Nissan’s U.S. production continues to feel the effect of a COVID-19 outbreak at a microchip supplier plant in Malaysia this month.
The Malaysian situation had already closed the Nissan’s Smyrna, Tenn., plant through Aug. 30. But that interruption will be extended through Sept. 12, affecting production of key models including the Nissan Rogue and Pathfinder and Infiniti QX60 crossovers.
In addition, Nissan’s Aguascalientes, Mexico, factory will be idled through Sept. 5, which will impact the Versa, Kicks and Sentra models.
In a memo sent to dealers late Friday and obtained by Automotive News, Nissan said it expects U.S. production to be cut by about 36 percent in September.
Including the newly announced downtime, Nissan is forecast to lose 157,000 units of North American production this year, according to AutoForecast Solutions (AFS).
On Aug. 10, Nissan announced that Smyrna operations would be idled for two weeks because of the disruption at the chip supplier. Nissan has not identified the supplier.
Like other automakers, Nissan has had its share of production line interruptions this year because of a shortage in allocations of microchips. But those shortages have mostly been the result of demand miscalculations by chipmakers with limited capacity and automakers with uncertain 2021 forecasts.
AFS estimates the chip shortage has resulted in the loss of 6.9 million vehicles from automaker production plans globally.
Many in the industry have remained confident that the chip crisis was slowly ebbing as the COVID-19 pandemic gradually lessened and supply chains got back to business.
However, a resurgence in COVID-19 infections, including the spread of the virus’ delta variant, is raising new problems for the auto industry.