GM Moving Fast to Clear Backlog of Pickups Amid Chip Shortage

The ongoing chip shortage continues to drastically limit vehicle production. North American assembly plants cut an estimated 26,000 more vehicles from their production plans last week, down from 84,000 the week before but over six times more than the 4,000 units that weren’t built in the first full week of October, according to AutoForecast Solutions.

General Motors and Ford have been hit the hardest, although the former had some encouraging news to share recently.

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Steve Carlisle, the automaker’s North American president, said at the Reuters Events Automotive Summit that GM is more than halfway through shipping the thousands of newly assembled pickups that remain parked due to missing chips. 

"We're a bit better than halfway through that at the moment and our goal would be to clear out our '21 model years by the end of the year,” he said. “We'll have a bit of a tail of '22 model years into the new year but not for too long."

Carlisle failed to be more specific about the numbers, but he mentioned that GM bought a number of car haulers to expedite transportation of newly built vehicles to dealers. It even allowed dealers to pick the trucks up themselves in some locations.

Of course, that’s not the only thing GM has done. Sacrifices were also required. For example, some Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups were manufactured without the Active Fuel Management or Dynamic Fuel Management module, which needs a chip to operate. That means they burn a bit more fuel and have higher emissions.

In the case of the Cadillac Escalade luxury SUV, early 2022 models won't come with Super Cruise, GM's hands-free driver-assistance technology, though it could be available for vehicles manufactured later on.