Earlier quoted context omitted.
Supply and demand change is what increases or decreases costs. If demand don't adapt, there will be inflation to force it to adapt :)
'Inflation' is not the price increase of a single thing to demand/supply. Inflation is the systemic increase in all costs of what a household would buy as money itself become less valuable. Prices 'inflating' on a single product because there's a shortage of... base materials or whatever is not inflation as an economic term.
Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
711–720 of 720 posts
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#712Toyota 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.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#713Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why would we do that if the fabs themselves don't think it is worth paying their equipment manufacturers enough to afford their own chips? Because there is a global chip shortage that is making life substantially worse for the vast majority of Americans. And because markets are tools used by man, not the other way around.
>Because there is a global chip shortage that is making life substantially worse for the vast majority of Americans. Is it really? I don't know anyone who has had substantial impacts. Some prices have gone up, but I don't see the urgency.
> Some prices have gone up
Specifically, prices on new and used cars that most Americans depend on -- for better or worse -- to do basically everything in their lives (including getting to work, getting to school, getting food, etc.)
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#714Ordered a Yaris Hybrid in June. Still no info on the order, except that the factory in France is on shutdown in August till the 23rd. Except: > Until now, Toyota had managed to avoid doing the same, with the exception of extending summer shutdowns by a week in France Which means it reopens in September... > Toyota is to slash worldwide vehicle production by 40% in September because of the global microchip shortage. O…
Yaris isn't a Toyota. Its made by Mazda and they slap a Toyota logo on it. I wouldn't worry.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#715Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please write back when Tesla learns how to correctly apply paint to a car or fit body panels, or well, pretty much everything else that makes an actual car a car instead of a disposable gadget.
Tesla does not equal electric cars. Most well known brands have great electric cars now, not to mention all the new brands like Nio and Polestar.
Toyota has a lot invested in the hybrid architecture. I doubt they’ll go full electric for some time and frankly it won’t make sense to do so for another 10 years.
Still, there are a lot of great options out there right now. For example, the Bolt from GM is a great little car. I inspected one up close two weeks ago side by side with a new Model 3. While not a great comparison in terms of function, the build quality in the GM model was just vastly superior by nearly every measure.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#716Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please write back when Tesla learns how to correctly apply paint to a car or fit body panels, or well, pretty much everything else that makes an actual car a car instead of a disposable gadget.
The concerns you express aren't noticable or bothersome except to a small percentage of enthusiasts. Teslas are mechanically far more reliable and require less maintenance that other cars.
Regular people definitely care how well their cars are put together, right after they care about the car's 1) price and 2) look.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#717Earlier quoted context omitted.
The government did very little in managing vaccine production other than act as purchaser, how is this an example of them managing a market?
The US government regulated critical parts of the supply chain of raw materials and preproducts in order to ensure that US manufacturers have no sourcing problems. It then compelled the manufacturers into exclusively servicing the US purchase contracts first before fulfilling competing contracts from other global buyers with any of the finished product produced on US territory. I'd call that quite a lot of "market ma…
I'm unfamiliar with this having happened, but if it did as you say that would definitely support your point.
> It then compelled the manufacturers into exclusively servicing the US purchase contracts
Wasn't this just a component of the purchasing contract? I would draw a distinction between cases where the gov was a purchaser and where it was not.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#718Earlier quoted context omitted.
After the 2011 earthquake they came to the conclusion that for some hard to source parts you have to keep a big stockpile. Basically if a part can only be produced by one or two parties there is too much risk of that source going away and disrupt everything else. This also applies all the way down the chain so if you got part A that can be made by 20 contractors but if all of those contractors depend on the same sour…
Should this be called the left-pad moment of just-in-time?
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#719Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. One scary fact that I learned is that, in war games between China and the USA, China almost always wins due to superior production capacity. Those $100B American battle carriers and $40MM advanced fighter jets can be taken out by $50,000 rockets/missiles produced at a rate of hundreds or thousands per day.
It's definitely not true today in 2010 because auto plants in 2021 cannot be 're-tooled' to make tanks. Also, US China conflict depends on entirely 'where' and 'over what' and what each nation is holding up it's sleeve. China does not have $50K rockets that it can use to down 'reasonably stealthy fighters' and as we have seen before, tactics combined with good tech gives overwhelming odds. For example, if (big 'if' b…
Stealth is a lot easier in water than it is in the air.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#720Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, this also makes no sense to me: > The Covid pandemic boosted demand for appliances that use chips, such as phones, TVs and games consoles. SOCs in phones and game consoles are produced on very different processes than chips used in cars, no? Cars don't need the smallest dies or most energy-efficient chips. These industries are not competing for the same capacity. Or am I missing something?
Not everything is a purpose built CPU, GPU or SoC on cutting edge nodes. There are many general purpose ICs that are boring and ubiquitous: Display drivers, power conversion, amplifiers, microcontrollers, etc.