Renault to cut 2021 output by 500,000 cars due to chip shortage

Renault said on Friday it would slash output by 500,000 cars this year due to the ongoing global semiconductor shortage. Though the automaker maintained its profit outlook helped by higher car prices and cost cuts.

During a presentation to analysts, Renault Chief Financial Officer Clotlide Delbos said the automaker’s visibility on the chip shortage in the fourth quarter was still poor as the information “coming from suppliers is very unreliable”.

Delbos said the chip shortage should ease a little by the end of 2021 with the end of a COVID-19 lockdown in Malaysia, central to worldwide chip supplies, but said it would remain constrained throughout much of 2022.

When asked about other raw materials, Delbos said the automaker was not seeing shortages but was facing price boosts.

The chip shortage, which has hit automakers worldwide, emerges from a confluence of factors as automakers, which closed plants for two months during the coronavirus pandemic last year, rival against the sprawling consumer electronics industry for chip supplies. A factory fire suffered by Japanese chipmaker Renesas this year is also cited as a reason behind the chip shortage.