Earlier quoted context omitted.
angstroms
NO! Bad unit!
Ångström is the shit
TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter
321–330 of 511 posts
Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter
#322"European chip and auto companies, for their part, are mostly lined up against the idea. They would prefer subsidies for the older-generation chips that are heavily used by car manufacturers and are in short supply. Many of TSMC's most lucrative customers, such as Apple, are U.S.-based, while its European customer base is made up of mostly of automakers buying less-advanced chips." Oh boy... This is exactly why EU wi…
Tesla are good electric cars, the best in their categories, but Europe has no problem to produce good electric cars that are the best in their categories too. The VW group is doing particularly well these days, with the ID4 or the Taycan for example.
I was on the market for a new car this year in Europe and was happily surprised that every European brand now, not just VW, is offering a fully electrical model, at least, and several traditional models are offered as plugin-hybrids as well.
Audi has the e-tron[1] already, and plans to have every model it sells come with a fully electric version before 2030[2].
BMW has been selling the i3 fully electric model since 2013, now has several other electric cars[3] (including the iX, the first one it designed from scratch to be an electric car, and the ix3, an electric version of the popular X3) and most of its models come as plugin hybrid (I ended up buying an X1 plugin-hybrid, the electric models are still really expensive compared to hybrid, which are themselves really expensive compared to the old combustion engine models - but worth it because you save loads of money if the electric range is enough for your daily trips, like for me, and due to government bonuses and much lower taxation!).
Mercedez seems to have started a bit late, but now it's keeping up with BMW and also offers many plugin-hybrid models as well as the new EQ line[4] which is fully electric (I drove the EQC and it's amazing - the luxury of Mercedez with the modernity of a Tesla - but just a little too pricey for me).
Other brands are following the same pattern. For example, Seat has a new sub-brand called Cupra[5] which offers a more affordable fully electrical, but still pretty awesome, model called Formentor which seems to be getting pretty popular in my country. Volvo now offers the XC40 with a pure electric engine[6] or plugin-hybrid... and it has a subsidiary to challenge Tesla called Polestar[7] which makes highly performant electrical vehicles similar to Teslas.
Finally, Renault Zoe[8] is a fully electrical, small vehicle that is pretty popular in Europe (where small cars are more convenient to use in cities).
[1] https://www.audi.com/en/experience-audi/models-and-technolog...
[2] http://www.mobiletechdaily.com/audi-plans-to-electrify-every...
[3] https://www.bmw.com/en-au/discover/electromobility/electric-...
[4] https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/eq/
[5] https://www.cupraofficial.com/
[6] https://www.volvocars.com/intl/why-volvo/human-innovation/el...
Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter
#323"European chip and auto companies, for their part, are mostly lined up against the idea. They would prefer subsidies for the older-generation chips that are heavily used by car manufacturers and are in short supply. Many of TSMC's most lucrative customers, such as Apple, are U.S.-based, while its European customer base is made up of mostly of automakers buying less-advanced chips." Oh boy... This is exactly why EU wi…
>Tesla owns VW now.
One is a company that make less money selling cars than trading bitcoins and emission certificates. The other is selling more cars than anyone else. It's less than 500.000 cars a year versus 2.8 million cars with just one brand from the VW group (out of 12).
Edit: According to VW's news site "Volkswagen delivered around 5.3 million vehicles in 2020". That does not include vans or trucks.
Tesla likely won't survive as a car company when other car makers stop needing their emissions certificates. Tesla would be deep in the red today if it didn't live off other income than cars. Look at their official numbers if in doubt. In 2025 Tesla will likely be an investment firm selling some cars.
Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
Australia has some of the lowest import / export tariffs in the world. I.E. they’re generally zero or close to.
Tariffs, yes. Taxes, no. Simply comparing the cost of technology-based goods between AUS and USA/CAN - or worse, digital-based items - shows why Australia is not an attractive place for technology companies.
It's not taxes nor tariffs. It's the fact that we are generally an affluent country with high costs of living and wages, so the market can pay more.
Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I can’t see how we can do business with a country that invaded a democratic country. Where do we draw the line? Because there is one country in the western world that would be banned from trade if destroying democracies are not allowed. It is also the only country in the world that has toppled governments so many times it has its own Wikipedia article. So unless you define it as only "full-scale invasion" the US wou…
As someone from Africa with knowledge of USA involvement in toppling some governments here, I sometimes wonder who's worst? A country I know for certain it has invaded unilaterally others (USA) or a country with potential of one day in the future for invading countries (China).
OK, in theory you are right. But I doubt the average citizen lost from that. Did those guys win elections or just stole them /took power by gun to loot the country?
Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
Older lithography is what European automakers need, and the same can be said for robotics. The only reason for EU to demand fabrication of leading edge chips in Europe is hubris. How many laptops and mobile phones, in percent terms relative to those respective markets, are assembled in Europe?
I've actually always wondered why automakers never try to make consumer electronics. They wouldn't even need to compete with Apple or Dell; would you consider an Audi or Toyota laptop in place of a Panasonic Toughbook? Caterpillar does it with phones[1], and their main business is heavy industry. Why not auto manufacturers? Could easier access to smaller process nodes incentivize them to branch out into new markets l…
They're different verticals with very different demands, challenges and markets.
Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EU has also supplied both weapons and technology that are currently threatening Taiwan: https://www.businessinsider.com/european-companies-are-suppl... France alone was the #2 supplier from 2015-2019: https://euro-sd.com/2020/03/news/16688/sipri-biggest-arms-ex... You really can't blame Taiwan for not rushing to put its most cutting edge expertise in the EU.
Eg ~ 200 million in 2012 is not a lot of arms. That's 2,5 x f35's ( without maintenance) which really is just peanuts.
The more valuable part was the technology transfer.
Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not weird. It's not even a frame. It's reality. All regulation is created for the purpose of protecting people. California has more people protecting laws than Texas therefore California favors people over Texas. There's literally no other reason why regulation exists. And all businesses that have less regulation have more options to succeed financially that would otherwise be restricted by regulation. Regulatio…
> All regulation is created for the purpose of protecting people. That is a politically naive, idealistic perspective that does not align with reality. Regulation often exists to serve entrenched monopolies and to raise barriers to entry. Sometimes, regulation is a purely emotional knee-jerk reaction to a particular wave of passing news or events. It's often ill-considered over the long term. Long after a society or…
>That is a politically naive, idealistic perspective that does not align with reality.
No this is you misinterpreting the context at hand. The context is "Businesses" so when I refer to regulation I refer exclusively to "Business regulation." You are naive to think that a person with that ludicrous level of naivety and idealism even exists. If anything it is your views that are naive. Texas favors both people and businesses? How convenient. That's idealism through and through.
When regulating people the purpose is often to protect people but like you said regulating people can often serve to form cartels, monopolies or other business interests. This is utterly clear and obvious to everyone and it is not part of the context or topic at hand. Again the topic is "regulating business" or enacting laws that restrict what businesses can do..
Specifically to address your example of "Barrier to entry." A Barrier to entry is a regulation enacted on people outside of the business that promotes this regulation. This type of regulation is regulating people, aka the market not businesses. This is not what I'm referring to. Think about it logically. A barrier to entry is not a regulation on a business because the business likely already passed the barrier to entry so the business is effectively not being regulated. Why would a business be so stupid as to regulate itself? These regulations come from the people who serve the self interest of the people.
Make no mistake when regulating "business" there is little other reason why it is done other than for the purpose of benefiting the people. There are very few other reasons why regulation on business itself exists. Think about it.
The only other time this happens is when corporations are in competition with each other and invoking laws to regulate each other but this rarely happens as competitors are in the same industry, regulating a competitor may mean regulating yourself.
The single example I know of where business regulation was done to serve the long term interest of business was the light bulb filament oligopoly where light bulb makers were regulated and fined to deliberately shorten the length of time light bulb filaments would last in order to increase business within the oligopoly. But again this type of regulation is very rare.
> Profit comes from people do anything they screw people over for is usually obscured in some way.
This is a typo. I didn't notice but somehow a huge portion of what I was suppose to say was deleted.
Let me paste the corrected quotation for more clarity:
Additionally keep in mind businesses cannot directly screw people over. Profit comes from people and companies cannot directly screw over the thing they derive profit from. When businesses screw people over it's usually obscured in some way. Think again to the antics of big oil and big tobacco. If deregulated businesses are harming the people of Texas in some way you likely won't know until many years from now.
Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a first pass, wouldn't this be good for China? TSMC was strategic for Taiwan, as a military takeover of Taiwan (where the plants will likely be damaged or scuttled) would be economically damaging for the US. That might be a bit different if the US has enough high-the fabs internally. I'd love to hear better analysis; I'm not confident of my understanding here.
China will do everything it can to keep the factories in a war, it’s likely the US would offer a lot of Taiwanese US visas especially those in tech, it’s likely the Taiwanese people will have a general strike and the whole place will be very unpleasant to live in after probably many hundreds of thousands of Chinese dead due to choke points getting onto the island. It’s likely after an invasion most production for the…
> after probably many hundreds of thousands of Chinese dead due to choke points getting onto the island
I wouldn't put it past China to simply flatten the entire island or at least everything surrounding these chokepoints with conventional bombs until submission and genocide whoever remains alive afterwards.
Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter
#330Geopolitically this makes a lot of sense. Will be interesting to see how China reacts as it moves forward. If Intel is serious this time about letting third parties into their fabs then it could be quite the reversal of fortune. However, as I've said in the past Intel is most likely to do this with "alternate" process streams, in order to not expose their full capabilities to competitors. High hopes but low expectati…
> Geopolitically this makes a lot of sense. Geopolitically it makes no sense. What exactly do they expect any much changing from thus move other than Samsung getting even more desperate, and Korea possibly moving closer to China if the next Korean president will be a gullible populist (which is now a close probability.) A lion share of high tech manufacturing happens in Taiwan-SK-Japan triangle, all within walking di…
> if the next Korean president will be a gullible populist (which is now a close probability.)
Is it? Anti-CCP sentiment is super high in Korea now. And it seems like the right-wing parties are capitalising on that.