FRANKFURT / Reuters – Volkswagen (DE 🙂 lowered its forecast for delivery on Thursday. They also slashed sales expectations. Volkswagen warned that it would have to reduce costs due to a persistent shortage of chips.

Arno Anlitz, chief financial officer said that “Following the record results in the first half year, the semiconductor bottlenecks of the third quarter made us abundantly aware that we aren’t yet resilient enough for fluctuations in capacity utilization.”

This clearly shows us that we need to continue working resolutely towards improving our productivity and cost structure in every area.

The operating profit of Europe’s biggest carmaker was 2.8 billion euro ($3.25billion) in the third quarter. This is 12% less than last year, and lower that the Refinitiv forecast of 2.99 billion.

Due to this shortage, the group which had previously projected a rise in EV sales in the future has now forecast that 2021 deliveries will match the year before.