Li Auto Plans to Deliver Li ONEs with Two Radars Missing Due to Chip Shortage

Li Auto announced the “Li ONE Delivery Plan” to customers on its official app on Thursday. Customers can choose the model they like and additional customizations at a later time.

In the plan, Li Auto said that due to the pandemic in Malaysia, the supply of millimeter wave radar chips was in short supply, and has subsequently affected the production and delivery times of the Li ONEs. The company is working on several delivery plans and will communicate these plans to customers along with some more information about their purchased vehicle.

According to the customers who received the message, the current plan is that customers who were originally scheduled to get deliveries from October to November can choose 3 radar versions (1 front forward and 2 rear angle millimeter wave radars). The company will complete the installation of the other two radars from December to February.

Li Auto said that the model with only three millimeter-wave radars do not currently support automatic parallel connection nor the early warning of crossing vehicles ahead, while other ADAS features will work normally. The company has completed the test of the three-radar models. At the same time, the Navigation on the ADAS (NOA) feature that will be standard on the 2021 Li ONE will not be available on models that do not have the radars fully installed, and the OTA upgrade will not be available until all five radars are installed.

Li Auto said that customers can choose to have 3 radar models in advance or wait until December to receive the 5 radar models. The company will arrange delivery according to customers’ directions. For customers who are willing to take delivery of the 3 radar models, Li Auto will give them a lifetime warranty and 10,000 points.

Customers originally scheduled to get deliveries in and after December will not be affected.

According to Gasgoo, the supplier of millimeter wave radar and ultrasonic radar for Li Auto is Bosch. On August 17, David Xu, Executive Vice President at Bosch China, said that STMicroelectronics’s sealing and testing factory in Muar, Malaysia, was greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the local government had to order it to close some production lines until August 21. This has had a great impact on the chip supply of Bosch VCU, TCU and ESP/IPB systems, and Bosch expects that these chips will basically be out of supply by August of next year.

SEE ALSO: Li Auto Software Update Contains Overlord Clause; Delivery Volume Expected to Decline in Q3

According to Chinese media outlet Yicai, since 2021, the delivery volume of vehicles by Li Auto has been increasing. People in the industry believed that Li Auto will become the first new car company with a monthly delivery volume exceeding 10,000 units. However, affected by the lack of chips in September, the company’s delivery volume was only 7,094, down 24.8% from the previous month. At the same time, in September, NIO Inc. and Xpeng Motors, the main competitors of Li Auto, both delivered more than 10,000 vehicles each. According to official disclosure, NIO Inc. delivered 10,628 vehicles in September, while Xpeng Motors delivered 10,412 vehicles to users.

Previously, Li Auto issued an updated announcement on the delivery expectation in the third quarter of 2021 in September. Due to the influence of Malaysia’s COVID-19 pandemic, the special chips used by millimeter wave radar suppliers had been seriously reduced, and it is estimated that the delivery volume of vehicles in the third quarter will be about 24,500 vehicles.