CEO Klein: “The future of the car is electric”. Production no longer in short-time work.
The Magna plant in Graz.
The automotive supplier Magna Steyr with its plant in Graz sees itself as having made it through the Corona year 2020 very well, but the production stop in spring in the course of the first lockdown has not been fully made up for. “Sales will be slightly lower than in 2019”, Frank Klein, President of Magna Steyr, told journalists today. There have been no delivery bottlenecks due to Brexit so far. Despite the virus and the British farewell to the EU, all orders were processed.
In the future, Klein wants to increasingly address new car manufacturers who are entering the market in the course of e-mobility. A good 40 percent of sales are already related to electric cars. With the Jaguar E-Pace, a complete model is already being produced in Graz. The production in the factory is very flexible, so different models with different drive types can be produced on one production line. The difference in the production of an electric car and a combustion engine is also only minor.
Klein estimates that the internal combustion engine will still play a role in ten to 15 years, but one thing is clear: “The future of the car is electric.” The ambitious climate targets can only be met with electric and / or hydrogen drives. To this end, however, the appropriate prerequisites would have to be created by politics – from research funding to infrastructure.
“Good numbers” in the third quarter
Klein did not mention earnings figures today, but referred to the recently published “good figures” for the third quarter, and the fourth quarter is also developing well. Thanks to the short-time work regulation, the permanent workforce could be retained, and a large proportion of the temporary workers are back on board. The short-time working in production has now expired. Home office is used intensively in administration, and it works “excellently”, says Klein.
Magna Steyr is part of the Canadian Magna Group, founded by Frank Stronach from Styria. The company employs around 13,500 people in Germany.
