On the cable
The fleet of Volkswagen is to be radically electrified in the coming years.
LeipzigThe widespread introduction of electric cars puts the relationship between vehicle manufacturers and suppliers on a new footing. Especially with the battery cells, there is a shift in power away from the big automakers towards the suppliers.
“The companies are no longer in the classic scheme of automotive suppliers,” said VolkswagenPurchasing Board Stefan Sommer in Leipzig at a supplier meeting of VW, The auto companies today face significantly larger partners, for whom the automobile is only one of several business areas.
Today, a major cell supplier may face the decision of whether to build a new battery cell plant or to develop a new cell phone generation. “Then we have to convince the manufacturers in our industry,” emphasized Sommer. In the past, suppliers had always accompanied an automaker automatically, for example, when a new vehicle plant had been built. Of this automatism could be today no more speech.
An automaker would need to be more responsive to its cell supplier. A company like Volkswagen could achieve this by guaranteeing a certain purchase quantity in advance. Another possibility is the pre-financing of production material. A vehicle manufacturer could thereby “convincing” and strengthen the bonds with the supplier. This changed behavior is also an expression of the strong dependence of automobile companies on the major cell suppliers from Asia Samsung or LG.
Volkswagen has for the coming years Signed up for a huge purchase of battery cells, For the first wave of new e-cars based on the electrical construction kit MEB, the Wolfsburg car company plans to buy battery cells worth about 50 billion euros.
“By the year 2025, we are clear,” emphasized VW purchasing board summer. By the middle of the next decade, Volkswagen needs a battery capacity of 300 gigawatt hours, half of which in Europe and China. The fact that German automotive suppliers built up their own cell production was not recognizable, Sommer said.
Also in the middle of the next decade will be the Volkswagen Group his great dependence on the big cell suppliers at least partially mitigate. Then probably the first VW’s own battery cell plant in the Lower Saxony Salzgitter have started production.
The production of battery cells has to grow fast
The group had announced in mid-May that its own cell factory in a joint venture with the Swedish supplier Northvolt in the industrial city of Lower Saxony. Volkswagen is investing just under € 1 billion. With this first cell factory in Germany Volkswagen will not be able to cover its own needs by far. For Europe alone, the Wolfsburg needs about ten times the capacity. “Northvolt is the fastest way to realize such a project in Europe, as other automakers say,” Sommer said.
Whether there will be more cell factories of Volkswagen in Germany and in Europe, is not yet clear, said the VW Board. As another possible location was repeatedly called the East Frisian Emden, where Volkswagen already operates a car plant. A separate cell factory for China did not rule out summer. “And if we do it, then only with a partner,” he added. The VW Group is the market leader for passenger cars in China. In the People’s Republic, the government, like the EU in Europe, is pushing for a rapid introduction of electromobility.
To meet the needs of European car manufacturers, Asian cell suppliers began building new cell factories in Europe two years ago. Due to the comparatively favorable location conditions, Eastern Europe is in particular demand. Samsung SDI had moved near Budapest with a new factory, LG Chem had opted for Wroclaw.
It is also a completely new experience for the major Asian cell manufacturers to provide additional capacity on a grand scale in a relatively short period of time. They have some problems with expanding production in the new factories as originally planned. As a result, automakers are getting too few cells for their new e-models. Even the big Asian manufacturers will have to get used to the new and much larger production numbers for e-cars.
There has never been a boom of this kind with big batteries. The automakers are used to large quantities. An automaker like Volkswagen wants to help its suppliers expand cell production and support them, according to VW’s summer board.
The purchasing director Sommer expressed optimism that the new generation of longer-range solid batteries will find their way into electric cars in the second half of the next decade. The development engineers still face the challenge of getting a real mass production under control. The switch from the current lithium-ion generation to the future solid-state battery should be comparatively easy. About 60 percent of today’s production facilities could continue to be used.
The software is the key to success
“Digitization is the second big challenge after electromobility,” added Sommer. Especially in Asia, customer expectations are high in this respect. Software updates like the smartphone would become standard in the car in the coming years. This would also create new business models – at the end of this development would be highly complex computer programs for autonomous driving.
Volkswagen had announced that the group would massively expand its own software and IT area in the coming years. So far, the entire automotive industry – including Volkswagen – relies on the suppliers for the delivery of vehicle-specific software.
Purchasing Director Sommer sees in the VW announcement no threat to suppliers – they would not lose their own business. The IT and software volume will grow so fast in the coming years that there will be enough volume left to automakers and suppliers.
Nevertheless, the VW board sees problems to come to a part of the suppliers, namely for the companies that are active in the field of internal combustion engines. With the change to the electric cars a consolidation in the second half of the next decade would be unavoidable. Exhaust technology and castings for the engine, for example, would then no longer be needed to the extent of today. Volkswagen will try to help its suppliers with the transformation. “Just as an architect accompanies the construction of a house,” emphasized Stefan Sommer.
Volkswagen is sometimes skeptical about suppliers’ announcement of their entry into electromobility. Suppliers expressed doubts whether the planned numbers of electric cars were actually achievable. Purchasing Director Sommer contradicted that clearly.
The trigger for this is the future targets for carbon dioxide limits, both in Europe and in China. “This makes it clear that the announced volume of electric cars has to come out at the end,” summed Sommer. Around the year 2040 will probably be sold the last vehicle with internal combustion engine.
More: Worldwide, the VW Group has opened seven software labs, This is where the programs are being created, with which the car manufacturer wants to transform itself into an IT provider.