Four of the five GM plants will be down from July 19 until Aug. 2. The fifth plant – Aug 23rd.
The ongoing global microchip shortage has affected General Motors in one of their more lucrative segments, crossovers. Five plants, spanning three countries, will sit idle. In the United States, millions of vehicles (and consumers) have been affected by the ongoing shortage.
In the United States, Tennessee’s Spring Hill Assembly, which builds the Cadillac XT5, XT6 and the GMC Acadia, and Michigan’s Lansing Delta Township plant, which builds the Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave will be down until August 2nd. In Mexico, the San Luis Potosi Assembly Plant, which builds the Chevy Equinox and GMC Terrain, and Ramos Arizpe plant, which builds the Equinox and Blazer, will follow the other, wil also idle until August 2nd. The CAMI Assembly in Ontario, Canada — another Equinox manufacturing facility — will be down until Aug. 23.
While these plants will go offline, others are coming back, according to an Automotive News report. They say, “Despite the shortage, GM has shipped about 30,000 Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize pickups between mid-May and July 14, as planned, the automaker said. Production of the midsize pickups will restart Monday, after the plant took downtime to prepare for the next model.”
This could spell trouble for one of GM’s best-selling vehicles. Last year, despite being a pandemic year, the Chevrolet Equinox sold 270,994 units. Fortunately, the automaker’s popular Chevrolet Trailblazer stems the flow, with over 50,000 units already sold in 2021. That margin only appears to be increasing as the year marches on. Still, the overall effects of idling so many products will inevitably hurt GM’s bottom line, along with so many others.
As ever, these dates may be in flux as the global microchip shortage continues to evolve.
