Semiconductor supply chain disruption
Carmakers take matters into their own hands to address Nexperia semiconductor shortage as internal dispute continues
According to reports, automotive manufacturers have begun to purchase wafers from Nexperia’s European arm and ship them to its Chinese unit themselves after Nexperia’s Dutch headquarters suspended shipments of wafer suppliers to China. This comes as Nexperia and its Chinese owner Wingtech are engaged in an ownership dispute in an Amsterdam court.
After the Dutch government seized Nexperia in October last year, an internal crisis between Nexperia’s Dutch headquarters and Chinese-based Wingtech – the company that acquired a controlling stake in Nexperia in 2018. A lengthy and ongoing dispute since the Dutch government took action three months ago has left several automotive manufacturers facing semiconductor shortages and in a difficult position.
Honda, for example, revealed in its H1 2025 financial results that its North American vehicle production volumes would likely take a hit of 110,000 units as a result of the crisis, costing Honda around ¥150 billion ($969 million). Nissan also reported an impact, cutting vehicle production at its plant in Kyushu, Japan twice in November 2025 – first by 900 units and then again by a further 1,400 units.
Now, Bloomberg has reported that – with Nexperia continuing to halt wafer shipments from its plant in Hamburg to its Chinese assembly unit – several carmakers have found a workaround to bypass this disruption. Firms are reportedly buying the wafers directly from Nexperia’s European operation and shipping them to the company’s Chinese unit themselves, where the final products can be assembled.
This approach will no doubt lead to higher logistics costs for OEMs that would not under normal circumstances be responsible for the logistics costs between Nexperia’s operations in Europe and China, but – as established – these are not normal circumstances. It may be that any additional costs incurred by this workaround are relatively insignificant when compared to the long-term cost of further disruption to vehicle production caused by shortages of vital semiconductors.
Instances like this highlight the need for supply chains to be agile, responding quickly and decisively to mitigate disruption caused by events such as these. Reflecting more broadly on previous periods of disruption, including earlier semiconductor shortages, Peter Hörndlein, managing director of vehicle logistics at Volkswagen Group Logistics, spoke of the need to be proactive while speaking at last year’s ALSC Europe conference.
“We were forced to act in a reactive mode and we did that quite successfully. We somehow overcame the crisis with a tremendous workload with increasing costs,” Hörndlein said. “But I think now is definitely the time that we need to get into a more proactive, into a more efficient, into a more transparent and also into a more resilient mode in order to be fit for the future.”
