DETROIT -- General Motors stands to lose about 200,000 vehicles in the second half of the year because of the ongoing microchip shortage, CFO Paul Jacobson said Friday, doubling last month's projection.
But the automaker is maintaining its full-year financial guidance and expects a more stable chip situation in 2022.
Most of the production losses are occurring in the third quarter, said Jacobson. Next week, only five of GM's North American plants will be running, with four of those full-size pickup and SUV plants and the other a Chevrolet Corvette factory. But the automaker has intermittently shut down production of its lucrative full-size pickups over the past few months.
Despite the production halts, GM is maintaining its guidance of $11.5 billion to $13.5 billion in adjusted earnings this year, Jacobson said at RBC's Global Industrials Conference.
Much of GM's production losses are related to COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia, where microchips are processed.
"We've recently seen upwards of 60 percent production restrictions," he said.
But the situation has changed from the beginning of the year, when limited chip fabrication capacity hurt vehicle production, he said.
"What we're seeing right now is really in the back-end processing facilities that are in Southeast Asia," he said. "The good news for that is we typically see the throughput at those facilities run faster than the fabrication."
Once plants in Southeast Asia can boost production, Jacobson expects a more consistent flow of chips.