The shortage of chips began to reduce production levels from the middle of last year. Although the Mexican Association of the Automotive Industry (AMIA) considers that the improvement begins to occur “gradually”according to Fausto Cuevas, general director of the organization, the figures show that it is still below 2019 levels.
From January to November 2019, they assembled 3,596,345 light vehicles in Mexico, a figure that in the same period of this year is 3,068,810 unitsaccording to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).
In the midst of the ruptures in the supply chains, some brands have dealt with it and improved their production compared to the figures reported before the arrival of the health contingency.
JAC it went from assembling 4,295 units between January and November 2019, to 14,709 units in the same period this year, a difference of 242%, according to Inegi data.
Mazda assembled 134,855, 66% more compared to the 81,051 vehicles in 2019; while Toyotawhich operates two plants in Mexico, assembled 253,047 units of its Tacoma pickup, which represented a rise of 40.37%.
Ford produced 280,836 units of its electric Mach-E model and its Bronco Sport SUV. This was 20.3% more than in the same period of 2019.
Also premium vehicle manufacturers bmw and Daimler increased their production between January and November. The first went from 22,124 units to 58,259, an increase of 163%; while Daimler assembled 84,944 units of its Mercedes-Benz brand, which meant an advance of 58.9% compared to 2019.
In the case of JAC, Mazda and BMW, progress has been thanks to the incorporation of new models to the production lines; while in the case of Daimler it was due to a change in the type of vehicle produced.
“We have a daily working group. We are in close collaboration with our suppliers. We have contracts with semiconductor manufacturers that are not Tier 1 suppliers, but Tier 2, Tier 3, sometimes Tier 4 suppliers. With all this hard work we were able to secure production for the last few months,” Gottsche explained. “We see improvements. That’s why we will start our second shift from April next year. We wanted to do it this year, but because of the semiconductor shortage we had to delay it.”
Gerardo San Román, director of the consulting firm Jato Dynamics for Latin America, has repeatedly said in press conferences that it is not possible to find homogeneous behaviors among the assemblers, since breaks in supply chains have affected them differently.