Volkswagen is sounding the alarm: when the semiconductor crisis will end

Semiconductor deliveries will not return to normal until 2024, when there will be another structural under-supply, said VW Group chief financial officer Arno Antlitz.

The Volkswagen Group expects the semiconductor shortage to continue longer than expected, said the carmaker’s chief financial officer, Arno Antlitz.

Semiconductor deliveries will not return to normal until 2024, when there will be another structural under-supply, Antlitz said in an interview with Boersen-Zeitung on Saturday.

The VW Group has been forced to shut down production at several factories, including the Wolfsburg plant and its electric vehicle plants in Zwickau and Dresden, Germany, several times due to a lack of chips.

Antlitz said the semiconductor situation is expected to ease this year and next, but the deficit will continue until 2024, as chip makers will not be able to meet the growing demand for semiconductors, even if more chip production will you start.

“We are seeing insufficient structural supply in 2022, which is likely to decline somewhat in the third or fourth quarter,” he said. “The situation is expected to improve in 2023, but the structural problem will not be fully resolved.

The energy crisis

Automakers are facing the double challenge of a microchip shortage and disruption of Ukrainian-made cable harnesses caused by Russia’s invasion of the country.

Antlitz said that the individual plants of the VW Group are constantly forced to cancel the exchanges, because the supplier of the Ukrainian car manufacturer operates only in one shift.

“We set up a crisis team and, in some cases, moved the volumes to other production units of the same suppliers. However, alternative locations are not intended to replace long-term production sites in Ukraine. We support the sites of existing suppliers in Ukraine and provide assistance where we can, ”said Antlitz.

Asked about rising energy costs and the possibility of banning imports of Russian natural gas into Germany, Anlitz said the carmaker had not yet decided whether to implement its plan to convert operations at the Wolfsburg coal-fired power plant to natural gas.

“It simply came to our notice then. But we are currently in the process of transitioning. At the moment, the coal-fired power plant is still in operation, while the gas-fired power plant is growing. We are watching very closely what is happening in the next few days and weeks. At the moment, we have not decided when we will finally close the coal-fired power plant. “