The global shortage of chips is increasingly affecting European car manufacturers. Daimler has to send thousands of employees on short-time work – and Peugeot is again installing analog speedometers in one model.
Daimler has to send thousands of employees on short-time work at two locations. The reason is not the sluggish sales, but the persistent shortage of electronic components. Most of the employees at the Mercedes plants in Rastatt and Bremen are affected. Daimler announced on Wednesday that car production would be reduced in the two factories and that short-time work would initially be applied for from April 23 to the beginning of May. More than 12,000 people are employed in the Bremen plant and around 6,500 in Rastatt. According to the company, employees in “strategic projects” and so-called basic functions are excluded from short-time working at both locations. This includes Daimler in the areas of maintenance and supply as well as qualification topics. First, local media reported on the short-time work plans at the respective locations.
Break at the wrong time
The production interruption apparently hit the Bremen plant at an inopportune time. The order situation is good, the “Weser Kurier” quotes a spokesman for IG Metall. In addition, the new C-Class produced in the plant there, which was presented in February and will soon be delivered to customers, is also affected. Daimler employees in Bremen had already been forced to take a break in January. At that time, too, the cause was the lack of semiconductor components. Upon request, Daimler did not comment in detail on the question of whether short-time work was now also planned for other plants. The only thing that was said was that they were in exchange with the chip suppliers and “if necessary” were to adapt the driving styles in individual plants. The situation is volatile, you drive on sight.
VW, Ford and Peugeot also affected
The global delivery bottlenecks for electronic chips are also forcing other car manufacturers to interrupt production. At Ford, for example, the production lines are at a standstill in some plants; at Volkswagen in Emden, production is interrupted for two weeks. Thousands of employees were put on short-time work. In France, the car manufacturer Peugeot, which belongs to the Stellantis group, is taking an unusual approach: Due to the lack of chips, analog speedometers will be used again in the 308 model instead of the digital speedometers originally intended. Digital dashboards are reserved for vehicles that are more in demand, such as the 3008 SUV. The customers should therefore receive a price discount, reported the French news broadcaster LCI. The current model of the Peugeot 308 expires in autumn. The next generation of compact cars should then have a digital speedometer again – provided that enough chips are available by then. So far, the car manufacturers have not dared to make a prognosis about the business effects of the chip shortage because the situation on the chip market is too confusing. According to analysts, however, the bottleneck has so far done more than harmed the corporations: As a result, the supply of new cars has decreased, while demand is high in China and the USA. This enabled higher prices to be enforced.
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