Stellantis Chief Executive, Carlos Tavares said that one of the company’s van factories in Russia will be closed as parts are running out. According to Reuters, Stellantis has announced a suspension of shipments to Russia following the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Stellantis expects to be able to source computer chips from Europe and the United States within 3-4 years, Tavares said. Separately, Tavares claims that the technology to support the transition to electric vehicles is still in transistion. This is making it difficult for automakers to plan and secure future supply of raw materials.
“We are moving down the supply chain, for example, we have an agreement to protect lithium, but we still need to do more. It is not clear what the endpoint of the battery chemistry is. When the technology is fairly certain, we will be able to lock in the supply of raw materials through investments, transactions, mergers, and acquisitions,” Tavares explained.
Gizchina News of the week
Russian search giant encounters a supply crisis
The sanctions on Russia could allow internet giant Yandex to deplete its inventory of critical semiconductors for servers. Russian Internet giant Yandex is the Internet company with the most users in Russia and one of the top ten search engine companies in the world. Within 12 – 18 months, Yandex NV will run out of semiconductors for the servers that power Yandex’s business due to import restrictions. In addition, the sanctions mainly aim at dual-use technologies, with Yandex’s self-driving car division taking the strongest hit.
Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on February 24, Yandex has been in crisis. This is due to the Russian government’s increasing Internet censorship and rejection of foreign markets.
Yandex executive, Tigran Khudaverdyan had to step down following EU sanctions. Two of its board members resigned and the company’s ties with international partners gradually crumbled. After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Yandex’s market value hit a new low. It fell from a record $31 billion in November 2021 to $6.8 billion.
In the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Russian law says that the war is a “special military operation”. On the one hand, Yandex was punished by the Russian government for not complying with this regulation. Secondly, Western media is criticizing Yandex for suppressing independent news. Ironically, Western media also suppresses independent news coming out of Russia. If the report does not condemn Russia for the war, they suppress it. At present, the Russian government has banned its services in Russia due to violations of Facebook and Instagram. Google also began planning to shut down its services in Russia and move employees out of Russia.
Let's see how many will close in EU due to lack of gas and metals.