Today, news broke out that Audi's main factory in Inglostadt, Germany has been forced to pause production of the A4 and A5. This is after a fire broke out at one of its supplier.
The fire has caused some shortage on the Audi and A5 parts, hence the pause in production. This is definitely bad news to those who placed an order for an A4 or an A5, as delivery day will likely be pushed back.
According to a spokesperson for the German automaker, the supplier in charge of making front wall cladding. Because of this, the company had to halt production on Monday in the aftermath of the fire.
According to reports, Audi is piecing together around 1,400 units of the A4 and the A5 models and their other variants on a daily basis. This means that the company is going to lose several thousand vehicles in production this week at the second-largest car plant in Europe.
Even the workers were asked to take a break while waiting for further announcement. Approximately 8,500 workers have been asked to stay home during the production hiatus.
But that's not all the problem's Audi is facing this week. Besides the A4 and A5 models (along with their other variants), the Ingolstadt is also responsible for the production of the tiny Q2 crossover and the A3 range. Yes, that includes the S3 and RS3 models.
All of these models are being produced by nearly 44,000 employees. And it all happens at a massive factory in Ingolstadt. The factory has a site area of 2,737,500 square meters (29.5 million square feet.)
Back in 2016, the said Audi manufacturing facility has managed to build a total of 592,337 vehicles. Doing that math, that means a single Audi car rolls off the assembly line once every 30 seconds.
That is more than 2,500 units produced a each day. Amongst the models produced at the plan was the previous generation Q5 midsize crossover.After that, the assembly of the Q5 successor has been relocated to the company's new factory in San José Chiapa, Mexico.
As of now, the A4 and A5 are also being built by an Audi factory in Neckarsulm, and production has not stopped on this site. There may be hope of on-time delivery, after all.
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