WENTZVILLE (KMOX/AP) - General Motors is temporarily closing eight production factories around North America due to a shortage of computer chips that are used to build popular pickup trucks.
GM announced Thursday that the Wentzville plant will be on pause for two weeks, as well as plants in Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana and Mexico. It compounds an already massive shortage of new vehicles in the US. Automakers reported that U.S. dealers had just under a million new vehicles on their lots in August, 72% lower than the 3.58 million in August of 2019.
“It now appears to be accelerating in the wrong direction,” said Jeff Schuster, president of global vehicle forecasting for LMC Automotive, a consulting firm.
It's all related to the pandemic, which has hit employees of chip factories in southeast Asia particularly hard.
“These recent scheduling adjustments are being driven by the continued parts shortages caused by semiconductor supply constraints from international markets experiencing COVID-19-related restrictions,” GM said in a statement.
The Wenztville plant builds midsize pickups and big vans for GM. It's set to close for two weeks on Sept. 6.
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