The microchip shortage isn’t over, but General Motors has made big strides in managing it. Beginning November 1, the company will have no plants idled by the chip shortage for the first time since mid-summer. The company began periodically shuttering factories due to a lack of needed chips in February.
Completing Unfinished Trucks
GM has also begun completing vehicles it left partly finished due to lack of microchips.
The company built thousands of vehicles — mostly its popular full-size trucks — to near completion earlier this year, then parked them to wait for the microchips it needed to finish them.
Now, GM head of North American operations Steve Carlisle tells reporters, “We’re a bit better than halfway through,” finishing the parked vehicles. “Our goal would be to clear out our 2021 model years by the end of the year.”
2022 Trucks Newly Updated
Both of GM’s large trucks – the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra – have been heavily refreshed for the 2022 model year.
The Silverado gains a radically improved interior and a new off-road specialist model for the new year. The Sierra gets the same, plus a new ultra-luxury trim.
Completing the unfinished trucks could result in 2021 models rolling into dealerships even after the 2022 model year has gone on sale.
In an ordinary year, we’d advise you that it might be easy to negotiate a discount on the outgoing model. But discounts are near 20-year lows as the chip shortage has left dealers with few new cars to sell, driving prices to record highs.
Dealers Still Short of Cars to Sell
A global shortage of microchips has rocked the auto industry throughout 2021. Automakers measure their stock of new cars with a number they call “days of inventory” — how long it would take them to sell out of cars completely at the current sales rate if they stopped building new ones.
At the end of September, Chevrolet dealers had an average of just 26 days’ worth of new cars to sell — a number that would be shockingly low in any other year. GMC dealers had just 25.
Carlisle told reporters the company aims to get supply back to 30 to 45 days for most models.
Shortage Remains
The shortage, however, is not near its end. “The situation remains complex and very fluid,” GM said in a statement. “We remain confident in our team’s ability to continue finding creative solutions to minimize the impact of the semiconductor shortages that have been impacting the industry.”
