Jaguar Land Rover reportedly is cutting production at UK factories until spring 2023 in a sign of its continued struggle to source semiconductors amid the global shortage.
The carmaker has decided to cut production at factories in Solihull and Halewood between January and the end of March as it tries to prioritise its most profitable models, industry sources told The Guardian.
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JLR, the UK’s biggest carmaker, this November reported a record order book of more than 205,000 cars, but the chip shortage has complicated its efforts to ramp up production of new versions of its Range Rover and Range Rover Sport, which are both made in Solihull, and its Defender, which is made in Slovakia, the newspaper said.
The Solihull factory, in the West Midlands, will move from two shifts to one in the parts of the factory that produce the lower-price Range Rover Velar and the Jaguar F-Pace, while adding an extra shift to produce Range Rover body panels. The Halewood plant, in Merseyside, will also drop to one shift. The factory produces the Discovery Sport and the smaller Range Rover Evoque, The Guardian said.
JLR had not yet planned for reduced shifts after the end of March, and it had been working to secure its longer-term supply of semiconductors. Last month it announced a deal with Wolfspeed, in the US, to supply silicon carbide semiconductors, the report noted.
A JLR spokeswoman told The Guardian: “We continue to actively manage the operational patterns of our manufacturing plants whilst the industry experiences ongoing global semiconductor supply chain disruption.
“Demand for our vehicles remains strong. We expect our performance to continue improving in the second half of the year as new agreements with semiconductor partners take effect, enabling us to build and deliver more vehicles to our clients.”
