The automotive production chain is sounding an alarm on the provisioning difficulties that, since the beginning of the year, it has perceived concerning stainless steel materials, plastic materials and microprocessors of vehicles’ electronic components. A strong rise in prices has been surveyed for steel and plastic materials since the start of 2021.
Referring to microprocessors, the missing offer on the market has already compelled various vehicle manufacturers and tier 1 suppliers to the manufacturing stop in some plants in Europe. If this circumstance should last, the risk of a negative impact on the European automotive supply chain in terms of employment is very high and would be summed to the criticalities already in progress in this delicate phase of Covid-19 pandemic management. The scarce availability of materials, in fact, is dangerously extending delivery terms, in some cases even tripled, threatening companies’ capacity of satisfying customers’ final demands, with consequent delays and risking of causing relevant economic losses. However, what are the reasons? We hypothesize it can be due to the absorption of a vast part of the world availabilities of raw materials by China, the current unavailability of containers and the annulment, by logistic players, of new unit orders in the first haff of 2020.