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Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

reuters.com

121–130 of 495 posts

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

#121

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.

First of all, your original comment was this:

> I try to simplify the root cause like this:

> - people kept getting money while not working

> - those people did not work, hence, no goods were produced

> Same amount of money without the goods in the market. Inflation and good shortages. I believe that those government helicopter money was a huge mistake. 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.

Secondly, you're wrong. The shortage has nothing to do with "government helicopter money". It has to do with changing spending habits due to the pandemic plus companies anticipating, wrongly, where those changing habits will lead. And that's topped off by the fact that the electronics supply chain is not agile, so once you change your mind, you can't really go back quickly.

Your opinion is downvoted because you're wrong.

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

#122
post #41

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.

Any proof that there's a significant inflation ongoing?

Well, since January the US CPI rose by 4.4% and there are still 4 months to go (September data is released in two weeks). The Fed target is ~2%.

That's before you get into whether the official number is underestimated (e.g homeowner's equivalent rent, which is a quarter of the CPI basket). Is it significant? Maybe, maybe not.

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

#123
post #41

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.

Any proof that there's a significant inflation ongoing?

Inflation is growing everywhere. You can't have a crisis and then dump that much money without inflation happening.

Besides CPI, the main inflation is actually asset inflation. Look at the huge stock, real estate, etc. price booms since 2020.

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

#124

@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?

Chinese people stopped hoarding luxury apartments, and started hoarding microchips — a popular explanation

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

#125

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 $…

These aren't Americans, though. These are Germans.

I don't know if the same statistics apply to Germans, but you at least need a different source to cite.

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

#126
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…

AFAIK, backup cams and TPMS are required. As for privacy, how do any of those features affect anything? But they're not changing their lineups, product design and marketing are expensive and take a long time. I don't think shrine expects the shortage to last that long.

>AFAIK, backup cams and TPMS are required.

Backup cameras are indeed mandated by law in the US for all new cars and have been since 2018.

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

#127
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…

That sounds like the Dacia and Tata approaches, although they sell addon packs as well.

Dacia's addon packages are pretty tame since you need to get an addon package for an FM radio or for height-adjustable seats.

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

#128
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all this "simple" car may end up being more expensive. Doing a lot of the things the old mechanical way requires a lot of labor and labor is expensive nowadays. Having to use turning wires and vacuum tubes for instrument clusters, and a bunch of pull wires for controls... Not only would that be expensive it would require skills and equipment long lost today. Oh and the wind shield wipers -- it is possible to…

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…

> My '78 John Deere 4640 (not a car I give you that) if it breaks down, I can fix it.

That's great, but I don't own a garage, and if my car breaks, it goes to the mechanic. The mechanic needs to eat, and pay the mortgage on her garage, so she will charge $XYZW for repairs.

For all the maintenance and repair work I and my father have had done on our cars, 'Some microchip somewhere crapped out' has never made the list. All the failures have been purely mechanical. Your 70s car proposal solves a problem that few people have, and introduces a lot of new ones.

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

#129
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

200mm tapeouts have briefly became more profitable than leading edge ones on the wave of panic buying. On my side, I lost a lot of firmware devs to poaching by companies migrating between microchip brands, and ready to pay just anything, to the point of me myself being tempted.

Mind telling us whether you're hiring? And, mind pointing us to some contacts where your people are going?

Will you be ready to move to China? Working of physical products requires being there. We don't do much software only projects.

We tried DHLing prototypes around before, it didn't work out. People still need tons of expensive tooling, go to other specialist companies with these prototypes, etc. Too much pingpong

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

#130
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.

Oh, interesting. Well, my car at least has sensors—either that or I paid way too much for valve stems. :)
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