Brazilian vehicle production in October
Vehicle production in Brazil fell in October, reported an Anfavea balance released on November 8th. Data from the entity that brings together the automakers showed a 25% decline in production volume compared to October last year, totaling 177,800 units. It was the worst result for the month since October 2016.
Year-to-date, however, vehicle production follows the blue side of the chart, with 1.8 million units. The result represented a growth of 16.7% compared to the volume that came out of the lines of automakers in January-October of last year. According to Luiz Carlos Moraes, president of the association, despite the year-to-date performance, manufacturers still suffer from a lack of inputs.
“It’s not just semiconductors, there’s also a lack of tires and plastic materials. We are at the moment better than we were in the first half, but the situation is still worrying because the demand in retail is large”, said the representative during an online broadcast. Vehicle sales, however, fell 27% in October compared to last October.
Trucks up 91%
Of the total produced up to October, 1.6 million units correspond to automobiles and light commercial vehicles, an increase of 13.4%. Trucks accounted for 131.8 thousand units of total production in January-October, up 91%. Bus chassis reached 15.8 thousand units, a slight growth of 1% over the result of production in the same period last year.
Regarding stocks, Anfavea informed that there is a volume stored in the automakers that represent about 17 days of sales, or approximately 17 thousand vehicles, according to the entity’s accounts. The level of employment at automakers is slightly above that observed in October last year: there is a total staff of 102,500 employees, 0.2% more.
Finally, the organization does not rule out that the production of vehicles in the country is also affected by the strike by truck drivers, which would represent yet another logistical hurdle in the already unbalanced automotive supply chain, apart from the issue of semiconductors.
Lack of components can increase vacation period
The lack of components, however, is seen by market sources as something that could increase the period of collective vacations at the end of the year at the automakers, who usually use the period to carry out maintenance on their lines. With the lack of components, and the accumulation of stoppages already carried out in the year, it is possible that companies stop for a longer period as of December.
Anfavea, however, neither confirms nor denies the possibility. About this, the president said that “each automaker will deal with this downtime considering the volume of its demand for vehicles in the market”.
