General Motors continues to tackle with the global semiconductor shortage and has taken to storing some of its incomplete pickup trucks at a factory in Kokomo, Indiana that actually used to manufacture microchips.
The American car manufacturer once assembled microchips at the Kokomo site and most recently, it was producing ventilators there to help fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
I-Team 8 reports that GM has fenced off the entire facility and is now storing between 5,000 and 7,000 pickup trucks there. This is like rubbing salt in the wound of some local residents who used to work at the plant, knowing that not long ago, they were producing the microchips that the U.S. car industry now so desperately needs.
“Just can’t believe that they parked all those vehicles that are missing microchips at the former microchip plant,” ex-GM employee Ryan Brassard told local media.
Denise Dodd, a former pipefitter at the plant, added that GM brought the issue on itself by opting to source microchips from overseas.
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“We have put our economy, our position in the United States in jeopardy because the chips are being manufactured overseas,” Dodd explained.
It is reported that GM brings in truckloads of pickup trucks to the Kokomo factory every day and gradually takes some back to its Fort Wayne assembly site when microchips become available.
The microchip shortage is expected to cost the global automotive industry up to $210 billion in lost revenue and will force automakers to cut production by as much as 7.7 million units this year, according to the Detroit Free Press. General Motors has been hit hard by the shortage and is expected to produce 800,000 fewer vehicles as a result.
