Electronics

Daimler Group CEO and Mercedes-Benz Global President Ola Kallenius warned at a press conference before the opening of the Munich Auto Show on Sunday that the global semiconductor shortage problem may not completely disappear next year. It will not be resolved until 2023.

"Several chip suppliers have mentioned the problem of structural demand," Callenius said, "This may continue until 2022, and (the situation) may be alleviated by 2023."

Daimler Group recently lowered its annual sales forecast for its automotive division and expects that deliveries will be roughly the same as in 2020, rather than rising sharply.

Due to insufficient chip supply, automakers such as General Motors, India's Mahindra and Japan's Toyota have lowered their production and sales forecasts, while the major semiconductor production centers in Asia have been slow to recover under the impact of the epidemic.

This quarter, due to the prevention and control of the epidemic, many factories in Malaysia temporarily closed. Malaysia has become one of the world's major chip testing and packaging centers in recent years. Infineon, NXP Semiconductors and STMicroelectronics all have operating factories in the country, which has further increased Daimler's semiconductor supply pressure.

Callenius said on Sunday that chip supply and demand tensions are expected to begin to ease in the fourth quarter of this year, but he expects "structural" demand issues to affect the industry in 2022. Japanese chip makers that supply Toyota also predicted last month that the tight supply of chips may continue into next year.

Speed up electrification

It is reported that Mercedes-Benz will showcase several all-electric vehicles at the Munich Motor Show.

These include EQE, Mercedes-AMG's first pure electric luxury sedan, and a concept car that showcases Mercedes-Maybach's entry into the era of electric vehicles. The company will also introduce an all-electric SUV EQB to the European market.

In July of this year, Daimler stated that it would invest more than 40 billion euros ($47.5 billion) by 2030 to compete with Tesla in the all-electric vehicle market, but warned that this technological shift would lead to some layoffs.

The German automaker said that in order to increase the production of electric vehicles (EV), it will build eight battery factories. Starting in 2025, all newly released model architectures will be pure electric platforms, and each model will provide customers with an optional pure electric version.

Callenius also said on Sunday that the company's plan to spin off its truck subsidiary Daimler Trucks by the end of 2021 is still in progress.