Schaeffler has set a public target of 10% of revenue from robotics, aerospace and defence by 2035. That is not an aspiration. It is a signal that the company has already written ICE volume out of its long-term plan.
When the largest bearing supplier in Europe moves like this, the volume it leaves behind has to go somewhere. For Tier 2 precision parts makers, that somewhere may be your order book.
The move comes from Herzogenaurach, not a startup pitch deck. Schaeffler is pressing ahead with a strategic rebuild, targeting robotics, aerospace and defence to cut its dependency on the traditional automotive business. The 2035 deadline is specific and public. That means sourcing decisions to support it are already moving inside the organisation now.
Large Tier 1s do not set ten-year revenue targets without adjusting their supply chain alongside them. The suppliers who rely on those Tier 1s for call-off volume are the ones most exposed to the gap.
The suppliers moving earliest are not chasing new markets for their own sake. They are covering a revenue hole they can already measure:
ICE drivetrain call-offs are finite. Schaeffler’s 2035 plan assumes they will not fill the gap, so any Tier 2 built around ICE parts faces the same arithmetic.
A single outside-automotive customer changes your negotiating position. Without one, your top OEM sets the terms on every RFQ, because they know you have nowhere else to go.
Platform SOP dates are the real unit of risk. A 20% volume cut on one platform is manageable. Losing a platform entirely because your customer has already shifted sourcing is a margin event, not a planning assumption.
Are you mapping your ICE exposure by platform and SOP date, or are you still working from last year’s call-off data?
If that question is one you want to think through on paper first, the DreCo diversification brief is a short read that maps exactly this kind of position. It is the work we do with Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers who want to see their exposure clearly before acting on it.