NorthAm automakers to take holiday closures

North American automakers are planning to take weeks of downtime at their plants during the back half of December for the holidays.

BMW, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Toyota will all take off time between 23 December-3 January. Toyota will close all of its 14 plants in North America during that time period.

Nissan operates three plants in the US, while BMW, Hyundai, Kia and Mercedes-Benz each have one plant in the US.

Regional automakers have lost a significant portion of production in 2022 as the industry has remained hampered by shortages of semiconductor chips and other parts. Through last week the North American industry was estimated to have lost the production of 851,000 vehicles, with another 500,000 listed at risk, according to figures from AutoForecast Solutions.

That is lower than the 2.29mn vehicles lost in 2021 when the industry was going through the worst of semiconductor shortages.

By Rye Druzin