Production of the Chevy Traverse and Buick Enclave crossovers at GM’s Lansing Delta Township facility will be idled for two weeks as a result of the ongoing global microchip shortage.
According to a recent report from the Lansing State Journal, production at the Lansing Delta Township facility will be idled starting July 19th. The production shutdown is expected to last through the end of the month. Workers were notified of the production stoppage Thursday morning.
The Lansing Delta Township facility is just one of several GM facilities undergoing production shutdowns this month. In addition to production cuts for the Chevy Traverse and Buick Enclave, GM has also been forced to cut production of the Chevy Malibu and Cadillac XT4 at its Fairfax Assembly plant in Kansas, which is not expected to come back online until August. Production of the Cadillac CT4 and Cadillac CT5 sedans at GM’s Lansing Grand River Assembly plant have also been affected, although production of the Chevy Camaro at Grand River continues. Limited production of the Cadillac Blackwing performance sedans is also moving forward.
In response to the global microchip shortage, General Motors has prioritized production of its most popular and profitable models, including its full-size pickup trucks, such as the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra, and its latest full-size SUVs, including the Chevy Tahoe, Chevy Suburban, GMC Yukon, and Cadillac Escalade.
In order to keep these critical models rolling off the production line, General Motors has cut back on the availability of certain features, including Active Fuel Management and Dynamic Fuel Management, as well as HD Radio. GM has also adopted a “build-shy strategy” wherein vehicles are produced in an unfinished state, then parked as new microchips are sourced to complete the vehicles before they are shipped out.
General Motors is currently seeking to secure supply contracts with microchip manufacturers to avoid a possible shortage in the future.
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Comments
This entire chip shortage just plain stinks. Nobody wins. Hope this gets resolved sooner than later.
Just start back building cars like they did in the 1960s and 1970s without any computers or chips at all! Works for me!
With a modern car, when you walk up to it, it recognizes the key in your pocket, unlocks for you, and sets the seats and mirrors to your preferences. Before you even open the door.
Once you get in, the radio stations are set to your presets instead of whoever was driving it before you.
When you’re driving down the road, it will help keep you in the middle of your lane, and slow down with the cars in front of you, and speed back up again automatically.
When it starts raining, the wipers come on, and go however fast is needed to keep up.
When it gets dark, the lights come on and the brights automatically dim for other vehicles.
You’re asking us to give all that up and go back to 60s and 70s cars.
No.
Does anybody really need to have the car recognize that you have the key in your pocket or do all the rest of those trivial things? I have had newer cars with lots of those features and don’t utilize them or notice any appreciable benefit. I don’t mind pressing the key fob to open the door. i don’t even mind getting a putting a physical key in the door to open it. I can also handle turning on the wipers and have successfully managed to keep the car in the proper lane in decades of driving. i don’t need the car to steer me to the middle lane. But i would hate it if some electrical short in one of these trivial features caused a wider vehicle malfunction that necessitated a costly and inconvenient trip to the repair shop
You must be a millennial
The 1960 s 1970s and part of 1980s car were built on a ladder frame not a unibody suv you are most likely to survive a head on collision in an old Caprice than any modern SUV. Not to mention car’s had class back then
I’m sorry an ’80s Impala will be dismantled if head-on by a loaded Silverado.
Older cars are more able to drive away from an minor crash but for total safety give me an near equal sized modern car.
Go and look at some old Youtube crash results. Those old generation cars simply crumple and the occupants are left to survive on their own.
Amen to that
Those were the hay day of automotive manufacturing
With a modern car the transmissions blow at 10k miles like my Dodge Journey did
And when the dealership fixed I ask why this happened there answer was “all Chrysler Dodge transmissions from the minivan to the Jeep come from FIAT and Folks what does FIAT stand for Fix It Again Tony.
No thanks
I rather these automotive giants went back to basics
When it comes to building a car
And actually build it in America
And stop going overseas for everything
Bring back body on frame vehicles
You should have done your homework. The Dodge Journey is a turd with plenty of evidence to support that.
Relax Nate,
They can build body on frame vehicles and incorporate all the tech savvy features you want.
But make something reliable
Like the 307 engine and the 350 dirt cheap to fix
And you don’t need diagnostic time for them….
The reason is I should be doing the driving
Think of all that electric crap when doesn’t work.
I don’t want a car driving me around
The 1960s and 1970s cars were easier to work on
Things could be fixed..
