Volkswagen reduces vehicle delivery forecast for next year even less than 2021. Germany monthly magazine Manager Magazine reported the news saying that Volkswagen expected to continue to be impacted by semi-conductor shortage.
The carmaker, which reduced its forecast for 2021 vehicle deliveries last week to 9 million from 9.3 million, is preparing for the possibility that the current chips shortage could last until at least early 2023, the report said. In the worst-case scenario, deliveries could fall to 8 million cars next year – but even if things go relatively well, deliveries could be slightly below this year’s, it said. Volkswagen declined to comment on the report, stating it expected a slight easing of the supply situation in 2022 but that the first half of the year would remain very volatile.
Carmakers including BMW and Daimler have said they expect chip problems to continue well into 2022, with BMW confirming on Thursday it did not expect the crisis to ease until the second half of next year.
Whether buying computer chips directly from manufacturers, reconfiguring cars, or producing them with parts missing, many carmakers are getting creative to cope with the global shortage that some had expected would ease by the beginning of next year. Car manufacturers usually buy parts from major suppliers such as Bosch and Continental, which in turn buy from suppliers further down the chain. In some cases that have led to a lack of transparency, said Ondrej Burkacky, a senior partner at McKinsey. “There was the fallacy of thinking that you had a choice between two suppliers, but the truth is that they both had the chips made in the same foundry,” he said. That is now changing, according to Daimler Purchasing Manager Markus Schäfer. The German maker of Mercedes-Benz cars has set up a direct line of communication with all chip suppliers, including wafer producers in Taiwan, he said at the IAA auto show in September.
Volkswagen’s Audi, which alongside its Skoda brand is lengthening its Christmas break to Jan. 10 because of the supply bottleneck, said it expected the situation to carry on for “months on end. We expect to be occupied with this crisis for months on end in the coming year,” a spokesperson said. “The scarcity could extend for even longer.”
Porsche, also owned by Volkswagen, said in November the crisis highlighted the need for automakers to take production into their own hands.”Anyone who believes the chip crisis will calm itself in the next year is mistaken,” CEO Oliver Blume told Germany’s Boersen-Zeitung.
Credits- Reuters