Lack of chips
Renault estimates production losses at half a million cars
The logo of the car manufacturer Renault hangs on a company sign in front of a factory site. Photo: Christophe Ena / AP / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The shortage of semiconductors is not only a problem for German carmakers. Renault also has to significantly reduce its production.
The French car manufacturer Renault estimates the production downtime due to the lack of chips this year to be even more pronounced than before.
An estimated 500,000 vehicles would not roll off the assembly line as planned this year, the group announced on Friday in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris. In July, the company had assumed there were around 200,000 missing cars.
In the third quarter alone, the carmaker’s production loss was around 170,000 vehicles, the company said. Meanwhile, the group is not lacking in orders: the order book was as full at the end of September as it has not been for 15 years.
Renault sold 599,027 vehicles across all group brands in the months from July to September – 22.3 percent less than in the same period of the previous year due to the problems with missing parts. The French were able to contain the slump in sales to 13.4 percent and thus 9 billion euros, partly because of rising prices.
Under the new boss Luca de Meo, Renault has decided to focus less on quantity and instead focus on returns. The group also maintains the operating margin forecast for the year – it should be in the order of magnitude of the first six months, when it was 2.8 percent.