GM Strips Heated Seats, Heated Steering Wheels From New Vehicles Amid Chip Shortage

Sean Tucker 11/16/2021 8:07am

About two dozen 2022 model year General Motors vehicles will not be available with heated seats or heated steering wheels, thanks to a worldwide shortage of microchips. The move is temporary, and it may still be possible to find one of the affected cars with the features you want if you act quickly.

Reasons Behind the Chip Shortage

Even inexpensive cars today routinely carry more than 100 of the tiny processors. They are crucial to the mechanical functions necessary to keep a car moving, like engine timing and suspension adjustments. But they also drive creature comforts like climate control and entertainment. And those crucial small heaters that warm the surfaces we touch most in our cars.

But the entire auto industry has run short on microchips in 2021. Automakers scaled back their orders of the important parts during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it looked like Americans wouldn’t be car shopping at normal rates for a long time.

But people worldwide, stuck working and attending school at home, went on personal electronics buying sprees. That left chipmakers so busy that they couldn’t scale production up when the automakers knocked again.

Automakers have been forced to slow or pause production of some cars due to a lack of chips. In some cases, they can build almost all of a car but must delete some creature comforts to save chips for other uses.

GM has been forced to temporarily stop adding heated seats and heated steering wheels to some models. The list of affected cars is a little haphazard because, in every case, the company was able to build at least some 2022 models with the heated features. There may be a current model on a dealership lot near you or rolling into one soon equipped with the heated pieces.

It’s Still Possible to Find a Car with These Features

The best way to find out is to call local dealerships to inquire about specific cars. Don’t trust a website listing, as those might not be accurate. And, if the heated steering wheel is important to you, make sure it’s there before accepting delivery of your vehicle. Even with well-meaning dealerships, it’s easy to have a misunderstanding over one small feature.

GM will resume producing heated seats and heated steering wheels as soon as it can. So shoppers who find the features missing now might be able to wait for them to come back.

But the heated features will be rare while the factories can’t build them.