Ford (F) will start shipping Explorer SUVs without all of its chips to deal with the limited range of vehicles available for sale at dealerships.
The automaker revealed this weekend that it will be releasing the Explorer without the air conditioning and heating controls in the rear seats. The driver and front seat passenger will still be able to adjust the climate control for rear seat passengers, but people in the back will not be able to change the temperature themselves.
“We’re doing this so our customers can get their vehicles faster,” said Ford spokesman Said Deep.
He said Ford has already offered buyers of its best-selling F-150 pickup truck a choice: they can opt out of the stop-start fuel-saving feature and get a $50 credit — or they can wait until the truck is built. with function. Start-stop automatically shuts off the engine when the truck comes to a complete stop and restarts it when the driver takes their foot off the brake.
The “start-stop” option is only available during the F-150’s construction and cannot be added after the fact. But Deep said Ford could install rear-seat climate control on Explorers shipped without the feature as soon as the chips become available. It will be added to dealerships at no cost to owners.
Virtually all automakers have been forced to temporarily close production at some of their plants over the past year and a half due to shortages of computer chips and, in some cases, other components. The dwindling inventory of new cars for sale sent car prices to record highs, a major factor in America’s highest inflation rate in nearly 40 years.
Ford isn’t the only automaker to ship cars without all the features they were designed for.
Last year, General Motors was forced to temporarily stop offering several features, including a fuel management module designed to boost Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups by about one mpg. GM has also stopped offering the “stop-start” feature on some of its heavy duty pickups. as parking assistance functions. But GM also expects to be able to offer a free upgrade for these features once the chips become available.