General Motors began to halt nearly all its assembly plants in North America on Sept. 6 as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to slow the supply of semiconductor chips.
GM stated that four plants will remain in regular production:
- Arlington, Texas plant, where it makes its highly profitable full-size SUVs
- Flint, Michigan assembly plant, where it makes its heavy-duty pickups
- Bowling Green assembly in Kentucky, where it makes its Corvette
- A portion of Lansing Grand River assembly, where it will make some Chevrolet Camaro and Cadillac Blackwing cars
"All the announcements we made today are related to the chip shortage, the only plant down that's not related to that, is Orion Assembly," said GM Spokesman Dan Flores, referring to that plant's shutdown over Chevy Bolt recall issues.
Semiconductor manufacturing is predominantly managed overseas, with TrendForce Department of Semiconductor Research reporting Taiwan held 63% of chip production globally in 2020. South Korea and China rank second and third, at 18% and 6% respectively. With the global trade market already stressed, other notable disruptions have further delayed manufacturing of an already high-demand product, including:
- Top Chinese semiconductor chip maker, SMIC, hit with U.S. sanctions in December 2020. SMIC is responsible for production of relatively less “cutting edge” chip technology compared to technology utilized in smartphones. Their current technology is more often used in vehicle manufacturing.
- A fire that occurred in mid-March at the Renesas Electronics Corp. Naka, Japan facility, halting production of semiconductors at the facility.
- Severe cold weather in Texas throughout February caused closures of a Samsung chip plant.
"COVID is driving supply constraints in countries that produce semiconductor chips," Flores said. "But I can't say if it's because employees have a high rate of infection or if it's the government putting restrictions on plants due to the pandemic."
Flores added that the pause is based on the current production status and that statements cannot be made about future possibilities. GM plans to manage the pause on a day-to-day basis.
"During the downtime, we will repair and ship unfinished vehicles from many impacted plants, including Fort Wayne and Silao, to dealers to help meet the strong customer demand for our products," Flores said. "Although the situation remains complex and very fluid, we remain confident in our team’s ability to continue finding creative solutions to minimize the impact on our highest-demand and capacity-constrained vehicles."
According to the Detroit Free Press, these are the production changes GM is making at the affected plants:
- Fort Wayne and Silao assembly plants are to take a week of downtime. GM expects to restart regular production on Sept. 13.
- Wentzville assembly in Missouri, where GM builds its Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize pickups and Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana full-size vans, will take downtime for two weeks.
- CAMI Assembly (Canada) and San Luis Potosi assembly (Mexico) will take two additional weeks of downtime through the week of Sept. 27. Production of the Chevrolet Equinox midsize SUV, which GM makes at both facilities, has been down since Aug. 16. San Luis Potosi also builds the GMC Terrain midsize SUV.
- Lansing Delta Township assembly adds two weeks of downtime. GM expects to resume production there the week of Sept. 20. GM makes the Chevrolet Traverse and the Buick Enclave midsize SUVs at Lansing Delta Township.
- Spring Hill assembly in Tennessee, where GM builds the GMC Acadia, Cadillac XT5 and Cadillac XT6 midsize SUVs, adds two weeks of downtime. GM expects to restart production the week of Sept. 20.
- Ramos assembly in Mexico will take two additional weeks of downtime for Chevrolet Blazer midsize SUV production through the week of Sept. 13. In addition, Equinox production will be down until Oct. 4. Production of the Chevrolet Equinox has been down since Aug. 16.
