Automotive executives are plagued by the global shortage of semiconductors that is producing production in China, after hoping the world’s largest auto market could boost the sector’s global recovery.
Automakers around the world have had to adjust assembly lines due to shortages, caused by manufacturing delays that some semiconductor manufacturers blame for a faster-than-expected recovery from the pandemic. coronavirus.
Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), China’s largest foreign carmaker that wants to sell more than four million vehicles in the country, said the impact of the shortage remains unconditional during the second quarter of this year. year.
Stephan Woellenstein, China’s head of Volkswagen, told reporters on Sunday that it was difficult to calculate how much production Volkswagen could lose week by week or even month by month due to the shortage of chips.
“It’s really like fighting fire … In some cases, we’ve switched to another chip, so we’ve switched suppliers,” he said, ahead of the Shanghai auto show opening on Monday.
China, where more than 25 million vehicles were sold last year, became a ray of hope for automakers, including Volkswagen and General Motors (GM.N), as the auto industry world was hard hit by the pandemic.
However, the news of the shortage of automatic chips also first appeared in China last year. The shortage was exacerbated by a fire at the Renesas Electronics (6723.T) chip factory in Japan in March.
In 2019, automotive groups accounted for about a tenth of the $ 429 billion semiconductor market, according to McKinsey, with NXP Semiconductor (NXPI.O), German Infineon (IFXGn.DE) and Renesas among the industry’s top suppliers.
Automakers, including Nissan Motor (7201.T), Ford Motor (FN) and Nio Inc (NIO.N), said they reduced production due to shortage of chip supply.
Li Shaohua, a senior official with the China Automobile Manufacturers Association, said the shortage of chip supplies affected car production by between 5% and 8% in the first two months of this year and expects the impact to decrease from the third quarter of this year.
As a result, the China Automobile Dealers Association said it expects vehicle inventory to continue to fall in China as chip shortages reach global car production. The supply of some car models may not be able to meet demand, he said.
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