According to foreign media reports, Ford said at a meeting with dealers on March 12 that in order to alleviate the inventory shortage, they plan to sell cars that lack non-safety-critical function chips or related components.
Last July, Ford said it would ship vehicles missing chips to dealers, park them in dealerships' premises, and then install them on vehicles after parts are in place. The source revealed that the vehicles that the company now sends to dealers, although some chips are missing, do not affect driving and sales.
The source also revealed that Ford said it would send the chips to dealers within a year, who would be responsible for installing the chips on the vehicles that had been sold. It's unclear when Ford will start selling the chip-missing cars, and dealers involved in the meeting said Ford also didn't say which models would be missing chips.
Ford spokesman Said Deep said the company will produce Explorers that lack heating controls in the rear seats, chips that can be installed by dealers at a later date. Deep said in a statement: "We are providing our customers with a variety of ways to get their vehicles faster in the context of the global semiconductor shortage. Deep also said that consumers can get discounts when buying explorers who lack chips, and consumers can restore the function for free after the chip supply is sufficient in the future.
Chip shortages have led to a number of car companies having to cancel some of their features to speed up vehicle delivery. GM said at the end of last year that it would remove some features, such as seat heating, from most of its products, and the company also said customers could re-add that feature in the future.
Some car company R & D personnel revealed that due to the shortage of chips, the main engine factory can not guarantee the sufficient supply of high-end models, and the possibility of reducing the allocation of the production line is not ruled out in the future.