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The Mini car plant in Oxford will halt production on Friday because of a shortage of semiconductors, the first time that a BMW facility has been hit by the global chip shortage.
The site will close until at least Wednesday next week, the carmaker told workers on Wednesday, in the latest sign that the crisis facing the global auto sector is deepening.
The Oxfordshire facility was one of the few global car factories to be running at full production after the pandemic, buoyed by exports to China and demand for the latest electric Mini.
As the shortages sweep the sector, carmakers are being forced to shut plants with minimal notice, with parts from suppliers drying up with little or no warning.
Only 24 hours before the decision was taken, Mini’s head Bernd Körber told the Financial Times that the company had “not been affected so far, but every day we are looking into the situationâ€.
Carmakers from Nissan to Toyota and Ford have closed plants because of the shortages, in a move analysts expect to cost the industry billions this year.
Jaguar Land Rover has already closed two of its UK plants – Halewood and Castle Bromwich – for at least a week, while Volkswagen has warned that it expects the second quarter of the year to be worse than the first, in which it expected to lose 100,000 units of production.
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