Who said that CDs were in the past? In the next three or four months, models equipped with CD stereos and Bluetooth, or with analog dashboards, will once again be able to be purchased on the sales floors of vehicle manufacturers. Faced with the impossibility of having digital speedometers and infotainment systems, assemblers are once again making use of technologies that they had already left behind in order to maintain their sales.
Today, semiconductors drive everything inside the vehicle, from the seating positions to the antilock brakes, the dash, and the in-car entertainment systems. Therefore, the shortage of these tiny components, after a mismatch in supply and demand caused by the pandemic, has once again turned the automotive industry upside down.
Vehicle manufacturers, who expected the supply of semiconductors to restart in the middle of the year, are now trying to find alternatives to be able to continue delivering units to their sales floors, while reserving the chips available for their most popular models or for those with technology. power-assisted and electric driving, which generally contain more microchips than others.
Stellantis announced at the end of April that it would replace digital speedometers with analogue ones in one of Peugeot’s models, the 308. The French brand has considered a discount of 400 euros on these models.
Traditional speedometers should begin to appear on Peugeot 308 cars by the end of May, a move that will allow Stellantis to reserve chips for digital dashboards in its most popular units, such as the Peugeot 3008 SUV.
The current Peugeot 308 will be phased out in the autumn, and the next generation of this vehicle will be produced with digital speedometers.
A similar strategy will be followed by Suzuki, whose stock of chips is running low, causing the shutdown of lines at several of the plants that the Japanese manufacturer has in Asia.
“The three plants in Japan are affected, the one in Indonesia, where Ertiga comes from, is also strongly affected, as is the one in India,” said Gerardo Macias, sales manager of the automobile division at Suzuki. “The next three or four months are going to be very, very complicated, practically all of our models are going to be affected, we will have less than half the inventory that we had before the semiconductor crisis,” he added.
Models with boards and analog audio systems will hit the retail floors starting in August. “It is the short-term alternative. We are going to have to work this way for at least three or four months, ”said Macías.
Also brands in the premium segment are incorporating analog technologies in their models. Mini Cooper, for example, is considering incorporating CD radios and Bluetooth connectivity in some of its models.
“All brands are affected. At Mini we have had to change the specifications of some models or the equipment a bit, ”said Ricardo Humphrey, director of Mini Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Manufacturers expect these changes to last three to four months and to be able to restore digital equipment in the following year.
“Our strategy is to continue being an advanced brand in technology, but today, the very particular situation forces you to take a step back in certain things. For example, if one of the components that is needed is for a digital dashboard, what we would have to do is temporarily switch to an analog dashboard, but not stop selling cars, ”says Humphrey.
Suzuki’s Macías shares the vision. “The situation is radical, so you have to make radical decisions and wait for the market’s reaction. It is better to offer the customer a product than to offer nothing ”.
