Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 720 posts

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

#521

Post by da_big_ghey »

Ma8ee wrote: post #60
da_big_ghey wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toyota is not "sabotaging clean cars", only trying to delay regulations.

So not sabotaging, only obstructing. I'm so pissed at all the auto-makers (with the exception of Tesla). The writing has been on the wall for at least a decade in large neon letters, but they all seem taken by surprise that they suddenly have to produce electric cars.

This still is not "obstructing". Only it is trying to slow down coercive mandate alone, no obstacle to consumer buying an electric car on own initiative!

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

#522

Post by jbay808 »

will4274 wrote: post #279
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.

Why? Is the government better at inventory and/or supply chain management than the current players in the market? My experience with COVID tests says no.

I think that your experience with COVID tests would depend strongly on which country are you in, and which government you are talking about.

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

#523

Post by da_big_ghey »

space_rock wrote: post #96
CountDrewku wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psst you can avoid all of those issues by not buying Toyota. Stop trying to regulate everyone else into what you want. If these EV's are so good it shouldn't be an issue at all.

Stop polluting the cities and atmosphere and then it'll be none of our business

Position in many of cases I have heard has been that electric vehicle is just as good. Are you taking a position that they are representing some quality of life decrease and that the state must force us to accept this?

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

#524

Post by onepointsixC »

mywittyname wrote: post #478
dylan604 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many tomahawks does it take to destory these factories?

So, apparently the best opening salvo is to take out USA comms satellites and that essentially cripples American offensive capabilities. Modern tomahawks are heavily reliant on comms networks to hit long-range ground targets. Plus, any destroyer launching these at targets deep in Chinese territory will be within range of Chinese missiles. And, as we saw in Syria, Russian air defense systems are pretty effective again…

>So, apparently the best opening salvo is to take out USA comms satellites and that essentially cripples American offensive capabilities. Modern tomahawks are heavily reliant on comms networks to hit long-range ground targets.

No they aren't. They were designed with the assumption that GPS wouldn't be available and instead will rely on terrain tracking.

>Plus, any destroyer launching these at targets deep in Chinese territory will be within range of Chinese missiles. And, as we saw in Syria, Russian air defense systems are pretty effective against Tomahawks, and we should expect Chinese systems to be at least as effective.

What are you talking about? We had satellite imagery with holes in the ground that disproved the Russian claims that they shot down most of it.

Nothing you said is factual.

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

#525

Post by NotSammyHagar »

shadowgovt wrote: post #389
Scoundreller wrote: post #328

Many countries have a funny concept of strategic industries. In mine, dairy is a strategic industry that is coddled by government so that we can have a local source. But every country thinks that so there’s foes and allies that can supply us UHT or powder milk on a moment’s notice. And if our milk supply disappeared tomorrow, everyone over 1y could substitute with 10000000 different things for nutrition. Cars are ano…

> Every country props up its auto industry, so why worry about a domestic supply? War. In the event a war breaks out, a running auto plant can be re-tooled relatively rapidly into a light and heavy armor plant. It's not even a question of whether allies could supply tanks and troop transports; it's about having domestic capacity to make them because enemies could execute blockades and disrupt allied resource supply.

Except for getting subcomponents and today ics are the crucial thing. What do you bomb first, the ic manufacturing of the other side? Or take it away by force (like Taiwan's).

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

#526

Post by zsmi »

robotresearcher wrote: post #415
a9h74j wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does have negative external effects, as you observe, in the sense of a viscious circle. But even a viscious circle, mathematically, has positive feedback, resulting initially in a positive exponent growing against time, not a negative exponent damping out in time.

Doesn’t positive feedback require a positive loop gain? Right now, not enough chips are available to make new chips. So the loop gain is less than zero, damping the output recursively.

The problem is, if the feedback signal is too slow in getting back to the thing which measure error (i.e. too much phase lag), then negative feedback can turn into positive feedback and this leads to an instability.

One of the most complex pieces of the semiconductor fab is the building itself. Even with plans and permits in hand, it takes years to make one that can output at reason throughput and yield.

This report is from 1999 and it hasn't gotten easier.

https://www.imia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Construction...

"Typically the product life of a semiconductor chip (nine to 12 months) is less than the time required to construct the facility and install the equipment for manufacturing (24 to 36 months). As such, the construction/commissioning process is a rapid, constantly overlapping and complex set of events. In addition, construction of semiconductor facilities is very complex and costly (about USD 1.2 to 1.5 billion) due to the extraordinarily sophisticated processes and equipment required to manufacture semiconductor chips."

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

#527

Post by NotSammyHagar »

dylan604 wrote: post #510
zsmi wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not too many. But I wonder, are there more Chinese factories or Tomahawk missiles? I'm not totally sure. China is a very large country.

I'm sure the manufacture of tomahawks is pretty much on stand-by for the order to increase production. Civic pride and what not. Totally has nothing to do with the stock price.

How many subcomponents do they have on hand, especially cpus? I bet not many.

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

#528

Post by febeling »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #356
blululu wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty axiomatic view that governments can never be as responsive or as efficient as markets. The more commonly accepted economic wisdom is that they are usually less efficient and responsive than free market forces operating under ideal conditions. There is a lot of room for market failures, inefficiencies and temporal dynamics to change the balance. The are plenty of examples of government regulatory bodi…

It's unrealistic to expect people to hedge online comments about complex topics (like the one in question here) to the extent required to preclude "yes but" and "well akshually" type comments that complain about the lack of nuance. Yet despite these expectations being unrealistic everyone expects comments they disagree with to meet them.

I want to print and frame this comment.

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

#529

Post by Scoundreller »

starfallg wrote: post #405
shadowgovt wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every country props up its auto industry, so why worry about a domestic supply? War. In the event a war breaks out, a running auto plant can be re-tooled relatively rapidly into a light and heavy armor plant. It's not even a question of whether allies could supply tanks and troop transports; it's about having domestic capacity to make them because enemies could execute blockades and disrupt allied resource supply.

That's the same reason why food security is so high up on domestic priorities also. If a country is dependant on other nations for food, then in case of war you just need to target their logistics chain to starve them into submission. All those subsidies make sense, if you view the nation-state as primarily concerned with its own survival.

This is Canada. We ain’t going to run out of food.

The funny thing about a centrally-planned dairy system is that it takes very little disruption to destabilize it.

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

#530

Post by [deleted] »

blueblisters wrote: post #513
jvanderbot wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much would it cost to set up TSMC inside US borders? One president cycle? 4 F-35s? One SLS? A nuclear submarine? According to this page, sorting by cost, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat... the most expensive fab is 33 Giga$. TSMC is 17G$. pennies on the dollar in our 1-3Trillion infrastructure bill. Make america fab again. EDIT: it appears this is in the 2T infrastructure bill. https:…

Building it is one thing. Making it operational without importing talent and running it profitably is another. Taiwan has some of the best fab engineers who work at US minimum wage salaries. Of course you can pull them away with higher pay like China is doing, but that means profitability will likely go for a toss.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN