Chip shortage forces Ford to cut production of F-150, Bronco SUV

Bronco SUVs in creation at Ford’s Michigan Assembly plant, June 14, 2021.

Michael Wayland | CNBC

DETROIT – Ford Motor is slicing production following 7 days of quite a few essential products owing to an ongoing international shortage of semiconductor chips.

The automaker on Friday verified generation downtime up coming week for the Ford Bronco and Explorer SUVs the Ford F-150 and Ranger pickups the Ford Mustang Mach-E electric crossover and the Lincoln Aviator SUV at crops in Michigan, Illinois, Missouri and Mexico due to the parts shortage.

The automaker also is reducing some productions of the F-150 and Ford Transit cargo vans at plants in Michigan and Missouri.

The cuts signal the chip shortage that devastated the car business final calendar year proceeds to linger. They arrive a working day after Ford drastically skipped Wall Street’s earnings anticipations because of to decrease-than-envisioned generation brought on by the supply chain troubles, causing shares to tumble 9.7% on Friday.

“The world semiconductor shortage continues to affect Ford’s North American vegetation – alongside with automakers and other industries all-around the planet,” Ford stated in an emailed statement. “Driving the scenes, we have teams performing on how to improve manufacturing, with a continued commitment to making each individual significant-demand from customers vehicle for our consumers with the excellent they assume.”

The reality that Ford is slicing some of its most worthwhile and in-demand products these kinds of as the Bronco, Mach-E and F-150 reveals automakers continue on to struggle with the dilemma even with quite a few in the business anticipating a gradual enhancement in the supply of chips in 2022.

Ford bought 1.9 million autos in the U.S. in 2021, down by 6.8% as it managed by means of a world lack of semiconductor chips. The sections challenge pressured Ford and other automakers to sporadically shutter vegetation and depleted automobile inventories.

Following expanding by around 140% in 2021, shares of Ford are down by 13.5% this 12 months.