Due to battery shortages, Audi temporarily suspended production of its electric SUV E-Tron.
Audi's first all-electric SUV, the E-Tron, is the first long-distance electric car to really enter the luxury car market. It starts at about $75,000 and can travel 204 miles on a single charge.
This car is equipped with two electric motors, which support fast charging of 150 kW DC, and the battery power can reach 80% in 30 minutes.
Audi said its has stopped production of E-Tron at its Brussels plant in Belgium last Thursday and plans to resume production on Tuesday,ย according to Bloomberg.
The report said that E-Tron's production suspension is for "resolve production issues including battery-supply bottlenecks."
In addition to Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar, Audi's batteries also come from supplier LG Chem, which produces batteries in Poland. The exact cause of the supply problem has not yet been confirmed.
Previously, battery shortages had affected E-Tron. The report said that in the first weeks of production of this electric SUV, Audi had to delay the delivery of this model due to battery shortages, which delayed its time to market.
In 2019, Audi sold approximately 26,400 E-Trons (of which more than 5,000 were sold in the United States), which is dwarfed by Tesla's sales.
Audi is not the only major manufacturer facing the problem of electric vehicle production. Last month, due to a shortage of LG Chemicals, Mercedes-Benz also had to lower its sales target for the first mass-market electric car EQC.
In mid-February, Jaguar Land Rover temporarily shut down the production line of its all-electric SUV I-Pace due to insufficient supply of the supplier's LG chemical battery. The shutdown lasted for a week.
The production delays reported above reflect a growing problem faced by automakers with electric vehicles, which is that a small number of battery makers may not be able to provide adequate supply to all automakers at all times, leading Some automakers plan to build their own battery plants.
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