2021 compared to 40 days in 2019. The consequences are terrible. The report noted a risk that is not lost on automakers: “If a COVID outbreak, a natural disaster, or political instability disrupts a foreign semiconductor facility for even just a few weeks, it has the potential to shut down a manufacturing facility in the US, putting American workers and their families at risk.”
What automobiles are impacted by the chip shortage?
The lack of chips has caused supply problems that have caused numerous plants to temporarily shut down, affecting automakers like Jaguar Land Rover, the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, Stellantis, and the Volkswagen Group.
Honda’s supply chain: Is it facing problems?
Monday, August 8, 2022, 9 a.m. EDT, most recent update Updates to earlier statements are highlighted in bold. Attention: News media Honda is still dealing with supply chain problems brought on by a variety of causes, such as the COVID-19 effect, traffic jams at several ports, and the shortage of microchips. In order to run production and satisfy client requests, our purchasing and production teams continue to carefully control the quantity of parts on hand.
Some of our North American facilities will change output during the week of August 8 based on the supply of parts. We are unable to provide precise facility or model details due to the changing nature of the issue.
Does Honda still make vehicles today?
Prior to the COVID-19 epidemic, the manufacturer actually produced 840,000 vehicles in Japan in 2019. That is just a little bit more than the car manufacturer can handle for this year. But if necessary, Honda seems to be able to ramp up to about 900,000 automobiles.
What cars are currently the simplest to purchase?
To shop for a car these days and hope to find any type of deal, you need to be a savvy shopper. Razor-thin stocks at new-vehicle dealers are being overwhelmed by consumer demand, which is mostly a result of continued microprocessor shortages and other pandemic-related factors. Not all 2021 cars are as hard to find as some others, though some do fetch top dollar—sometimes even more than the original price—when they are.
According to the statisticians at the market research firm Cox Automotive, some brands and models are still rather common on dealer lots, and hard-nosed hagglers are more likely to get reductions than those who are in short supply. Days’ supply, which measures how long a vehicle stays on a dealer’s lot before finding a permanent home, is a word used to indicate the average inventory for any given vehicle. According to Cox Automotive, the average national days’ supply is currently at a modest 25 days, which implies a roughly 75% faster turnover than before the pandemic dealt the supply and manufacturing chain for new vehicles a crippling hit.
The automakers with the greatest unsold stocks of new cars as of last month include Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Infiniti, Genesis, Volvo, Ram, Buick, Cadillac, Dodge, and Chrysler. If you’re in the market for one of the brands Cox claims have the smallest inventory with the fewest days to sell, you might want to think about putting a few more miles on your current vehicle and waiting until the market settles. Among them are Land Rover, Hyundai, GMC, Kia, Honda, Toyota, MINI, Subaru, Lexus, and Lexus. These days, the models priced between $20,000 and $30,000 are the least likely to be in stock, followed by the models priced between $30,000 and $40,000
The only cars with the shortest inventories right now are the newly released Kia Carnival minivan and the sports automobile Chevrolet Corvette, both of which have been on the market for no more than 10 days each. The vehicles that are taking the longest to sell, along with the automakers’ incentives being employed this month to move the metal, are included below for individuals who may be more ready to adjust their tastes in order to locate what they need and strike a good bargain in the process.
According to Charlie Chesbrough, senior economist at Cox Automotive, “the new-vehicle industry is beginning to show signs of stabilizing around inventory levels. ” As a result of limited availability and consumers waiting for better, sales have been declining. Even while the days’ supply is stabilizing—indeed, it slightly increased at the end of July—inventries are still low and out of the ordinary.
Which vehicles are now the toughest to find?
The most difficult brands to locate have been imports. In contrast to the industry average of 33 days’ supply, Kia and Honda shared the distinction of having the worst inventory at the end of last year, according to Cox Automotive. Toyota and Subaru came in second and third, with respective supplies of 19 and 20 days.
May 2022: Is there still a car shortage?
Nearly halfway through 2022, the anticipated global microprocessor shortage is still having a disastrous effect on the auto industry. Dealer lots appear to be empty, “market adjustments” are heavily used to inflate new car costs, and popular new models like the Ford F-150 Lightning, Bronco, and Maverick are hard to find. According to a recent study from Automotive News, these problems have prevented the construction of millions of cars.
According to an ongoing industry count from AutoForecast Solutions (AFS), the sector is currently short more than 2.2 million vehicles globally for the whole year. This new figure indicates an increase of more than 10% from the group’s prior year-to-date total and provides a very pessimistic forecast for the remainder of the year’s new car sales.
AFS estimates that North American assembly plants will account for the majority of the cutbacks. Of the 234,200 vehicles that have been added to the total, almost 88 percent (or 205,200 units) are cars and trucks that were supposed to be produced in North America but have instead ended up on the cutting room floor rather than a dealer’s lot. The expected year-to-date deficit of vehicles made in North America now stands at 780,800 units.
Despite the fact that North America’s figures aren’t looking good for the year, it isn’t the region that has been impacted the most globally. This sad honor goes to Europe, where a manufacturing loss of 794,100 vehicles is anticipated. The semiconductor shortage has also affected an additional 107,300 devices in China, 437,900 in the rest of Asia, 98,200 in South America, and an additional 12,000 in the Middle East and Africa.
While 2,230,400 units have already been destroyed globally this year, according to AFS, 3,040,861 will be added to the total. Although that may sound like a lot (and it is), there is a little glimmer of hope that the worst may now be behind the car sector.
According to AFS’s forecasts, this year will see a total increase of 810,461 vehicles lost to the microprocessor shortage, a rise of around 36% over the units lost thus far in 2022. It’s crucial to remember that the year is almost halfway over, so as shortages subside, product availability should start to improve. This reflects the attitude expressed by Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford, earlier this year, and suggests that part shortages may ease in the second half of 2022.
The biggest question is whether greater availability will contribute to a reduction in exorbitant car prices any time soon. Even if the availability appears to be improving, there is still a sizable shortage that may not be resolved until 2023 or later.