By Hannah Heser, Reporter
Manufacturers sold more than 14 million vehicles in the U.S. last year, and more than 17 million the year before. This creates a need for billions of microchips annually. The recent pandemic is the main cause of the microchip shortage.
The global chip shortage is continuously getting worse, which is forcing automakers to temporarily close their factories. It is expected to cost the auto industry 210 billion dollars in revenue this year.
An auto engineer at Chevrolet H&H, Matt Smock, said this revenue shortage has cost them.
“We started feeling the effect of it earlier this year, probably February, and it has escalated throughout the year, gotten a lot worse. You drive through our lot right now and we have four brand new cars on the lot and before this all started, we had 350 new cars on the lot,” Smock said.
After witnessing the empty parking lot at Chevrolet, it was clear the lot was mostly filled with used cars. Prices have been rising within the used car industry since they do not have enough new cars to sell.
Kerli Kuuseoks, the Accounting Specialist at H&H Automotive, said she has seen a lot of major changes to the industry since the start of her job.
“It definitely is pretty crazy how much that number has changed since pre-COVID times. Fortunately, it will not last forever. We just need to be a little more pro-active, whether that’s as a customer or a dealership when buying vehicles,” Kuuseoks said.
In the first quarter of the year, the average new car price was $37,200. This number increased up to 8.4 percent soon after.
Another article released by the New York Times stated that Toyota had a slight increase for the quarter. However, its sales in September dropped tremendously after it was forced to tear down its global production.
Along with the microchip shortage, experts say other auto parts, such as tires are starting to be in short supply.
