BERLIN (Reuters) – Volkswagen expects to produce even fewer cars in 2022 than this year due to ongoing semiconductor supply troubles, Manager Magazin reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The carmaker, which reduced its forecast for 2021 vehicle deliveries last week to 9 million from 9.3 million, is preparing for the possibility that the current chips shortage could last until at least early 2023, the report said.
In the worst-case scenario, deliveries could fall to 8 million cars next year – but even if things go relatively well, deliveries could be slightly below this year’s, it said.
Volkswagen declined to comment on the report, stating it expected a slight easing of the supply situation in 2022 but that the first half of the year would remain very volatile.
Carmakers including BMW and Daimler have said they expect chip problems to continue well into 2022, with BMW confirming to Reuters on Thursday it did not expect the crisis to ease until the second half of next year.
Whether buying computer chips directly from manufacturers, reconfiguring cars, or producing them with parts missing, many carmakers are getting creative to cope with the global shortage that some had expected would ease by the beginning of next year.
Volkswagen’s Audi, which alongside its Skoda brand is lengthening its Christmas break to Jan. 10 because of the supply bottleneck, said it expected the situation to carry on for “months on end.”
“We expect to be occupied with this crisis for months on end in the coming year,” a spokesperson said. “The scarcity could extend for even longer.”
Porsche, also owned by Volkswagen, said in November the crisis highlighted the need for automakers to take production into their own hands.
“Anyone who believes the chip crisis will calm itself in the next year is mistaken,” CEO Oliver Blume told Germany’s Boersen-Zeitung.
(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa, Jan Schwartz, Christina Amann, Ilona Wissenbach, Victoria Waldersee; Editing by Miranda Murray and Mark Potter)
