VW adjusts manufacturing amid semiconductor bottleneck

MUNICH– Volkswagen Group mentioned it’s adjusting manufacturing in Europe, China and the U.S. due to a scarcity of automotive microchips.

The transfer will have an effect on manufacturing of VW, Audi and Skoda fashions based mostly on VW Group’s MQB platform,VW mentioned in a statement on Friday. The platform underpins automobile such because the VW Golf.

Semiconductor producers reassigned their manufacturing capacities to different sectors resembling client electronics throughout the droop in automobile gross sales earlier this 12 months attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Automobile gross sales have now recovered considerably and the auto business faces a scarcity of the digital elements required, VW mentioned.

“We are actually feeling the results of the worldwide semiconductor bottleneck,” mentioned Murat Aksel, VW’s board member overseeing buying.

Automakers and suppliers in China had warned earlier this month {that a} shortage of automotive microchips was threatening to decelerate the business’s pandemic restoration. VW and German suppliers Robert Bosch and Continental mentioned shortages of semiconductors might run into 2021.

Reuters contributed to this report