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Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

bbc.com

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Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#221

Post by burntwater »

lostapathy wrote: post #92
Tade0 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite is true - the manufacturing process is responsible for an average of 7-10 tonnes of CO2, while the same vehicle over its lifetime will emit more than 50 tonnes from the exhaust. Moreover manufacturers have been reducing their carbon footprint lately. As an example VW reports that 70% of the energy the use in plants is provided by renewable sources. That being said while emissions rules have been getting…

> As an example VW reports that 70% of the energy the use in plants is provided by renewable sources. This is a great start, but not where most of the carbon embodied in a new vehicle comes from. The energy used by the VW plants keeps the lights on, air conditioned, and powers tools for assembly. Most of the carbon embodied in a car comes from the energy it takes to mine raw materials and process them into useful met…

This seems to be the crucial bit that is always missing from these discussions. I don't doubt that the CO2 emitted in the assembly of the car is less than in the driving. But I'm curious about all the other environmental impacts (of which CO2 is just one small bit). The destruction of wildlife habitat, the poisoning of ground water, etc, that's involved in the retrieval and processing of the raw materials, on up through the chain.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#222

Post by hef19898 »

gameswithgo wrote: post #118
throwaway9870 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot build a modern car engine without chips, let alone a car. Also, no way to hit safety requirements without chips (air bag deployment for example).

I mean yes, if you take that tautologically, since a modern car engine has a chip. But probably you could build an engine that meets modern requirements without. People forget how clever analog solutions can be. It would be a huge pain in the ass though, and take years.

No, not since the late 80s when electronic fuel injection became necessary to meet emission standards. The alternative, carbs, just isn't good enough anymore.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#224

Post by dimitrios1 »

throwawaygh wrote: post #220
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #113

If you have a taste for irony, my company makes critical components for semiconductor equipment. If we can't ship, equipment companies can't ship new equipment. If they can't ship, semiconductor fabs can't increase capacity to meet the demand and solve the shortage. We went line down last week due to shortage of a chip for our component. In reality, the shortage is somewhat self-inflicted, like toilet paper a year ag…

A negative feedback loop in semiconductor supply seems like a situation where a government should just step in manage the market a bit.

The solution to a market inefficiency isn't to involve a more inefficient entity.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#225

Post by Jtsummers »

nszceta wrote: post #107
minikites wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a misunderstanding of lean manufacturing. Lean is not about eliminating every stockpile, it's about thinking through your supply needs and only stockpiling what is necessary.

Were manufacturers stockpiling what was unnecessary before lean manufacturing? It's an absurd notion that anybody would stockpile things without consideration of inventory costs.

Yes, they were.

Think of each stage of the system, not just the components you bring in but also the partially assembled components you produce along the way as well as the finished product. US auto manufactures (in particular) had an operating method where they kept inventories high at all stages. This wasn't entirely deliberate. They weren't saying, "We need 5000 car doors just sitting here." They were, instead, saying, "We can't stop making doors just because everything else down the line is stopped due to so keep churning them out and pile them up." The tail end inventory of "complete" vehicles were sitting there due, often, to quality issues (misaligned assemblies, missing parts, whatever the reason may be).

So inventory piles up everywhere along the chain, which also worked because there was a large turnaround period when retooling and equipment downtime (not always planned). Because Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Problems that Never Happened [0] there was an underinvestment in maintenance and improvement efforts. High inventory across the line papers over this issue. Lean discourages high inventory in order to make these issues apparent so that they can get the attention that they deserve. Also, rework is viewed as waste so quality issues should be addressed when they're discovered, not by assembling hundreds or thousands of vehicles incorrectly and then fixing them, fix the assembly line issues causing that misassembly.

[0] https://web.mit.edu/nelsonr/www/Repenning=Sterman_CMR_su01_....

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#226

Post by ramesh31 »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #224
throwawaygh wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A negative feedback loop in semiconductor supply seems like a situation where a government should just step in manage the market a bit.

The solution to a market inefficiency isn't to involve a more inefficient entity.

Ah yes, the Herbert Hoover approach.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#227

Post by fartcannon »

xyzelement wrote: post #154
wonderwonder wrote: post #87

So 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.

> just stepping into adulthood and financial responsibility. I am older than that (40 and my wife is 35) and while we have been independent professionals for a while, we now have a 1 year old so this summer for the first time in our lives we bought a house and a car. It was definitely harder to find a house (mainly less availability driving competitive bidding) and it took a little longer to find a car and we ended u…

When I was in my early 20s, someone gave me this exact advice. I didn't have much money and they said that real estate was too expensive and I should just invest/rent. Fast forward to today, I paid 8x more for my small sad house than I would have then and my investments on my small amount of money didn't make up the difference.

The market is so screwed up that even a crash that halved the price would still be 4 times price back then.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#228

Post by baybal2 »

flyinglizard wrote: post #35

Does anyone know the particulars of the shortage? Talking more about the commodity chips. Very hard to get anything from TI, ST or Microchip. Which fabs and nodes are specifically overloaded?

Not nodes, wafer sizes. Most severe shortages are on 200mm.

200mm had 12 month lead times before COVID, now we talk about years.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#229

Post by only_as_i_fall »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #224
throwawaygh wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A negative feedback loop in semiconductor supply seems like a situation where a government should just step in manage the market a bit.

The solution to a market inefficiency isn't to involve a more inefficient entity.

Then what's the solution? Seems like the government is the only entity that can intervene if market forces are counter to supply chain resilience. This is partially the justification for agricultural subsidies in the US, so clearly there is precedent.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#230

Post by snarf21 »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #195

What are the barriers here? As sophisticated as automobiles have become I don't see them needing bleeding edge 5nm fabs. My bigger question is: Why is there not a thriving "small business" chip fab industry?

My guess it that it is like a refinery, building the factory takes too long with a large capital outlay. For instance, it may take a year or two to build and cost (let's guess) $500M. Now in that time, let's say all the existing players ramp back up (or expand!!) and there is no shortage. You now are producing chips that are cheaper elsewhere and it is hard to recoup your investment. Also, you may be limited on where you can find people with expertise in this area.
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