Stellantis has added another week of downtime at its minivan plant in Windsor, Ontario, due to the ongoing global shortage of semiconductors.
The plant will be idled the week of Sept. 27. It was already down the week of Sept. 13 and scheduled to be idle the week of Sept. 20. It was previously idled the weeks of Aug. 30 and Sept. 6 for the same reason.
“Stellantis continues to work closely with our suppliers to mitigate the manufacturing impacts caused by the various supply chain issues facing our industry,” the automaker said in a statement to Automotive News Canada.
About 4,500 people, the majority of them Unifor members, build the Chrysler Pacifica, Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, Chrysler Grand Caravan in Canada and Chrysler Voyager for the U.S. market.
Stellantis resumed regular output at the factory on July 5, after being idle nearly every day since March 29.
The factory resumed operation the week of May 31, but not at full capacity.
Even though the plant resumed a two-shift operation on July 5, the automaker warned at the time that “scheduling is still released on a week-to-week basis.”
The plant was also down the weeks of Aug. 16 and 23 for the regularly scheduled summer shutdown.
The company said production continues at its assembly plant in Brampton, Ontario, where the automaker builds the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger and Challenger.
The chip shortage shows no sign of easing soon, and automakers in North America, Asia and Europe last week continued to warn of further negative impact.
AutoForecast Solutions now predicts that the industry ultimately stands to lose 9.4 million vehicles worldwide because of the chip shortage.
That worst-case scenario is up by nearly 55 per cent from AFS’ estimate two months ago.