Reuters quotes a company executive saying: “We have communicated our demand early on. We have passed on our forecasts which have confirmed that demand. If suppliers do not trust our numbers and consult their own forecasts, we should have been informed straight away. This has not happened.”
The exec said that, in April last year, VW told its module suppliers that it expected a strong recovery in H2 2020.
In November, VW says its module suppliers notified them that there was a shortage of automotive chips – too late to avoid interruptions in car manufacturing.
“This has caused a lot of trouble,” said the exec, “if the supplier didn’t have a chip problem in its own supply chain, we would get our control units.”
The car industry has been stung by criticism that it cancelled its orders early last year when the pandemic hit car sales, leading the chip companies to switch production to consumer chips.
The chip companies pointed out that it takes three to four months to switch products on a chip manufacturing line and that, when the car market bounced back in H2, it was impossible for the chip manufacturers to respond immediately to the reinstated orders.
Shortages are expected to last for most of H1 2021.
VW has said that it might order chips directly from the chip-makers in future.
