The lack of electronic chips for cars is causing growing problems for manufacturers and suppliers. Now Audi will also send approximately 000. 000 Employees in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm on short-time work. Volkswagen had already reported bottlenecks in semiconductors in December, “now it has overtaken us too,” said an Audi spokeswoman on Thursday. Volkswagen applied for short-time working for its plant in Emden, Daimler for production in Bremen, and the global shortage of microchips is also slowing production at the supplier Hella.

“In some places” the work is running normally At Audi in Neckarsulm, production of the A4 sedan and the A5 convertible will be suspended from next Monday. In Ingolstadt there will be two production lines on which A4 and A5 cars will be built from Thursday next week. Short-time work is planned for up to 10. 200 employees initially until the end of January, the spokeswoman said. At VW in Emden, short-time work should also begin next Monday and initially last two weeks. According to the works council, around 9000 employees are affected. The company pointed out that in some places the work continues as normal – for example in its own press shop or when realigning for the construction of electric vehicles.

Reason for the problem is that many chip companies during the car sales slump at the beginning of the Covid – 19 – pandemic in spring 2020 had switched their production to entertainment electronics – parts are now missing in the car business that has been running better recently.

VW: “Emden drives on sight ” Volkswagen is continuously examining countermeasures in order to limit the effects of the delivery bottleneck and thus the number of affected vehicles,” said a statement. “Accordingly, Emden continues to drive on sight.” According to the works council, the loss of production on ten working days could result in around 10. 000 New cars leave the assembly line less. What this would mean for annual production and what the failure could be made up for is not yet foreseeable.

Daimler brakes in Rastatt, Bremen and Kecskemét On Wednesday, the group had already announced that it would cut production at the main plant in Wolfsburg for several days. Daimler has also announced short-time work for its compact car plant in Rastatt. In addition, the Bremen plant cannot produce as planned. According to the group, short-time work has been applied for in the first week of February. In Kecskemét, Hungary, production is expected to be suspended for one and a half weeks at the end of January.

Stop-and-go production at Hella At the supplier Hella it was said that the high demand for electronic components had led to stop-and-go production in individual plants. “We are already seeing significant effects,” said CEO Rolf Breidenbach on Thursday when presenting the figures for the first half of the financial year 2020 / 21. “Sometimes we had to stop our lines.”

According to its own information, BMW has not registered any failures so far. “The supply of our production sites with electronic components has so far not led to any interruptions in production,” said a spokeswoman. Observe the topic intensively and be in constant communication with the suppliers.

(fpi)