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The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

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Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#441

Post by eropple »

throwawayboise wrote: post #341
Mavvie wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like each year cars get way safer. It started with blind spot detectors/cameras, and modern cars will even brake automatically and keep you in your lane (or at least warn you if you leave it). Maybe new features like self-driving aren't as interesting, but I would buy a new car instead of a used one just for the perceived improved safety. I don't know if there's any research showing that these features actuall…

Many of these features add minimal benefit if you do some common-sense stuff such as, don't drive when you're really tired (or drunk, or on drugs, etc.); don't play with your phone while you're driving; don't read, do your makeup, shave, etc. while you're driving. IOW put your focus on the task at hand and you don't really need blind spot detectors. Of course the reality is that people are pretty bad at these things.

I'll cape up for blind spot detection. My current car doesn't have it and I out-of-the-box I found that I had to move pretty extensively to see things that are to my 5 or 7 o'clock; even with my mirrors correctly positioned there's a gap between what I can easily perceive from the wing mirror and from the rear mirror and I had to buy blind spot mirrors to compensate. (It's much better with them.)

The car isn't even that long--the back pillars and back window are just weird (Hyundai Veloster).

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#442

Post by post_break »

dehrmann wrote: post #327
infogulch wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or are modern pickup-pedestrian accidents more deadly than other classes of cars?

This will be a weird number because I rarely see pickups in urban centers with lots of pedestrians, but I see them all the time in rural places.

Come to texas. Everyone has a truck, including me. But I bought the smallest one i could with a diesel to get 30mpg+ and its still the size of a 2009 F150.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#443

Post by mbreese »

sokoloff wrote: post #437
mbreese wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t measure the risk of a rare event like this. Accidents are (thankfully) rare events. There is too much variability with a single person. You can really only measure these risks across an entire fleet of cars. Rare events are Poisson distributed, which requires many observations to be significant. So your question should be, across all cars, how many accidents have there been with and without blind spot monit…

I agree. A scan of the research seems to suggest the risk reduction is bounded at around 40% on the high side of "potential risk avoided if all vehicles were equipped" with actual results of equipped cars coming in the range of 19-45% depending on the paper and type of accidents and aids focused upon. Which is to say "quite meaningful", but when the absolute rate of serious crashes per driver is as low as it is, it's…

Another thing to think about is that “accidents” isn’t the only outcome that could be measured. I like my blind spot monitoring. But not necessarily because it makes me safer — I always turn my head to check blind spots anyway. But what it does do is make driving less stressful. Safety aids and driver assistance tools can make driving a better experience. That, in and of itself, is a worthwhile outcome.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#444

Post by chrisseaton »

throwawayboise wrote: post #417
chrisseaton wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're mistaken about how dealerships and car sales are structured, at least in places like the UK and the US. Maybe it's different where you are? They get a proportion of the sale price, and they get paid a referral fee for you opening a loan, and then on top of that they can offer extras that you probably don't need like fabric protection products. > Nobody is coming out with less money on a loan purchase v…

> they get paid a referral fee for you opening a loan Which is added in to the finance charges or amount borrowed. Ever wonder why the salesmen always want to negotiate a "payment" amount instead of a purchase price? > No they'd just have sold to someone willing to pay their price. And I'd have just gone to another dealer willing to work with me on my terms. > There's a car supply shortage True, and that causes highe…

> Ever wonder why the salesmen always want to negotiate a "payment" amount instead of a purchase price?

Well that's the point - say you want agree a purchase price for the car before you talk about how you'll pay. Do that and get an actual number from them. Then...

Offer to pay the agreed price cash and ask for a discount based on this - you won't get one because there's no benefit to the dealer in taking cash it's just an inconvenience to them.

or...

Offer to take at least a small a loan and ask for a discount based on this - you might get one because the way they are established means there are strong incentives for them to make loans.

In either case you can of course threaten to walk away if the price isn't right, but paying cash isn't going to increase your bargaining power it's going to diminish it - 'not only is this person wanting to pay less but they also want to fuck up my loan referral rate and fee and make me unpopular with my manager'. And at some point I presume you need a car so you can't walk away forever.

The idea that you're an attractive customer if you'll pay cash is a 90s thing.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#445

Post by robomartin »

salawat wrote: post #371
robomartin wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had to stop reading when the dog washing company blamed needing to respin a new board on a chip being out of stock due to this ... > if you aren't buying enough chips to build all the boards you want to build of a revision Friendly advice: If you are going to be a consultant to industry, don't post comments like this. As someone who has been manufacturing tech products for over thirty years, my first reaction to…

Thank you for sharing that. One of the biggest laments I've run into trying to help someone get businesses bootstrapped is some of the very lessons you just shared. That sharing is so damn rare, and I think a lot of people end up in a really bad place because we don't do a great job at teaching the failure states of business. So again, thank you. Life willing, you sound like someone I'd be thrilled to do business wit…

> One of the biggest laments I've run into trying to help someone get businesses bootstrapped is some of the very lessons you just shared.

