Industry Update from Just Vehicle Solutions
Major vehicle delays hit the UK, and for the first time in JVS’s 7 year history, there is a huge delay on commercial vehicles with many manufacturer’s such as VW, Ford and Peugeot now quoting quarter 1 and quarter 2 of 2022 for vehicle orders to be completed, as of time of writing.
What has happened?
The delays originally started in 2020 due to COVID19 shutting factories across the UK for three months, and were worsened further by an increased demand for commercial vehicles from the courier industry, as more people in the UK were ordering parcels from businesses like Amazon (take a look at Amazon’s recent earnings & revenue for proof).
The most recent car delays however are due to shortages of a particular electronic component, the semiconductor. Semiconductors and computer chips that are used in a wide range of electronic items and devices such as the new Xbox and Playstation, and motor vehicles, with one of the worlds’ largest manufacturers in Japan recently experiencing a fire which has affected global supply.
What have we done?
Just Vehicle Solutions fortunately forward ordered 30-40 Volkwswagen Commercial vehicles back in 2020, which are slowly starting to trickle through now and enter our fleet. VW is a brand we have always loved and endorsed and through luck as opposed to foresight we had ordered ahead of schedule. We are now starting to deliver these vehicles into new homes or replace long-standing client vehicles.
What you should do
We are encouraging our customers to plan their fleet requirements for the next 18-24 months now, get in touch, tell us what you are looking for and let’s get a plan in place.
As our industry contacts at large national and European fleet level believe the situation will worsen before it gets better, and fleet supply is likely to be an issue even into 2022, we personally believe some manufacturer’s will close order books as we start to fill the demand for Quarter 2 of 2022.
An industry contact we know who has over 600 rental companies he supplies with vehicles across the UK explained, ‘the bigger rental and leasing companies are the ones who have and will be the least effected, due to them having fleet supply teams that are used to ordering and planning fleet 18 months and more ahead of the current date. The smaller rental companies and more reactive B2B end user’s who are going to pop up and think of replacing a few Transporter’s or Custom’s in the next month or so are going to be the most effected, with these supply shortages also causing large increases in used vehicle prices.’
Book a call with one of our experts today to discuss how we can help you.