If you buy a car now, you may have to do without some advertised features.
America’s demand for new cars remains high. But manufacturers built almost 2 million fewer cars last year than in 2019 . The numbers were low largely because of a global shortage of microchips. It has begun to ease, but slowly.
Automakers remain unable to produce new cars fast enough to meet demand, keeping prices high. For some models, they’re stripping features to keep production going. Cadillac has limited the availability of some options to conserve chips. The Cadillac CT4, CT5, Escalade, XT4, XT5, and XT6 are currently all shipping without some combination of heated seats, heated steering wheels, and parking assist features.
But the COVID-19 pandemic left microchips in short supply. Chip factories slowed production due to sick workers. When they re-opened, they faced huge orders for chips used in devices that workers needed to work from home and that students needed to attend school on a screen. Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have passed legislation that would subsidize the growth of the domestic microchip industry. But the two proposals are quite different and haven’t been reconciled into a single law that could be put in front of the president to sign.
Even if they reach a deal, experts say, it could take years for the stimulus to produce more American microchip manufacturing. Building new chip factories and training the workforce to fill them can take several years.
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