Why You Can’t Find a New Truck: Super Duty Trucks Sit Unfinished By The Thousands
Semiconductor chip shortage leaves thousands of Ford trucks unable to be finished and sent to dealerships. Now they sit at Kentucky Speedway.
It’s a bit of a bizarre sight to see, but it is real indeed. What appears to be thousands of Ford trucks are sitting incomplete in the parking lot of Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Kentucky. What looks like a mass abandoned gravesite is actually due to the worldwide semiconductor chip shortage. Due to Covid-19, the production of these computer chips came to a stop at production facilities in Taiwan. Now, the stoppage of production is catching up with automakers and just about every industry there is. However, Ford has no shortage of the rest of the necessary parts to put together these trucks. So, their solution is to continue producing them and storing them until their needed parts arrive.
A viral Facebook post by user Pat Roeder shows just how many trucks there really are out there. It makes sense that these numbers are stacking up so rapidly, as Ford employees have stated in the past that they make over 1,000 trucks a day at a single plant, including both F-150 and Super Duty variants. When you’re producing at that level and can’t ship them to dealers and customers, the flood gates will eventually have to open!
Waiting on the world to change
The astonishing amount of trucks is so substantial that the lovely folks over at The Drive discovered users can see them from space via Google Maps. That’s right! This collection of Ford Trucks joins the ranks of The Great Barrier Reef, The Pyramids of Giza, The Great Wall of China, and the light atop the Luxor Hotel and Casino, among other things you can see from a satellite in space.
Ford isn’t the only company facing production limitations due to the semiconductor chip shortage, either. WCPO 9 in Ohio reports that GM is also facing these issues. Their solution, though, is to halt production and send workers home for a couple of weeks. Hopefully, the producers of these chips can catch up with the supply chain, and dealers and customers won’t have to wait too much longer. WCPO also reports that Ford confirmed they could be there for several weeks before they are finished. They also report that Ford intends to do full quality inspections before shipping them, as well.
The seemingly endless Super Duty wall isn’t the only thing sitting outside the Kentucky Speedway, either. Another portion of the parking lot is holding hundreds of semi-truck trailers affected by the semiconductor chip shortage. However, one party has no issues with the shortage—the owners of Kentucky Speedway. According to the Facebook post, they collect over a million dollars a month in storage fees from Ford and the company with the trailers. At any rate, we hope to see these trucks finished and shipped out sooner rather than later!
