Heated seats for 2022 Chevy trucks are the latest victim of the chip shortage

If you’re looking to buy a 2022 Chevrolet (or nearly any GM vehicle) this winter, you might want to invest in a warmer pair of sweatpants: the company has announced that due to the ongoing chip shortage, it’ll no longer be able to offer heated or ventilated seats on virtually all its upcoming SUVs and pickups, as first reported by Automotive News.

“By taking these measures, it will enable continued production and delivery of inventory to help respond to the strong customer and dealer demand for all our products as the industry continues to rebound and strengthen,” a letter to dealers from GM obtained by Automotive News reads.

The change went into effect earlier this week on November 15th and affects a wide range of Chevy and GMC vehicles. As one Chevy dealer explained on TikTok, virtually all 2022 SUVs and trucks — barring a few high-end trims — won’t be getting heated seats anymore. Seat warmers aren’t the only feature to be impacted, either: heated steering wheels are set to get the axe on November 22nd on most models, too.

According to Roadshow, GM says that the change is intended to be “temporary” as it tries to wrangle more chips but is expected to impact the entire 2022 model year. Buyers will instead get credit towards their new car of $150 to $500 to make up for the missing feature.

The lack of heated seats is one of the more tangible impacts of the chip shortage on cars yet and speaks to just how important chips are to modern cars — even for features like seat warmers, which you wouldn’t necessarily be particularly reliant on semiconductor technology. It’s the latest in a series of issues with chips for automakers, which have also seen some BWM models recently remove touchscreens and some Teslas lose USB ports.

It’s not all bad news, though: in the same announcement to dealers, GM also noted that thanks to better supplies of chips, it was able to bring back digital temperature displays, side blind spot alerts, and its Super Cruise driver-assist technology — three features that it was forced to remove earlier in the year due to supply shortages.