Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) is preparing to send vehicles to dealerships without all features added as ongoing chip shortages continue to drag on.
The global shortage of silicon wafers continues to linger; while the impacts have been felt far and wide across most industries, certain businesses have been hit harder than others. This is because industries utilize different chips, with the auto industry tending to use less-powerful chips than a personal computer, for example. Higher-end customers such as phone and computer makers, however, tend to have priority over chip reserves due to their lucrative nature for chipmakers.
As such, companies like Ford, General Motors (NYSE: GM), and Stellantis (NYSE: STLA) have faced recurring production stops to make up for the dearth of supplies. However, cars have still been manufactured during this time, albeit with many missing components. Many of these partially finished vehicles have been in "storage" waiting to be finished.
Ford, facing mounting pressure from dealers facing emptying lots, announced over the weekend that it would be sending those unfinished vehicles to dealers. Customers are being given the option to accept a credit for the missing features if they purchase a Ford with missing components. According to Ford spokesman Said Deep, features such as rear seat air condition controls will be added later.
Ford is far from alone in shipping feature incomplete cars to dealers. GM has stopped offering certain features on certain vehicles, such as removing the start/stop fuel saving function from some of its pickup trucks. Similarly, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) removed a backup steering controller from the steering column of Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.
Things have been a bit rough for Ford lately, especially with the company's latest earnings miss. Ford shares went into the red on Monday, though seemed to make some modest recovery, ending Tuesday 0.37% up.