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New York
CNN Business
—
The auto industry has a saying: You can’t build a car with 99% of the parts. But the lack of a computer chip proves that adage wrong.
Ford ( F ) will begin shipping Explorer SUVs without all its chips to meet a tight inventory of vehicles available for sale at dealerships.
The automaker revealed this weekend that it will build Explorers without rear seat controls for air conditioner and heat. The driver and front-seat passenger will still be able to adjust the climate controls for backseat passengers — but the people in the back won’t be able to change the temperature themselves.
“We’re doing this as a way for our customers to get their cars sooner,” said Ford spokesman Said Deep.
He said Ford already offered buyers of its best-selling F-150 pickup a choice: They could give up a fuel-saving feature called “start-stop” and get a $50 credit — or they can wait for the truck to be built. along with the feature. Start-stop automatically shuts off the engine when the truck comes to a complete stop, and restarts it when the driver takes his foot off the brake.
The startup option is only available at the time an F-150 is built, and cannot be added after the fact. But Deep said Ford will be able to install the rear-seat climate control feature on Explorers shipped without the feature once the chips are available. It will be added to dealerships at no cost to owners.
Almost all automakers have been forced to temporarily shut down production at some of their factories over the past year and a half due to shortages of computer chips and, in some cases, other components. Reduced inventories of new cars for sale have pushed car prices to record levels — a major factor in America’s highest inflation rate in nearly 40 years.
Ford isn’t the only automaker shipping vehicles that don’t have all the features they were designed to include.
Last year, General Motors was forced to temporarily stop offering several features, including a fuel management module designed to improve mileage on Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups by about a mile per gallon. GM also stopped offering the stop-start feature on some of its heavy-duty pickups.
GM (GM) also had to exclude some comfort features, such as heated and cooled seats on various models, adjustable lumbar support on the Cadillac XT4, as well as parking assist features. But GM ( GM ) also expects to be able to offer a free retrofit for those features once the chips become available.
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