BERLIN — Volkswagen Group has begun purchasing strategically important chips it believes will be in short supply globally directly from 10 manufacturers including NXP Semiconductors, Infineon Technologies and Renesas Electronics..
VW previously relied on its component suppliers to purchase chips. The automaker began striking direct deals with chipmakers last October to ensure its supply was secure, according to Karsten Schnake, head of a Volkswagen-wide taskforce for component supply founded in 2022.
“Global market capacity is not sufficient. We must get active,” Dirk Grosse-Loheide, purchasing chief for Volkswagen’s passenger car brand, said on Wednesday.
Demand for chips has risen dramatically in the car industry in line with electric vehicle production and the need for increasingly complex software. Supply has been slow to follow because of the complexity in setting up chip factories.
VW and Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicroelectronics announced plans last July to co-develop a new semiconductor, marking VW’s first direct relationship with a second- and third-rank semiconductor supplier.
The German government has been courting the world’s largest contract chipmakers with billions of euros in subsidies. U.S.-based Intel and Taiwan’s this year announced plans to build factories in Germany.
VW has not struck a direct supply relationship with TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of semiconductors, but meets with them every few weeks to communicate its demand situation, Schnake said.
The automaker also plans to reduce the variety of chips required in its vehicles to simplify the supply chain, which will also help simplify its software offering, Schnake said.