In February, things started to get bleak with the global scarcity of semiconductor chips. Automakers, including everyone from Ford to GM, but not Toyota, had to limit production due to a lack of parts. At the time, Ford issued a dire warning that it could create a production deficit strong enough to cut its profits by $ 2.5 billion, and, well, nothing has changed to improve the situation since then.
Car manufacturers have a difficult choice: plowing without the right parts or doing nothing. Weighing its options, Ford chose the first and started building the F-150s and Edge crossovers without some of the components it would normally use. General Motors announced on Monday that it is going ahead and making pickups without a fuel management module, damaging fuel economy by a mile per gallon. Ford believes that its choice will have a less critical impact, saying the modules are mainly linked to infotainment and windshield wiper controls – although the vehicles are not delivered to unfinished customers.
THE Automotive News The report says that the affected models will be built and then maintained by Ford until the automaker gets the parts. They will then go through “comprehensive quality checks” before being allowed to go to resellers, with the missing modules installed after the main construction.
This is not an economical or desirable way to build a truck, particularly not as important to Ford as the F-150, possibly or even possibly the most profitable vehicle of all time. For a company whose reputation and economy were built on the assembly line, this is a stupid way to make cars, but also, given the situation, the only thing you can do if you move the chassis. Frustratingly, this even means waiting for what Ford is calling “several weeks” with unfinished trucks.
Ford has also confirmed that it will cut Thursday night shifts, as well as Friday shifts at its Louisville assembly plant, where the Escape and Lincoln Corsair crossover are built.
Automotive News reported a Ford spokesman saying that the installation of the missing F-150 and Edge modules can be done in off-site factories, keeping the factories operating relatively normally. Emphasis on “relatively”, given the great scarcity of something that cars need a lot today and that we have been looking for in consumer electronics for the past year. Expect this problem, like unfinished trucks, to go nowhere for a while.
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