Interview with Joachim Kahmann, Stellantis
“SDVs require a different kind of collaboration across the ecosystem”
Joachim Kahmann is Senior VP Purchasing EE & Modules at Stellantis and Global Head of Purchasing for Electric and Electronic. He holds a diploma in Production Management and a doctorate in Engineering, and brings more than 20 years of experience in the automotive semiconductor industry.
Joachim Kahmann
As SDV architectures reshape vehicle development, sourcing and standardization are becoming strategic issues. Joachim Kahmann of Stellantis explains how purchasing, partnerships and platform decisions will influence future value creation.
As software-defined vehicle programs
become more complex, the industry’s challenges are no longer limited to
architecture and engineering alone. Purchasing models, supplier structures and
standardization decisions are increasingly shaping how scalable and
cost-effective future platforms can become.
Joachim Kahmann, Senior Vice President Purchasing EE &
Modules at Stellantis, brings that perspective to the Automobil-Elektronik
Kongress 2026, where he will join the panel discussion “Chiplets – Technology & Business Viability”
moderated by Dr. Mathias Pillin, CTO Bosch Mobility and Member of the Board at
Robert Bosch.
The panel also features Dr Christoph Grote, Senior Vice
President AI & Innovation at BMW, Harald Kroeger, Head of Sales &
President Automotive at Sima.ai, Michael Schaffert, SVP & Head of Chiplet
Program at Robert Bosch, and Christopher Thomas, President of TSMC Europe.
Ahead of the event, we spoke with Kahmann about sourcing, platform and supplier
decisions that will shape the next phase of SDV
industrialization.
Looking ahead three to five years, what will be the
biggest bottleneck in turning SDV and AI strategies into scalable,
industrialized vehicle platforms?
The biggest bottleneck will be the availability of
engineering resources, combined with the need to continue supporting legacy
architectures. Most of the industry is not starting from a blank sheet of
paper. At the same time as new software-defined and
AI-enabled platforms are being developed, existing vehicle architectures
still need to be maintained, integrated, and evolved. Managing both in parallel
is a major challenge for traditional OEMs and will remain one of the key
constraints on scaling.
Which decision being made today will most strongly
determine where value is created in the future automotive ecosystem?
One of the defining decisions is whether every OEM will
continue to develop its own solution or whether the industry will move toward
greater standardization, for example around a Vehicle OS. That decision will
strongly influence where value is created in the future ecosystem. The more the
industry standardizes foundational layers, the more companies can focus their
resources on differentiation in higher-value areas.
Where do current approaches to SDVs and next-generation
E/E architectures still fall short in real-world programs?
A major challenge is how to integrate real-time and
safety-critical applications into these new architectures. At the same time, the industry still needs to develop highly scalable and
cost-effective E/E platforms that can support everything from low-end to
premium vehicles without requiring a complete redevelopment from one car model
to the next. That remains one of the key gaps in many real-world programs
today.
How is procurement evolving in response to
software-defined architectures?
This has a significant impact on purchasing. We are moving
away from buying traditional black boxes and toward sourcing
services, IP, software components, semiconductors, and similar elements.
That changes the role of procurement considerably, because the sourcing model
becomes much more software- and technology-driven than in conventional
automotive programs.
What changes are required in supplier relationships to
support SDV?
We need to learn how to partner. That is one of the most
important changes. Software-defined vehicles require a different kind of
collaboration across the ecosystem, with closer
alignment between OEMs, suppliers, and technology partners than in the
traditional model.
How does Stellantis approach sourcing for increasingly
software-centric systems?
We have set up a dedicated area within the purchasing
team, supported by engineering, where we act more like a Tier 1 and apply these
new approaches. This allows us to adapt sourcing models to the needs of increasingly software-centric systems and
to build the required capabilities more directly inside the organization.
