Audi is prolonging the holiday, it will also shorten working hours

The German luxury car manufacturer Audi, which belongs to the Volkswagen Group, announced on Thursday that it will extend the company-wide holiday and subsequently reduce the working hours of about 10,000 employees at its plants in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm due to a lack of semiconductors. A spokesman for the company informed about it and added that the measures will mean a reduction in production by several thousand cars. At the main plant in Ingolstadt, all assembly lines will be shut down by 30 August. The main reason is the lack of microchips. But one of the lines is preparing to start production of the purely electric vehicle Q6 e-tron. In Neckarsulme, most production lines will be shut down for several days due to semiconductor supply problems, affecting around 4,000 employees. Audi has also tentatively announced a reduction in working hours in September, but also plans to make additional changes over several weekends. The company has full order books, but in the first half of the year it was unable to produce approximately 50,000 cars due to a lack of components. Therefore, after delivering the parts, it will try to catch up with the lost production. "We have to plan from week to week," the spokesman said, adding that some planned and additional changes had to be canceled in recent months. In July, CFO Jürgen Rittersberger warned that problems with semiconductor supplies could lead to further production shutdowns and reduced working hours in August and September. Upon delivery, the chips will preferably be used in vehicles with the highest profit contribution and lowest emissions.