This is one of those things that makes hardware businesses so darn hard and something software-only startup folks just don't understand. The marginal cost difference and phasing of money you need to support, say 10K SaaS clients vs. shipping 10K non-trivial hardware products can be massive.

In my case the company was 100% bootstrapped. In retrospect I should have gone for investment as soon as we started to take flight. Frankly, I was too busy gasping for air (money) and absolutely overloaded with work to even consider it. Any investor type I spoke to was going to suck time and resources I simply did not have. So we kept going. Had it not been for the 2008 economic downturn we would have had an amazing exit.

> That sharing is so damn rare

Frankly, the experience was at the limit of darkness for me and sharing was nearly impossible for years. In December of 2009 I wrote a friend an email where, among other things, I said "I now understand, in no uncertain terms, why people jump off buildings or walk in front of trains during hard times". He was knocking on my front door within 15 minutes, after breaking the sound barrier driving from his office to mine.

No, I wasn't thinkin of ending my life. Not even close. It's just that the darkness I was facing at that moment in time produced a clarity of understanding I had never had before. I felt that I had full understanding of how someone could make that kind of a decisions. I was simply communicating the revelation I had. I can see how bad it must have sounded.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#446

Post by neltnerb »

ndiddy wrote: post #262
neltnerb wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that this is a potential big problem, but I had to stop reading when the dog washing company blamed needing to respin a new board on a chip being out of stock due to this. I'm sorry, but if you aren't buying enough chips to build all the boards you want to build of a revision, this is just what happens, chip shortage or no. Stuff gets obsoleted all the time, it doesn't take a chip shortage. Blaming a black swan…

Chips don't suddenly get obsoleted though, they get put in "not recommended for new designs" for at least a year or two beforehand, and when the chip maker plans to phase the chip out they typically give a "last time buy" notice at least a month or two before it gets discontinued.

Apologies, I truly intended "out of stock" rather than "obsoleted" and agree 100% that there is a big difference.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#447

Post by salawat »

varispeed wrote: post #245

It's weird that you can buy chips on Chinese sites in their thousands and western usual suppliers have no stock and the lead times are more than a year on some parts. Unfortunately you cannot just buy these Chinese parts and use in the products as they will likely have no certification or may even be fake. At least can be useful for prototyping although risky as well. I know many projects are on hold because of that.

This is the legacy of offshoring most production. We've lost the ability to drive our own supply chains based on nowhere for talent to work or land.

Once you lose that as a nation, the tail wags the dog.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#448

Post by wcunning »

saalweachter wrote: post #399
minhazm wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no F150 models in the US that weight 7700 lbs or even close to it. The heaviest one is 5517 lbs. https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America...

The curb weight of the F150 tops out at ~5000 pounds, the GVWR [which is what it is when full of people and stuff] tops out at ~7000 pounds. The F250 line tops out at a curb weight of ~7500 lbs with a GVWR of an even 10,000.

And the GCWR can top 15000 pounds (my personal spec, though I had to custom order to get that combination). My 2018 F150 can tow a little over 10000 pounds vs the 6000 that my dad's 1995 F250 could tow. Things have definitely shifted a category or more. Similar comparisons for a current Ranger and an older F150. Basically, the older Ranger is an Escape with a hitch.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#449

Post by pstrateman »

amelius wrote: post #427
jfoutz wrote: post #120

I think a lot of folks underestimate how fabulously complicated it is to fab a chip. Yes, you can diy it in your garage, here's a wonderful implementation. http://sam.zeloof.xyz/first-ic/ But take a look at the specialized tools they used. Heck, think about proper handling of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofluoric_acid and this is just a simple amp. imagine trying to make something with lots of gates? Making a si…

If making a chip is so hard, then why do the FAANG companies own this world, not e.g. TSMC or Samsung?

I think your comment is being misunderstood because of the ambiguity of "this world".

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#450

Post by AnimalMuppet »

HelloNurse wrote: post #282
huseyinkeles wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: how is the lack of digital chips going to make a toaster more robust?

Not internet connected, no unsafe touch screen, no chance of software glitches or reprogramming... the list is long. A humble analog toaster is normal, a digital toaster is a step backwards.

Yeah. What I need from a toaster is that it makes toast. I don't need it to order the bread from Amazon Home Delivery. I even more don't need it to open the house door when the delivery arrives. Just make my toast. And when you're not doing that, just sit there and be a paperweight. That's all I need.
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