Mercedes Delaying Deliveries By More Than A Year Due To Chip Shortage

The global chip shortage is real and it's affecting the auto industry's production schedule. In fact, as early as the first few months of 2021, automakers have started to take the heat of the situation. Assembly plants have been taking holidays one by one, while Toyota, one of the world's biggest automakers, has also felt the effect of the semiconductor shortage in August, idling factories in the US, Canada, Mexico, and other parts of the world.

One of the latest automakers to bow down to the shortage is Mercedes-Benz, which disclosed to German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that customer waiting times could go as long as over a year.

As reported by Reuters, the confirmation came from Daimler CEO Ola Kallenius.

"Demand is huge at Mercedes-Benz and at the same time there are unfortunately severe limitations," Kallenius told FAZ. "For some models the waiting times are longer than we would like, in some cases over a year."

Kallenius also echoed what was previously reported about the issue in the interview. According to Mercedes and BMW, the global chip shortage may not go away until 2023 as an underlying effect of the coronavirus pandemic, though the impact on vehicle production should be less severe next year.

Meanwhile, a report back in August stipulated that Mercedes is killing nearly all 2022 model year V8-powered cars in the US due to global supply chain issues. This, however, was contradicted by the automaker recently, saying that the V8 cancelation was due to quality issues and not supply.

More importantly, despite the obvious push for electrification as seen in the recently-concluded IAA in Munich, Mercedes-AMG head honcho Philipp Scheimer said in another recent interview that Mercedes V8s will be around for another 10 years due to very high demand from their customers all over the world.