A priori the semiconductor crisis will not be resolved before 2024. In any case, this is what the financial director of Volkswagen Arno Antlitz seems to predict. In an interview with Boersen Zeitung this weekend, the executive thinks semiconductor supply will improve this year and in 2023, but won’t be completely smooth until the middle of the decade.
“We see structural undersupply in 2022, which should only ease somewhat in the third or fourth quarter“, did he declare. “The situation should improve in 2023, but the structural problem will not yet have been fully resolved.“
According to A. Antlitz, supply problems will persist even in 2024 because chipmakers will not be able to meet the increase in demand. An analysis based on a report ofAutomotive News Europe and which joins the forecasts of BMW. The Bavarian manufacturer declares through the voice of its CEO Olivier Zipse: “I expect we will start to see improvements no later than 2022, but we will still face a fundamental shortage in 2023“.
An industry that will have to show resilience
If Volkswagen’s and BMW’s forecasts are correct, they could cause problems in the manufacturers’ strategic development plans. Indeed, after two years of car production constrained by a combination of COVID-19 restrictions and then chip shortages, they now face problems obtaining wiring harnesses from suppliers based in war-torn Ukraine. . Incidentally, both BMW and VW were forced to halt production for several days due to wiring harness shortages.
These forecasts come on top of a gloomy context in which manufacturers must also adapt to increases in energy and raw material costs. Additional reasons according to them to find alternatives to fuels imported from Russia.