Auto industry
Chip shortage: Prime Minister Lies is worried about car manufacturers
The crisis surrounding chip supplier Nexperia is coming to a head. VW does not rule out short-term bottlenecks. This alarms politicians: calls for consequences come from Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.
Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Olaf Lies expresses concern about the consequences for the automotive industry in view of possible semiconductor bottlenecks. “In the trade dispute between China and the USA, European car manufacturers and their suppliers are now caught between the fronts,” said Lies (SPD) to the “Handelsblatt”. This is no longer collateral damage. Time is running out, Europe needs “a solution quickly – today rather than tomorrow, before production lines come to a standstill.”
It was previously known that Volkswagen was not ruling out short-term restrictions in production due to problems at the Dutch chip manufacturer Nexperia. According to a report in “Bild”, VW is already in discussions with the employment agency about possible short-time work for tens of thousands of employees. The company did not want to comment.
“Set up production of key components in Europe”
Lies did not comment on the possible consequences of the developments at Nexperia for VW production. He simply pointed out that dependencies in key technologies were “unfortunate in every respect” and made people vulnerable. As a medium-term solution, Lies suggested “that we build up and strategically secure our own capacities in Europe for the production of key components such as semiconductors, battery cells and green materials.” Partnerships with friendly industrial locations must also be deepened in order to reduce dependencies.
Saxony-Anhalt’s Economics Minister Sven Schulze (CDU) is also alarmed. “The effects that we are now seeing in the automotive industry and also in the supplier industry due to the lack of chips show how fragile our system is,” Schulze told the “Handelsblatt”. So far it has not been sufficiently successful to build a European chip industry. “The problem is getting bigger and bigger.” The EU must make the issue a top priority.
Nexperia is experiencing delivery problems after the Dutch government took control of the company, which was previously run by a Chinese parent company. China then stopped exports of Nexperia products such as chips for the auto industry. The automobile association VDA has already warned of possible failures due to the problems at Nexperia – including production stops.
dpa
Source: Stern
