The automotive supplier Schaeffler wants to invest more in the USA in the future. According to company boss Rosenfeld, one reason for this is the multi-billion dollar subsidy package for green technologies. Schaeffler is not the only German company whose focus is shifting more towards the USA.
The Herzogenaurach-based automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler wants to invest more in the USA in the future. As Schaeffler boss Klaus Rosenfeld told the “Welt”, he had been traveling in the USA for a week with Schaeffler’s main shareholder Georg Schaeffler, one reason was the inflation reduction act (IRA) subsidy package worth billions.
“We will definitely use it to invest more in the USA,” said Rosenfeld. The IRA will give more impetus to the issue of sustainability in America. “This not only affects cars, but also the industrial sectors in which we operate.”
It is not about relocating the existing production to the USA. “But we’re more likely to build the next plants in America. There is a risk that Europe will lose out in this redistribution,” he said. In Europe there are also programs of their own. “The question is what works best,” Rosenfeld said.
In an interview with the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, Audi boss Markus Duesmann also said that the IRA had made the construction of a US plant for electric cars highly attractive. The IRA program has a total volume of 430 billion dollars and provides, among other things, subsidies and tax breaks for electric cars produced in the USA. There are also restrictions on the use of battery materials aimed at greater independence from Chinese imports.
Similar plans were also announced by Siemens this week. “It is planned to set up production in the USA in several businesses,” reported the “Handelsblatt”, citing supervisory board circles. The DAX group is reacting to the increasingly difficult relationship between the USA and China as well as the US economic stimulus programs. Here, too, it was said that it was about additional capacities – not about relocation. “The focus is currently shifting more towards the USA.”
