Waiting for Your New Volkswagen? It May Be on Fire in the Atlantic Ocean
If the chip shortage wasn’t bad enough for the auto industry, there’s another small-scale disaster in the Atlantic Ocean that’s adding another dent in automakers’ ability to deliver.
The Felicity Ace cargo ship caught fire at sea on Wednesday while en route from Germany to Rhode Island. Since then, it has been evacuated with the ship’s 22 crew members reported safe and healthy by the Portuguese Navy. But several automakers may be taking a hit as the Felicity Ace is now adrift with no crew while still carrying thousands of vehicles, Bloomberg reports.
Among the ship's cargo are 3,965 vehicles from Volkswagen Group, which includes Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche, and VW vehicles. A good deal are luxury models, with 1,100 Porsches confirmed on board. The ship also contains 189 Bentleys, a spokesperson for the company tells The Drive.
While plans are forming to tow the ship, the BBC reports, it remains to be seen how much of the Felicity Ace’s inventory has been damaged in the fire. As of Thursday night, a Porsche spokesperson said the condition of its 1,100 onboard vehicles was unknown, The New York Times reports.
While this incident may not hold a candle to the scale of the economic impacts that stemmed from the Suez Canal blockage a year ago, it’s not helping a market that’s already in a chokehold.
The ongoing chip shortage has hit US automakers hard; last summer, Toyota cut back its worldwide car production by 40%. A January report from the US Commerce Department found that chip supplies are so fragile that many companies and manufacturers only have a few days worth of supply.
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