a study released this week by Kelley Blue Book<\/a><\/span><\/strong>, U.S. new car buyers are now paying closer to list price than they have in years. The typical new vehicle buyer laid out an estimated $42,258 in June, according to KBB. That was up $928 from May, and $2,527 \u2014 or 6.4% \u2014 from June 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDealer profits have risen sharply this year. On Monday, AutoNation reported a 38% jump in second-quarter earnings, to $384.8 million. But analysts warn that continuing shortages could make this a temporary phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House steps in<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Biden administration has been pressuring Asian trade partners like Taiwan \u2014 one of the world\u2019s largest producers of semiconductors \u2014 to boost production and steer more supplies to the auto industry. Chip suppliers redirected much of their output to the consumer electronics business when automakers cut orders last year during the worst of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Early this month, a number of chip plants in Malaysia cut production due to new COVID outbreaks. Responding to calls from Washington, the country declared semiconductors a \u201ccritical\u201d industry, allowing plants to reopen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has gained support from several other countries with large chip production capacity, including Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, as the latest cutbacks by GM and Stellantis demonstrate, the crisis is far from over and the cost to the industry is mounting by the billions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
General Motors temporarily will halt production of its highly profitable full-size pickups at two North American plants next week as a result of the industry\u2019s ongoing shortage of semiconductors. It the first time the automaker’s been forced to do so, reports TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,5,9],"tags":[1801,1798,1800,1799,428],"make":[],"post-state":[335],"category_old":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206068"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206068"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206080,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206068\/revisions\/206080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206068"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=206068"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=206068"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=206068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}