We thought this article, published by The Motability Scheme, provided some really useful information on the issues facing our customers with regard to vehicle delivery delays. We hope it’s useful to you too. For more information, please find the full article here: Vehicle supply issues and delayed orders: Your questions answered
Why are vehicle orders being delayed?
The global car market is currently facing a number of challenges, all of which are leading to supply issues, delivery delays and a shortage of many new makes and models.
The main issue affecting new car supply is a global shortage of semiconductors, or ‘chips’, which feature in most electrical items from washing machines and home computers, to TVs and new cars.
Each new car features around 1,500 of these chips, which act as the ‘brain’ of the vehicle, but high demand for electrical items during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a shortage of semiconductors. This shortage is expected to continue for at least the rest of 2022.
On top of this, factories across the world are continuing to be affected by staff shortages due to COVID-19 isolation requirements and wider supply chain problems caused by the pandemic. These supply chain issues can often mean that vehicles in production are unable to be completed due to delayed parts, leading to further delays and changing delivery dates. In many cases, cars are taking more than six months to be delivered.
How is this affecting the Motability Scheme?
Although Motability are working hard to keep the Scheme as affordable as possible, you may notice that there are fewer cars available than in previous years and in many cases, Advance Payments are higher than you may be used to.
Vehicles are also being removed from the Scheme at short notice at the request of manufacturers and dealers are often struggling to get reliable information on delivery dates due to the various factors affecting new car supply.
If you are looking to order a new car on the Motability Scheme, their online Car Search tool has the most up to date information for the cars currently available on the Scheme. If you are looking to order your first car on the Scheme, Motability recommend you start your vehicle search as soon as you can. Most manufacturers are experiencing delays, so before you order your car, be sure to check the expected delivery times with the dealership. Your dealer should be able to give you an idea of the current delivery times, but they won’t be able to speed things up and the information they have might change, so please bear with them.
