Swedish truck manufacturer Scania will suspend truck production in Sweden, France and the Netherlands for a week due to the global shortage of semiconductors that is putting pressure on the auto industry. As reported by the group, which belongs to Traton, the truck division of the German Volkswagen, the same fate could touch production in Latin America (Argentina and Brazil) next week.
“The period is difficult and too many factors are moving in the wrong direction, so we have decided to lower the production rate for a few days,” said Karin Hallstan, spokesperson for Scania. It is the first stop of truck production since April 2020, when activities had been stopped for over a month due to the first wave of the pandemic.
“We managed to keep the machine running during this crisis for a year and a half. We hope to be able to recover by working as much as possible, but it is clear that we will not be able to recover everything, ”Hallstan said, explaining that bus production will continue normally. The company produces around 100,000 trucks and buses per year, 80% of which are in Europe. By 2020, sales had dropped to around 72,000.