One missing engine chip could idle Fiat Pandina and 500 production until December
Stellantis says a shortage of an engine-control-unit component from a single supplier is causing 'significant' disruption in Italy. Pomigliano (Pandina) and Mirafiori (500) may halt in November and December, and the Termoli engine plant is also exposed.
A small part is causing a big problem for Fiat. Stellantis says a shortage of an electronic component used in the engine control unit (the computer that runs a car’s engine) is causing “significant” disruption to production of some Fiat models in Italy, and that it could drag on through November and December.
The worst-hit model is the Pandina, the updated Panda and one of the brand’s best-selling small cars. Reuters reported on 2 November that the Pomigliano plant near Naples, where the Pandina is built, could face stoppages over the next two months. So could Mirafiori in Turin, home of the Fiat 500.
Three plants exposed
The chip comes from a single supplier, which Stellantis has not named. Nor has it said whether the shortage is linked to the Nexperia dispute, in which the Dutch government took control of the chipmaker in late 2025 and China then restricted exports from the company’s Chinese plants.
The third plant at risk is Termoli, which assembles the N3 GSE engine fitted to both the Pandina and the 500. No engines, no cars, however full the rest of the parts shelves are.
Mirafiori was already idle before this. It shut for three weeks from mid-October over a shortage of a different component, and unions say weak demand for the 500 played a part as well.
What Stellantis says
The company says it is working “with the highest priority” on alternative solutions and bringing operations back to normal step by step. It has not said how many cars it expects to lose. It has admitted the shortage already weighed on October sales, especially of the Pandina.
If you are waiting on one of these cars in Portugal, ask the dealer to confirm the delivery date before you plan around it. It depends on Italian factories that may not run every day between now and Christmas.
Carmakers have seen this film before, in the chip crunch of 2021 and 2022. This time the part is narrower but the effect is the same: one missing component can stop a whole line. It is the less visible side of an industry where semiconductors call more of the shots every year, as Intel’s latest results showed from the other end of the supply chain.
By Beatriz Mota
Image: Corvettec6r / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