Don’t need a nasa technician to fix it
Conveniences are an excuse to print money so the corporation and governments become more
powerful as we become more enslaved. I vote back to 80s and early 90s were the balance conveniences were not as intrusive and expensive.
The 1960s cars are cool as week end cruisers but in daily use points and condensers in t be distributor and a carb with a bad choke can ruin your day.
Amen to that
Those were the hay day of automotive manufacturing
GM needs to bring back Oldsmobile and Pontiac
Also America stopped building a full size 6 passenger car like the Delta 88 Oldsmobile, Pontiac Bonneville and Chevy Caprice all the good engine’s like the 307 and the 350.
To build SUV’S the suck more gas than these cars ever did.
Not to mention these full size car’s had style..
Ford you need to bring back Mercury Grand Marquis the Lincoln town car and the Crown Victoria….
I’m sure the trailer parks and ghettos miss this type of transportation…..😉
I do wish for a SS/Caprice full size style vehicle for Chevy and Buick although.
Ralph has a point. I recently gave up a 91 Caprice station wagon with over 500,000 miles on it. Rust finally got to it in the roof rack and it wasn’t worth the sheetmetal repair costs. but the car still ran well on original 305 chevy engine. Had to overhaul transmission every 200,000 miles or so. but even thats was not bad at about $1500. Some of these new european cars cost more than that to do a proper tuneup and aren’t nearly as comfortable. My parents also had several Lincoln’s. Mostly Town Cars. All were excellent and reliable and had unparalleled comfort. they eventually switched to european cars as that became the fad. they tried bmw, jaguars and Rolls. None of them had the reliablity of the Lincoln and none of them were as comfortable and luxurious, even the Rolls was not as sumptuous as those Lincolns!
I like your reply
Don’t forget the Caprice the real Impala the roadmaster etc were all body on frame vehicles
So was the Ford panther vehicles
Ask any cop which police car would the rather drive all them prefer the Crown Victoria to the modern explorer hands down any day
Please someone! anyone! Speaking to all the auto manufacturers. Please start back making real automobiles with class and style that are dependable and reliable that we can work on ourselves! I’m talking about cars” not crossovers or suv’s! Real beautiful and elegant cars that come in fifty different colors and the interiors come in fifty different colors as well. Come on guys..you can do this..I know you can..because you’ve done it before.
Get more than 3 people to buy them and they will.
GM had a number of great sedans but no one would buy them.
You forget Federal government regulations. Most of what you want in a car, or don’t want, the auto manufacturers can’t provide. Emissions, safety, lots of electronics monitoring those things. I prefer clean air, and a car I can walk away from most accidents.
In today’s car that doesn’t fly
Take a 1976 sedan de ville and 2021 whatever Cadillac makes crash them who walks away
The cars of the past you had a ladder frame protecting you not a unibody car….
Some should told Chrysler they had it wrong from the ’50s-’89 for their unibody rwd cars which was known for strength, BTW the parameter frame (BOF trucks have ladder frames) Deville would probably get knocked off its frame by an Escalade…
Your are incorrect. Unibody cars are stronger than body on frame.
Your right again Ralph. I actually still have a mint condition 76 cadillac sedan deville, that unfortunately was in a car accident with a modern minivan a couple years ago. I had some moderate dents that were pulled and fixed and i was able to drive the car away at the time of the accident. the minivan was damaged so severely that it was totally inoperable and declared a total loss by the insurance company.
Cyrus is so right
Mary Barra should read what people really think
Modern cars suck
Bring back real cc ars
Chevy not making traverses is doing everybody a favor. Our lives will much better without them.
It’s probably only because they’d run out of room to park the mostly built ones at MSU.
Totally agree no one seems want to anymore. GM Ford Chrysler seems to be going down hill…
I don’t know about GM and Chrysler. GM seems to be making a lot of their cars in cheaper foreign countries and then try to pedal them back to Americans. The last straw was their making that cheesy buick envision in china and attempting to sell that in the US. Buick customers in America are not going to have that. those would be traditional minded folks not likely to accept a chinese made buick. Chrysler has reduced its portfolio to making about three models. they barely exist anymore due to foreign ownership that has not invested in new models. Ford on the other hand seems to be coming out with one hit after another. Many of their vehicles are “hot” right now. Most are not really what i would want personally. but the public seems to be raving about a lot of their recent products. ie: the perennial sale leader, the F 150, the new Ranger, Bronco, Electric Mustang, etc. Even Lincoln is making a impressive come back. Their Navigator and Aviator are particularly well received in the luxury segment. I have also read their smaller Nautilus and Corsair are very competitive to some of the most expensive luxury brands. So from what I can see, i bet Ford will be dominant in the US market in the future. they seem to know what people want and make it. the others, not so much.
