DETROIT — General Motors said it will restart production at its full-size pickup plants Monday, as scheduled, after downtime this week due to the global microchip shortage.
Throughout the chip crisis, GM aimed to keep production of high-demand pickups running, opting to idle crossover production instead. But in late July, the automaker began intermittently pausing production at its three pickup plants, in Flint, Mich.; Silao, Mexico; and Fort Wayne, Ind.
Flint builds the heavy-duty Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups. Silao builds the Cheyenne for Mexico, along with the Silverado 1500 and Sierra 1500 light-duty pickups. Fort Wayne builds the Silverado 1500 and Sierra 1500.
“Although the situation remains complex and very fluid, our global purchasing and supply chain, engineering and manufacturing teams continue to find creative solutions and make strides working with the supply base to minimize the impact to our highest-demand and capacity-constrained vehicles, including full-size trucks and SUVs for our customers,” GM said in a statement Thursday.
AutoForecast Solutions estimates that 5.8 million vehicles have been cut from automakers’ worldwide production plans. It forecasts that 7.1 million vehicles eventually could be eliminated from production plans because of the chip shortage.
Lansing Delta Township Assembly in Michigan will take an additional week of downtime, pushing its production restart to Aug. 23. The plant, which builds the Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave, has been idled since July 19.
Ramos Arizpe Assembly in Mexico also extended downtime for Chevy Equinox production. It is now slated to resume Sept. 6. Production of the Chevy Blazer, also built at Ramos, will not be impacted.
GM also plans to restart production at a few global assembly plants this month and in early September.
Bupyeong 1, in Korea, will run at 50 percent production starting Sept. 1. Bupyeong 1 builds the Chevy Trailblazer and Buick Encore GX for the U.S.
Gravatai Assembly in Brazil will resume production of the Chevy Onix with one shift on Aug. 16 after downtime since April 5.
Sao Caetano Assembly, also in Brazil, will restart Chevy Tracker, Joy and Spin production with one shift on Aug. 26 after downtime since June 21.