Jag Land Rover hits the brakes
FACTORIES HALT OVER COVID CHIP DIP
JAGUAR Land Rover is to suspend production at two of its UK factories amid a shortage of computer chips.
The car giant said work will be halted from next Monday for a limited period at Halewood in Merseyside and Castle Bromwich in the West Midlands.
Production will continue at JLR’s Solihull plant in the West Midlands.
The company said that, like other automotive manufacturers, it was experiencing Covid-19 related supply-chain disruption, including the global availability of semiconductors.
Production schedules for certain vehicles have been adjusted and it said it was working with affected suppliers to resolve the issues and minimise the impact on customer orders.
“We’ve adjusted production schedules for certain vehicles which means our
Castle Bromwich and Halewood manufacturing plants will be operating a limited period of non-production,” said the Tata Motors-owned firm.
The pandemic has driven up demand for semiconductor chips for use in electronics like computers, as people worked from home. Suppliers are struggling to adjust, hitting output at a number of automakers. There has also been a fire at a factory in Japan that is owned by Renesas Electronics, one of the world’s biggest makers of semiconductors for the car industry.
France’s Renault also warned that the chip shortage was worsening.
It came after car maker Stellantis, which owns Vauxhall, said it would replace digital speedometers with more old-fashioned analogue ones in one of its Peugeot models, as the fallout continues.