When General Motors Corp. filed for bankruptcy and reorganized in 2009, the makings of a Wall Street darling emerged from the wreckage.
Aptiv Plc, which grew out of the parts unit spun off from the iconic automaker, soared to $48 billion in market value earlier this year after transforming into a savvy technology company built for the shift toward electric, autonomous vehicles.
Now, though, the industry is being upended anew in ways that could challenge Aptiv. Carmakers, taking lessons from the chip shortage and the playbook of insurgent rival Tesla Inc., are moving software and engineering tasks in-house. Silicon Valley giants are elbowing into the sector, with the likes of Intel Corp., Qualcomm Inc. and Nvidia Corp. seeing opportunity in cutting-edge vehicles that are essentially giant computers on wheels.
Those forces are reordering the $1.3 trillion auto supply chain, creating openings for newcomers and threatening an entrenched industry pecking order that is dominated by carmakers and their direct, or tier one, suppliers such as Aptiv.
At the same time, some automakers, including Ford Motor Co., have been unhappy with Aptiv’s automated-driving software, according to six people familiar with the thinking of those companies’ executives, a potential impediment to its future growth.
“The core question is: who is going to be writing the software” for advanced features like hands-free driving, said Brian Johnson, an auto analyst at Barclays Plc. “Is it chipmakers moving up from hardware? Carmakers developing their own software skills? Or traditional tier one suppliers like Aptiv?”