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Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

reuters.com

101–110 of 495 posts

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#101

Edit: Too many downvotes for my view that this Opel case is yet another symptom of the wrong handling of the panedmic by any governments, leading to inflation and supply chain disruptions. If opinions are downvoted then I do not need to participate.

You won't get downvoted just for having right-wing ideals, but you can't just assert controversial beliefs without backing, like "There shouldn't be a social safety net". The counterargument is simple: "I desire a high quality of life in my country, and that correlates with a social safety net. Most countries with high quality of life have excellent social programs: universal healthcare, universal youth education, robust unemployment [1]".

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/quality-of-life-r...

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#102
post #79
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone driving a car thats older than 15 years old is already driving the car that OP is describing.

And that car is worth $2000 on the market. No matter how many features they cut manufacturers aren’t going to be able to sell a new car at that price.

> And that car is worth $2000 on the market.

Yes, because the only reason a person would be willing to part with one at anywhere near that price was if was a lemon.

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#103
post #21

What I'll never understand is why carmakers don't take advantage of this situation and address a market that's been literally BEGGING for decades for a new product: A simple, basic car, with the ONLY electronic control being for: - Valve timing - Fuel injection - Oxygen and throttle - Emissions There's a market for budget and privacy oriented customers that all carmakers seem to have ignored for two decades now. Give…

In the United States backup cameras, tire pressure monitors, and electronic stability control are required by law. So out of your list that leaves.. GPS (already optional on most cars) Ass warmers (already optional on most cars) Telemetry (this could be removed from models that have it, not all cars sold today have telemetry) USB chargers (really don't think USB chargers are causing a production shortage at this mome…

What's the point of keyless entry? Mine comes with key, and yhe auxiliary immobilizer which will not let it drive without radio tag or typing in PIN.

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#104
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A simple, basic car, with the ONLY electronic control being for: - Valve timing - Fuel injection - Oxygen and throttle - Emissions You still need electronics for - ABS - ESP - Airbags (- Diagnostics) Because these are mandated. Buy a cheap Dacia and there won't be much else except electric windows.

I found that one can live without ESP. > Buy a cheap Dacia and there won't be much else except electric windows. As mandated by EU law the latest Dacia models already have most of those, they do have back up cameras, for example.

> I found that one can live without ESP.

True, but on average ESP is highly effective. Cars with ESP are correlated with 40-50% less running off the road or roll over crashes.[0] Carrie Underwood may sing about Jesus Taking the Wheel[1], but she really has GM Stabilitrak to thank.

[0] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lydBPm2KRaU

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That maybe true, but my anecdotal evidence is the opposite. > cars used to break down much more often and require much more skilled maintenance. My '78 John Deere 4640 (not a car I give you that) if it breaks down, I can fix it. If I cannot I can order the part. If I cannot, I can have the part made within a week. None of that is possible with a 2021 6145M. If it breaks, I have to sit and wait for JD to bless me with…

Indeed. We have an aging Audi that has adaptive cruise control. Recently the radar unit failed. To get it replaced at a dealer will cost about half of what the car is worth.

what, on an aging audi, _doesn't_ cost half the value of the vehicle to fix?

i've heard the same complaint about basically every part of an audi except the tires.

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#106
post #21

What I'll never understand is why carmakers don't take advantage of this situation and address a market that's been literally BEGGING for decades for a new product: A simple, basic car, with the ONLY electronic control being for: - Valve timing - Fuel injection - Oxygen and throttle - Emissions There's a market for budget and privacy oriented customers that all carmakers seem to have ignored for two decades now. Give…

So what about airbags? Or ABS? Those are basic safety features that cannot work without electronics.

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#107
post #84
post #21

What I'll never understand is why carmakers don't take advantage of this situation and address a market that's been literally BEGGING for decades for a new product: A simple, basic car, with the ONLY electronic control being for: - Valve timing - Fuel injection - Oxygen and throttle - Emissions There's a market for budget and privacy oriented customers that all carmakers seem to have ignored for two decades now. Give…

I like your idea. The only reason all those accessories are mandated, is because the car industry made it so, thus increasing the value (profit) of a standard car. We could just as easily 'mandate', a different class of vehicle. Call it a classic class, or something. For example, motorcycles don't have back up cameras, air bags, etc. Back to the consumer having a choice. Similar to right to repair.

> motorcycles don't have back up cameras, air bags, etc.

why do you think that is?

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#108

@kliment summarized the why pretty well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26931498 Curious if this is true for all manufacturers.

What would cause pretty much all STM32 microcontrollers to be not available and any amount that shows up disappears within minutes? Then you can buy pretty much any part from China without issue?

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#109

Edit: Too many downvotes for my view that this Opel case is yet another symptom of the wrong handling of the panedmic by any governments, leading to inflation and supply chain disruptions. If opinions are downvoted then I do not need to participate.

>It would have been better to lay off people; many have money saved to survive a few months; others could have lend some money (and pay it back when employed again). This would have been "mean" in the short-term, but good for the entire society in the mid- and long-term. This is completely wrong and trivial to research: https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-savings-acc... Most Americans couldn't handle a $…

The fun part about recessions is that demand for savings is going up and since the most popular savings vehicle is money it means demand for borrowers and debt is going up. The people who end up unemployed have absolutely zero capacity to borrow even though they are the ones who need it the most.

Thanks to our moral frameworks we interpret strategies like Keynesian fiscal stimulus as some sort of bad drug that the economy is addicted to and should quit. There is a huge double standard here. People want money and they don't want anyone to go into debt. It's the height of hypocrisy. People demand debt and they vilify it at the same time.

An amoral interpretation of Keynesian stimulus is that it effectively makes the debt market available to the unemployed. The unemployed are in debt in regards to the government which issues treasury bonds and the government is in debt in regards to the savers. In other words, it is decreasing market rigidity and decreasing overall market distortions.

The reason why Keynesian stimulus is a bad idea has nothing to do with morals. Rather, the problem is that using the government to bypass market rigidities shows a deep underlying problem in the labor market that nobody wants to address.

There are people who work more than they demand work and there are people who work less than they demand work. In a perfectly flexible market this should be impossible and you know what, it's impossible in a barter economy. People wouldn't work to pile up money that they don't intend to spend the same way a farmer wouldn't produce and pile up potatoes that they won't sell to the economy.

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#110
post #69
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'm not sure what kinds of pressure sensors cars use, but I can tell you the ones I need have been impossible to source for months.

TPMS works by calculating the RPM of the wheel and knowing the tire size and vehicle speed. Most TPMS setups don't know the actual pressure, they infer it.

Both types of systems exist, but from what I've seen the indirect TPMS systems you're describing are becoming less popular. I'm somewhat familiar with Mazdas anyhow and that's the way it's going with them.

For 2017 the Mazda6 used an indirect system: https://www.mazdausa.com/static/manuals/2017/mazda6/contents...

For 2020 it's a direct system with in-tire sensors: https://www.mazdausa.com/static/manuals/2020/mazda6/contents...

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