Along with ongoing Covid-related restrictions in some large manufacturing countries such as Vietnam, and a well-documented shortage of components such as computer chips, factories are simply not producing enough.
British car production dropped by 27% year on year in August as a lack of semiconductors and led to a big drop in the number of vehicles exported to Australia, the US and China. On Thursday, Volkswagen, Ford and Opel maker Stellantis announced fresh temporary closures in Germany because of the chip problem.