PARIS/BERLIN—Germany’s Volkswagen and Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicroelectronics will co-develop a new semiconductor amid a global microchip crunch that has strained the car industry’s supply chain, the companies said on Wednesday.
The move illustrates how Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest carmaker, is striving to gain greater control over the supply of chips.
It is Volkswagen’s first direct relationship with second- and third-rank semiconductor suppliers, a move executives have hinted at since the chip shortage hit the auto industry in late 2019.
Volkswagen software unit Cariad said in May it would also source system-on-chips from Qualcomm for autonomous driving up to Level 4 standards, in which the car can handle all aspects of driving in most circumstances with no human intervention….