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The problem of chip shortages continues to worsen. Ford Motor has confirmed that production will be suspended at eight of its North American plants within a week from February 7, including Michigan, Illinois, Missouri and Mexico. Even factories that do not stop production will reduce overtime or shifts, including the suspension of Ford Bronco and Explorer SUV models; Ford Flight 150 and Ranger pickup trucks. Ford Mustang Mach-E and Lincoln pilot SUV.

Earlier industry analysis indicated that the shortage of automotive chips that broke out at the beginning of last year may be alleviated in the short term. However, it turns out that this is an ideal assessment of the recovery of chip problems. The suspension of production at eight Ford plants in North America follows Toyota's announcement half a month ago of suspending production at eight plants, including in Japan. Toyota expects to cut production in Japan by about 150000 vehicles in February 2022. Worldwide, production has been cut by up to 700000 vehicles, and Toyota has stopped production several times last year.

Automotive chips use a relatively mature manufacturing process, in the semiconductor manufacturing industry is not because of high-end barriers and unable to produce, but because of too many orders in the industry, resulting in the chip can not be delivered in time. The problem was first because manufacturers thought that the epidemic would have a serious impact on the automobile market, so they all unanimously reduced the order quantity of automobile chips. However, after these automobile giants reassessed the demand of the automobile market, they also placed orders with chip manufacturers at the same time, resulting in a large backlog of orders. A traditional fuel car probably uses more than 100 chips of different uses. The lack of a small number of chips will affect the normal use of cars, resulting in the shortage of chips. And most of the chip manufacturing and packaging testing plants are located in Malaysia, the Philippines and other countries, the epidemic has not been effectively controlled, but also affected the normal progress of the chip factory, some of the chip delivery time has been scheduled for a year or two later.

Detroit's voluntary shutdown cuts show that the chip shortage that devastated the auto industry last year continues. A day earlier, Ford shares fell 9.7% on Friday after lower-than-expected production due to supply chain problems, causing its shares to fall 9.7%, and its market recovery would be lower than GM's. Ford predicts that the lack of cores will continue to affect Ford's production capacity in the first quarter and may increase in the second half of the year.

In 2021, Ford sold a total of 1.9 million vehicles in the United States, down 6.8% over the same period, ranking behind Toyota and GM in the competition in the US auto market. Toyota sold 2.332 million new cars in the u.s. market in 2021, up 10% from a year earlier, while general motors sold 2.218 million new cars in 2021. Ford is the American automaker most affected by chips, but that doesn't stop it from making money. According to the latest financial report, Ford's operating income for fiscal 2021 was $136.341 billion, an increase of 7.23% over the same period last year. Of this total, the net profit of common shareholders belonging to the parent company was $17.937 billion, an increase of 1502.42% over the same period last year. The reason is that Ford Motor has finally made an ideal return on its earlier investment in another new energy carmaker, Rivian, which alone made Fuda $10.6 billion.

Because Tesla's performance was too bright in the past, it also affected the listed companies of new energy vehicles. Rivian raised $13.7 billion in an IPO in November, making it the largest IPO for u.s. stocks since 2014. Rivian shares rose more than 100% within a week of listing, with a market capitalization of $146.7 billion surpassing Volkswagen at one point. Ford, the traditional auto giant, is embarrassed while making money, and American investors are struggling with it, rising slightly at the beginning of the year because of its achievements in outbound investment and electric cars. At the end of January, Ford Mustang Mustang was reported to be out of chips and stopped production. The Mustang sold 52414 vehicles in 2021, the worst year in Mustang history. This situation has not been good news, investors finally gave it a blow, the most recent trading day ended down 9.7%.

In 2021, Ford delivered 624800 new cars in China, an increase of 3.7 per cent year-on-year, of which the Ford brand delivered 238000, while its luxury brand Lincoln achieved a growth rate of nearly 50 per cent, surpassing the US market for the first time.

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