What are these chips and what is preventing us from scaling up capacity? I’m not challenging that it’s difficult, but the reporting seems shoddy. Maybe I’m the only one who wants to understand this stuff, but these kinds of questions always seem obvious to me (same with COVID vaccine manufacturing).
Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
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Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#132Toyota was one of the few (only?) companies to keep a large stockpile of chips on hand to continue production in case of a supply interruption. They kept something like two years worth on hand. I guess 18 months of doing the extremely heavy lifting for the whole industry has taken its toll and now they're in the same boat.
Maybe this is a dumb question, but does anyone still produce cars without chips? It's possible, and in the current environment it seems like it would be a major competitive advantage-- and might be more reliable in general.
I don't think it's possible. At least not road-legal in Europe.
There must be hundreds of chips in a modern car: Engine, ABS, wireless key, cruise control, radio, audio, electric windows, gps, battery management, airbags, seat-belt check, sensors, climate control, ...
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe this is a dumb question, but does anyone still produce cars without chips? It's possible, and in the current environment it seems like it would be a major competitive advantage-- and might be more reliable in general.
>and might be more reliable in general Cars in, say, the 1960s were not "more reliable in general." It's not all semiconductor-related of course--they also rusted out quickly in areas that got snow--but 5 years/50K miles is about what you were looking at for vehicle lifetime. Also much lower fuel efficiency, to say nothing of lack of what we'd consider routine safety features today.
The many Cubans driving cars from pre-1959 would be surprised to hear this.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not true at all, ~80% of emissions from an ICE car are from using and servicing it. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-l... Looking at that chart I think you could build a brand new ICE car, throw it away, build an EV and drive that instead and still come out ahead?
> Vehicle assumptions: 200 000 km lifetime mileage I was under the impression decent quality ICE vehicles are proven to last at least 320k km these days, and can easily last 15+ years. Have electric vehicles even been in use long enough to have sufficient data to compare?
"Easily"
At least for a snowy area, those numbers are probably on the high side for reliable transportation but not 2x on the high side.
Presumably, an EV would at least need a battery replacement well before that point.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#135So new cars are going to be come more expensive due to supply limitations and in turn used cars will continue to become more expensive as they can rise to a certain % of the new car price. At the same time housing prices continue to sky rocket. Seems like not a great time for someone just stepping into adulthood and financial responsibility.
The difference being that lots of people want to keep those inflated housing prices high (nimbyism), whereas nearly everyone wants car prices to go back to normal.
I would say it is more self perpetuating. With housing prices growing as they are, people are saving less for retirement and putting that money into their house with a plan to cash out, move to the country, and retirement.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not true at all, ~80% of emissions from an ICE car are from using and servicing it. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-l... Looking at that chart I think you could build a brand new ICE car, throw it away, build an EV and drive that instead and still come out ahead?
> Vehicle assumptions: 200 000 km lifetime mileage I was under the impression decent quality ICE vehicles are proven to last at least 320k km these days, and can easily last 15+ years. Have electric vehicles even been in use long enough to have sufficient data to compare?
Electric vehicles are far simpler mechanically, so I expect they will last much longer.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#137So new cars are going to be come more expensive due to supply limitations and in turn used cars will continue to become more expensive as they can rise to a certain % of the new car price. At the same time housing prices continue to sky rocket. Seems like not a great time for someone just stepping into adulthood and financial responsibility.
Spend 5K on a really nice commuter electric bicycle. You'll be doing a solid for the Environment and you'll have an EV that makes you fitter.
My problem with 5K on an electric bike is the 50 mile commute one way to work in inclement weather.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really a great time for anyone really, at least from the vantage point you're referring to.
If you're an established adult who owns a house and two cars, your assets have skyrocketted. You're having a great time.
how? can you capitalize on that upside somehow? sell them, live in a tent until prices are down?
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#139So new cars are going to be come more expensive due to supply limitations and in turn used cars will continue to become more expensive as they can rise to a certain % of the new car price. At the same time housing prices continue to sky rocket. Seems like not a great time for someone just stepping into adulthood and financial responsibility.
The difference being that lots of people want to keep those inflated housing prices high (nimbyism), whereas nearly everyone wants car prices to go back to normal.
Nimbyism exists, as do more concrete constraints in urban locations but...
The way house prices work, often, is more or less banks determining prices via mortgage eligibility. Banks agree that a house is worth X. They lend X. That becomes the price. Buyers tend to be available.
People are so quick to see that credit expansion fuels price inflation in other areas, even the economy at large, but somehow diminish or ignore this with housing.
Obviously, supply constraints avoidable or otherwise, affect supply. In any given year though, the supply of housing does not change a ton. Where they do, you don't tend to have wild inflation... though you do often see bigger houses.
It's impossible to decouple housing from monetary policy. Housing is one of the few ways that buying power gets from A to B, where B is not a financial institution or direct spending.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
probably not, regulation and crack down on pollution from vehicles. Have you ever rode in an older car that uses a carburetor instead of fuel injection? Nothing like the crisp smell of gasoline in the morning... or anytime you drive it.
Of course, you need some electronics. Let's rephrase: which cars from western mainstream manufacturers are currently the "lowest tech"? No infotainment, no digital dash, no touch-sensitive anything, as few sensors as is viable to still be road legal? And a related question: modern cars are full of tech because that's what market demands. Can we expect the trend to reverse at some point?
>No infotainment, no digital dash, no touch-sensitive anything, as few sensors as is viable to still be road legal?
For compact/subcompact sedans/hatches and midsize sedans the OEMs typically make a super stripped down variant so they can advertise an insanely low "starting at" MSRP. Dealers don't typically buy a lot of them so they're very hard to find and you'll likely have little room to haggle on price.
Nowadays there's a pretty long list of mandatory electronics and everything has at least one bus network in it but if you want to minimize the number of extraneous modules on that network then a stripped down economy car is your best bet.