Without the traverse, there is less risk that buyers will be exposed to the worst of GM. So overall satisfaction may go up.
Funny, the chip photo in the article is a raspberry pi pcb. Auto makers might be using the broadcom cpu in the pi, but they are not going to be using a pi board for sure. It is a hobby board, cheap though, great deal in fact. The pi-zero with wifi is 10 bucks. I think the photo is a pi-3 and that will set you back 39.
Bring back Oldsmobile!!!! They are the best. My wife misses her Van.
One would think this whole calamity would be enough for our government to start some protectionist policies for critical items like microchips and pharmaceutical bases. A large tariff on the import of these items that went directly to a fund designed to spur the creation of this manufacturing sector in the US. These are critical components of modern life that are completely controlled by a foreign adversary. That is frankly, completely unacceptable, and our government for the past several decades should be embarrassed they allowed things to get this bad., and that nobody is doing anything to correct it.
Start actually building building your own complete vehicles instead of outsourcing all of the components, in America. As much as the chip shortage has cost GM alone, they could have built their own chip foundry to supply their own chips, with money left over to build productions lines for their own electronic modules based on their own chips. If the auto industry would get back to actually building their vehicles instead of outsourcing everything they wouldn’t have these problems.
I think the bottom line here is given the choice of no new car because of waiting for chips, and a car with far less autonomous amenities, a lot of buyers would go for it.
We are in the market for a new family vehicle. We have basically decided to hold off until the chip shortage ends because we can’t find the high spec vehicles we are looking for. Traverse is actually in a better place because the RS models offer adaptive cruise and stuff (the Tahoe RST we really want does not for some reason, forcing us into a premier).
Obviously, we aren’t the only consumers, but I would think that if this hypothesis is correct, the LS level models would be in full production and selling out. In reality, there’s just waiting lists for top trim models that are doing 10 to 30k over MSRP.
If you don’t need a brand new car and favor reliability and lots of room, try check out a Ford Flex. they discontinued those in late 2019. but if you can find a low mileage Flex, it should be a strong and long lasting family car. I have a 09 Ford Taurus X which i bought new. That car is mechanically identical to the Flex and in the twelve years i have had it, not one thing has broken on that car. not even the brakes or battery. the only thing that i have had to do is change oil and tires. If the flex is based on same mechanical specs, it ought to provide similar reliability. I think they are also 5 star safety rated as my Taurus x was. the only thing i would try to avoid is models that are over loaded with unnecessary options and electronics as those things on any car will cause the car to be more likely to have issues
We need to make everything here in the United States and quit depending on China and Japan. Can’t you see they are controlling us. When everything is made outside of the U S , they can shut us down and we are helpless.
Absolutely agree Alan. and we should do this with more than just cars. but whats worse is we have allowed the outsourcing of critical parts and raw materials to a enemy country who is hell bent on controlling not only their population with forced labor camps and removing any small civil rights they had. but now they are engaging in this vulgar “wolf warrior” diplomacy with other countries where they are intimidating American allies, such as Australia and others and now plaguing the planet with a pandemic which they probably started with fiddling around with those bat virus’s in that Lab. We should stop buying anything from china for certain and migrate production out of that country and to US and/or at least ally countries. china steals and cheats on trade, extorts technology from many countries, not just the US. the world needs to put a end to it.
Thats what I am talking about. Wake up America.
At some point should the CEO’s of the big three be fired for this supply chain screw up? Clearly they should have more control over their suppliers and a wider variety of suppliers.
BTW – I’m still mad that they are cancelling sedans. Hard to beat them for fuel efficiency (and EV range) and ride/handling balance.
Even if they only built the cheapest versions of the Malibu right now, they’d sell every damn one of them.
Has anyone ever heard the word monopoly. How can one company be the only one to build this chip. Wake up people this can’t be true. Profits, margins, securities give me a break. It doesn’t happen.
We r old school in this house. God Bless the 2 door coupes. 4 door sedans were the Turnpike Kings. Put your phone down. Shut up and DRIVE LIKE YOU OWN IT.
I want Buick to start making cars again. The Lucerne was too short lived. Lacrosse is a close second. But come on GM. Really? Saying the Essence is to replace the Lacrosse/Lucerne and then making it in China?
I can buy China stuff all day at WalMart, but I expect more from GM. So, I plan to keep my Lucerne and ride in comfort and style.