The automotive suppliers are facing hard times: The heel of the switch in the E go pay back, mobility costs billions. The Consequences: Saving Programs, Plant Closures, Job Losses. But there are also winners.
“We have experienced some Super-years, but the celebratory mood is over now”. The concise conclusion of the industry experts Peter foot of the consulting company Ernst & Young (EY) is about the current Situation of car makers and their suppliers.
The main markets are Europe, the USA and China occur on the spot or are already clearly in reverse gear. Alone in the three regions of the world, nearly 70 percent of the worldwide production of Automobiles to be sold. Particularly the weakness of the most important growth market, China rained on your parade now most of the manufacturers enormous balance sheets.
That China would weaken so much business, has caught the industry off on the wrong foot, says Elmar-Kadesh, by the consulting firm AlixPartners, in an Interview with DW: “in 2017, there were 28 million cars produced for the Chinese market, and in 2019 it is estimated that there are only 25 million. This decline has not been so in the last 20 years.”
Soon to be a discontinued model? Six-speed transmission from ZF Friedrichshafen
Domino effect
And for every car that is not built for the weak markets in the United States and China, are also used by the suppliers of any components. They produce and sell less, than in the past boom years of the auto industry.
It passes the time, hardly a week goes by without profit warnings, announcements of Austerity and job losses for the German suppliers. Not only the large, publicly traded industry heavy weights, Continental (article image) and Schaeffler have revised downward their expectations for the current year decreased significantly. Also technology specialists Bosch to the lean times, especially in the once-thriving Diesel-area – job-cuts are increasingly likely.
Supplier of components for the internal combustion engine are particularly strong under pressure: The Stuttgart-based Mahle GmbH, one of the 20 largest automotive suppliers in the world, and is considered as a specialist for piston, cylinder and valve controls, sweeps and one of his works sealing. Also negative headlines came at the end of July in Böblingen, Germany: There, the plant manufacturer Eisenmann, a supplier of paint shops for the automotive industry, filed for bankruptcy. In addition to the economic problems of the industry, Eisenmann was retracted by some large-scale projects of high losses.
Everything on a map? Platform of E-cars with a Central battery of Volkswagen
“The biggest change in the history of the automotive industry”
“The automotive industry is facing the biggest change in its history”, says Stefan Wolf, the CEO of the supplier ElringKlinger and the chief of the employers ‘ Association southwest metal. His company offers solutions for combustion engines, fuel cells and battery technology for the electric mobility. That Volkswagen is in the future on the production of battery electric vehicles, keeps the Wolf is a staunch proponent of the fuel cell, for “absolutely wrong”.
The challenges are enormous: The current sales weakness coincides with a massive investment by the vehicle manufacturers and suppliers worldwide, at least 200 billion euros. This sum will be in the next five years due to the Technology shift to electric propulsion and the development, production and marketing of the 300 planned new electric car-master models. To about 45 billion Euro for the development of systems for Autonomous Driving. Overall, the study “Global Automotive Outlook 2019”, the consultants from AlixPartners reckons, needs to invest in the industry alone in these two areas with a promising Future from 2019 to 2023, to over 245 billion Euro.
The investment in electro-technology and Autonomous Driving, the cost for the networking of the car of tomorrow and the development of new concepts for the future of mobility such as Car-Sharing. The abbreviation C. A. S. E. stands for the four Central issues for the future which must be mastered by the automotive industry in the next few years: connected, autonomous, shared, and electrified.
Production of cylinder-head gaskets for internal combustion engines, the supplier ElringKlinger
That is the biggest upheaval in the history of the industry knows only losers, don’t believe the study’s author, Elmar Kadesh, however: “among the winners of the batteries, components for acquisition build systems and Sensors, of course, all of the suppliers of elements for the electrification. Will have double-digit growth and look to you to bring fast enough products on the market, the manufacturer buy the car then.”
In the case of the pure providers of incineration technology among the suppliers to the business will go back on a continual basis.
Anyway, Kadesh, have the suppliers as compared to other technology sectors an advantage: “The conversion is not a fast process such as in the mobile phone industry, where you can have within a very short time a complete change in the product landscape.”