If you thought current new car shortages and subsequent wait times were on their way to rectification, you might need to think again.
Latest industry figures show that 96,300 vehicles were cut from global production just last week due to microchip or other part shortages.
According to Auto Forecast Solutions, which is an industry tool for understanding the global automotive industry supply chain, around 1.25 million vehicles have been culled from factory schedules worldwide since the beginning of 2022.
The recent situation in Eastern Europe has not helped the cause either, with a disproportionate 80+ per cent of the vehicles not making it to production stage last week being out of European plants. The remainder came from North American and Asian factories.
As expected, manufacturers have been prioritising their highest margin and best-selling vehicles while removing features that reduce the reliance on microchips. Despite these changes, however, even some of the world’s best-selling vehicles are facing production delays and halts due to part supply issues.
MORE: Running list of cars with spec changes, due to chip shortage
The shortage is affecting manufacturers across the board (although Chinese makers appear to be less hindered) to date. Even the likes of Toyota are suffering from the issue, with the Japanese giant reducing its global April output from 900,000 to 750,000 vehicles despite the strong demand.
The 1.25 million production shortfall being felt so far this year might hopefully be the main brunt of the challenge, as forecasts show the total shortfall for 2022 should be around 2 million units, suggesting the remainder of the months should see an improvement in production capacity.
MORE: Staggering impact of semiconductor shortage on car industry revealed
Nonetheless, with the huge backlog of orders to be filled, even a minor improvement in supply is unlikely to have a big impact on the enormous global wait times for new cars.
So far in 2022 for global vehicle production, 618,000 vehicles have been cut from European automotive plants, 308,700 from North America, 70,900 from China, 206,300 from rest of Asia and about 50,000 from South American and Middle East/Africa.
Of the more than one million cars that were imported to Australia in 2021, 309,601 were from Japan, 123,725 from South Korea and 213,456 where from Thailand. Around 120,000 cars came from Europe and 18,165 cars came from the UK. The rest were a mixture of countries like USA (35k), South Africa (11k), Argentina (7.6k), India (4.5k) and other smaller markets.
