Chinese EV manufacturer Nio is forced to shut down production due to the shortage of microchips that has plagued the car industry for some time now. The planned production shutdown will initially take five days and Nio expects to be able to deliver 500 to 1,000 fewer cars in the first quarter.
The cars currently concerned are the ES8, ES6 and EC6. Nio will shut down the factory in Hefei for five days from March 29. During the first quarter, Nio planned to deliver 20,000 to 20,500 vehicles, but has now scaled down that forecast to 19,500 cars. Earlier in this quarter, the manufacturer also suffered from the chip shortage, but was not forced to shut down production completely.
Nio seems to especially want to blame Tesla because the Chinese manufacturer focuses specifically on EVs in the higher segment. At the beginning of this year, Nio unveiled the ET7, an electric top sedan that with a battery of 150 kWh should be able to achieve 1,000 kilometers of range. However, the ET7 will only be delivered from 2022, so that model will probably not be affected by the current chip shortage. Nio also wants to come to Europe, but it is uncertain whether that will happen this year.
The shortage of microchips has plagued the auto industry since the beginning of this year. Due to the corona crisis, the demand for microchips from the automotive industry decreased and demand increased in other sectors, so that chip manufacturers started to focus on this. As the demand for cars picked up again, the demand for the microchips also rose again, but that production capacity was now available. It seems that manufacturers will be bothered by the shortage well into this year. The fire that recently raged at Japanese chipmaker Renesas does not help.