The story of 2025 livestream
The story of 2025 livestream part one: nearshoring a trend amid trade volatility
In the first part of four videos from Automotive Logistics' 'The story of 2025' livestream, AL's managing editor, Emily Uwemedimo, focuses on nearshoring as a key trend in 2025 and looks back at insights shared by VW throughout the year.
With 2025 having seen a great deal of disruption, whether that be from geopolitical tensions or natural disasters, companies have focused this year more than ever on localising their supply chains to improve resilience.
In 2025, tariffs and trade barriers pushed companies to take a much harder look at their sourcing footprints, especially if they were relying on single-source suppliers. Many OEMs started considering dual-sourcing critical components from different regions or helping key suppliers set up operations closer to their plants.
But such changes take time – companies can't duplicate tooling or qualify a new supplier overnight. So in the meantime, localisation efforts have all been around coordination and planning in real time.
On the outbound side, that has meant not just reconsidering where vehicles are built or where parts come from, but even redesigning logistics networks to shorten supply lines and reduce risk.
Simply assembling vehicles locally doesn't make a supply chain resilient overnight. True resilience comes from localising the wider supply chain base and the surrounding logistics flows, which is a complex multi-year journey that involves resetting supplier footprints, trade routes and even port of entry.
It also requires recognising that long standing practices, such as sourcing critical minerals from a single region, no longer really make sense. Recent events such as the semiconductor supply crisis at Nexperia have further emphasised that point. This kind of transformation also often demands far closer collaboration between logistics and procurement teams, because sourcing strategy ultimately shapes how logistics networks are built.
So whether it was so-called "Liberation Day" that was the cherry on the cake for an industry already exhausted from crisis firefighting, or if it was the tariff flare-ups at borders, ships getting stuck at ports, or just sudden customs changes that finally pushed things over the edge, the response this year was an industry pushing back by diversifying supplier footprints and building more regional buffers.
Responding to disruption and uncertainty
Many companies set up new control towers to monitor cross-border flows in real time. Trade compliance experts were hired to navigate the tsunami of new regulations. Some companies even decided to carry more inventory, despite that extra expense because the cost of missing parts became higher than ever.
Rather than halting supply chain operations or rushing to localise everything overnight, VW focused on using data and regional integration to ride out the storm.
"I remember Liberation Day very clearly," Anu Goel, executive vice president, group aftersales and service at VW told Automotive Logistics on the Red Sofa at ALSC Global in September. "I think that uncertainty still exists today, I think the difference is we have learnt to deal with uncertainty."
Speaking on the impact of US tariffs and the associated uncertainty on the parts and service aspect of the automotive supply chain, Goel said: "The simple answer is tariffs add cost. You have to decide as a company what your priority is. We have decided that continuing to provide service parts is priority number one."
But localisation really isn't just about avoiding trade wars – it's about speed to market as well. Companies are reconfiguring their networks to shorten lead times and stay closer to the customer. VW made a notable move this year in Europe by opening a new vehicle handling port in Venice, Italy as part of a strategy to shift some export flows away from northern Europe towards the south, closer to markets like the Eastern Mediterranean and even Asia, and to build resilience by creating more routing options.
Sharing insight into this move and some of the key lessons from it, Peter Hörndlein, VW Group's managing director of vehicle logistics at Volkswagen Konzernlogistik (Group Logistics), joined Automotive Logistics' Finished Vehicle Logistics livestream in July.
"Once you have a setup, you cannot take it for granted that it will be in a stable mode with predictable volumes, with predictable market demands," Hörndlein said. "So I think when you create a structure [or] create a network, you have to build in a lot more flexibility and the need to react and adapt to changing circumstances."
He also mentioned that it's not all about ports, and VW is constantly reviewing its mix of transport modes. If rail capacity tightens, it can shift more volume onto trucks and vice versa. But critically underpinning all of this flexibility is better information sharing. VW created a digital outbound order book tool to give its logistics partners a real-time shared view of vehicle orders and movements, and by communicating frequently and transparently, VW and its carriers can really anticipate volume swings or delays, and adapt together.
Look out for part two coming soon, and watch the full livestream on demand here. Plus, make sure to register now for Automotive Logistics' first livestream of the new year – 'Building the automotive supply chain of 2026' – taking place online on January 29, 2026.
