The global shortage of semiconductors is causing vehicle industry executives to repeat their warning that they expect the supply crisis to drag on for months to come, leading to fears that innovation in connected cars will be one of the major victims.

Pymnts.com reports that General Motors has announced it will have to pause work on its full-size pickup trucks for at least a week due to a lack of components needed to finish them, with the stoppage already resulting in thousands of incomplete cars and trucks piling up outside its factories each day.

“These most recent scheduling adjustments are being driven by temporary parts shortages caused by semiconductor supply constraints from international markets experiencing COVID-19-related restrictions,” the company said in a statement. “We expect it to be a near-term issue.”

Pymnts.com adds that GM’s problem is rooted in the fact that its high-end trucks and SUVs are some of the most connected cars on the road, with some fitted with more than a thousand such chips, especially higher-priced models with more advanced safety and entertainment features.

“So it will be the most connected of vehicles that suffer worse — and as production lines screech to a halt, the knock-on effect is that there will be fewer such cars making it into the showroom,” the report says. “That’s already happening — and it’s causing prices to go up. The Consumer Price Index shows that prices for all cars in June were up 5.29 percent compared to the same month one year ago. As a consequence, used car prices were up even more, almost 30 percent higher than one year ago.”

(Picture – Yay Images)