The semiconductor shortage that is constraining global auto production is like a bad cough. It just won’t go away.
Ford Motor (ticker: F) is taking more downtime because of a lack of chips, according to a CNBC report. Ford didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about any stoppages.
Exactly how much production is at risk isn’t known, but investors shouldn’t be all that surprised. Ford management said deliveries would fall “a high single to low digit decline in the first quarter” back on their fourth-quarter earnings conference call in early February.
Ford’s first-quarter 2021 U.S. volumes came in at 521,334 vehicles, up 1% year over year. A 10% decline in U.S. volumes in the first quarter of 2022 would work out to deliveries of roughly 469,000 vehicles.
Ford delivered about 508,000 vehicles in the U.S. in the fourth quarter of 2021, down about 6% compared with the fourth quarter of 2020. The chip shortage is still a significant factor for the industry going into 2022.
For the full year, Ford expects improvement in the chip situation and plans to ship 10% to 15% more cars they they did in 2021. In the U.S., that would work out to a total of roughly 2.1 million or 2.2 million vehicles. Ford delivered 2.4 million vehicles in the U.S. in 2019, before the chip shortage and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ford investors don’t appear impressed, despite the fact that management gave the market a heads-up earlier in the year. Shares were down 1.9% in premarket trading, thought the overall market is in the red. Futures on the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were both down about 0.9%.
Coming into Friday trading, Ford stock was down about 1.3% for the week. The S&P 500 was off about 0.5%.
Friday’s news isn’t only a factor for Ford. The rest of the industry faces similar issues. Tesla (TSLA) and General Motors (GM) stock might be reacting a little to the Ford report. Tesla stock was down 1.1%, while GM shares were off 1.5%.
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