3:43 pm, April 29, 2021
The Mini plant at Cowley is to shut down from tonight (Apr 29) for a week as it becomes the latest car manufacturer to be hit by the global semiconductor shortage crisis.
It’ll see 4,500 workers unable to work on the cars tomorrow as well as on Tuesday and Wednesday, following the bank holiday weekend – some 5,000 vehicles are made there every week.
A spokeswoman said it was keeping an eye on the situation daily and steps had been taken to keep any more disruption to a minimum.
It comes on the heels of Jaguar Land Rover pausing production at its Castle Bromwich and Halewood factories this week.
Ford, Nissan and Honda are other manufacturers that have been affected by the crisis, which is affecting companies around the world.
The electronics industry needs the semiconductors as well, and the pandemic saw production of the chips focusing more on PCs, tablets, smartphones and gaming devices as sales of those tech products rocketed.
Today, the SMMT reported that UK car production had risen for the first time in 18 months, with March 2021’s output of 115,498 cars 47 per cent more than for March 2020.
However, it was still down by just over a fifth compared with the five-year March average.
