The lack of semiconductors for the automotive industry, which penalizes the activity of car manufacturers’ factories, is likely to last until the end of 2023, estimated the CEO of the Stellantis group, Carlos Tavares in an interview posted online on Saturday. evening on the site of Parisian. “The situation will remain very complicated until the end of 2023, then will relax afterwards, in particular because the consumer electronics market plunges a little“, Estimated Mr. Tavares, during a joint interview with the general manager of Renault Luca de Meo, just over two weeks from the Paris Motor Show.
Referring to this structural problem, Luca De Meo recalled that during the pandemic, the automotive market fell, due to the impossibility for customers to go to the dealership. “So we got our demand forecasts for semiconductors. And as people stayed at home, they were buying computers, PlayStations, etc.“, explained Luca De Meo. “The semiconductor industry has adapted and focused on high value-added products for the consumer electronics market“, concluded the boss of Renault, who today “struggling to find the basic chip that raises and lowers the windowwhich makes it impossible to produce cars.
Carlos Tavares recalled the significant investments – several tens of billions each time – granted by the United States and the European Union to revive sectors “homeof semiconductors and break out of dependence on Asia. “When these investments materialize, there will be semiconductors, and even a glut. But we will have to wait at least three years“, estimated Mr. Tavares.
The worrying Chinese competition
This problem affects the whole of Europe, recalled on Saturday a spokesperson for the automotive platform (PFA), which published monthly car sales figures, at half mast over the first nine months of the year in large partly because of this lack of components, even if the last two months have sketched a timid rebound.
Asked about Chinese competition in Europe, Carlos Tavares did not hide a certain concern, especially about the electric car: “China is attacking the market with very low prices, perhaps subsidized by the way, but that’s another subject“, did he declare. He regretted that Europe had “opened a gaping door” to Chinese exports, believing that the continent “is now under great pressure“which will probably force European manufacturers, in the coming years, “significantly reduce their costs“.
A context which, according to him, motivated the merger of PSA with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), to create Stellantis and “benefit from a scale effect on cost reduction and, ultimately, avoid social damage“. “If you are not competitive with Chinese manufacturers, you will have to do something… Either you sell more expensively, but you lose market share and your business becomes too big; either you sell at the price imposed by the competition, but at the risk of ending up in the red and having to restructure“, concluded Mr. Tavares.