Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022 • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by medvezhenok » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

Swenrekcah wrote: post #196

blevin wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some have argued that scalpers, like other risk arbitrageurs, accelerate market price discovery. If you buy the argument that markets are net positive for society by relaying information about economic trade offs, scalpers aren’t necessarily bad even if they are indeed annoying to market participants by lifting the ask. Of course there are extreme conditions where we also might decide that using money as the universa…

This argument feels wrong to me. If there is a market for the chip, it will find a market price. If there isn’t there isn’t. If the market is in an equilibrium and the chip manufacturer makes some money on their chips, and the chip buyers make some money on their products, the a scalper coming in and sucking up all the profit isn’t doing anybody in the world any good except themselves.

The scalpers don't suck up profit, since if there is a functioning market, you can't really scalp.

Scalping exists when there is a discrepancy between a marked price and the market price of an item. If scalpers were not a thing, you would have shortages. With scalpers, you still have shortages, but you can acquire the good by paying a higher, market clearing price.

That higher price either makes it so that rich people can get the thing (most don't like this), or that people who really need it can get it (i.e. lifesaving medication etc). So your view of scalpers might be influenced by the distribution of (1) and (2) going on.

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

#242

Post by ok123456 » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

Unklejoe wrote: post #201

megablast wrote: post #135

Finally some good news. Less cars is a global good thing.

People will just keep driving their older cars which pollute even more.

There haven't been many breakthroughs in the past twenty years in regards to fuel efficiency. They're just gaming the numbers at this point by making the engines have higher and higher compression at the cost of making them less and less reliable.

Maybe old cars being dramatically less fuel efficient was true in the 90s when an "old-car" was from the 70s.

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

#243

Post by tibbon » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

hristov wrote: post #71

caeril wrote: 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…

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…

One of my motorcycles is from 1973. Nary a tube or chip on it. I think it's got a turn blinker that's kinda a flip-flop, but I think it's just charging and discharging capacitors. It's lasted way longer than most modern disposable vehicles.

I don't know if most of these things actually require digital features.

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

#244

Post by medvezhenok » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #234

bluecalm wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they provide value. They make it possible for people/entities who needs things the most to actually get them instead of those who happen to be first in line or in lucky position to get access to supply.

Correction: they make it possible for people/entities who can afford to waste most money to get them instead of those first/lucky. But how is that a better outcome? And why should this involve people spending more money, and all the delta going to the person who was first in line or in lucky position to secure a loan and buy off all the supply?

Scalpers allow people who are not price sensitive or have inelastic demand priority over people who are lucky / first.

The ethics depends on the exact case study provided. If it's a rich person buying an xbox (not price sensitive) - that's one thing, and most people would not support it. If it's someone needing an IC for a heart monitor to stay alive (inelastic demand), most would say that providing them an IC over someone who wants to play the latest video game is a good service.

Scalpers do both (1) and (2).

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

#245

Post by JTbane » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #59

kenniskrag wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tire pressure sensor, gps and e-call is needed by law.

Maybe we should amend/change those laws back.

Those systems are good for idiot-proofing. You don't want some idiot with underinflated tires running off the highway. In the same way, you don't want them to back over your kid in a parking lot.

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

#246

Post by ashtonkem » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

newsclues wrote: post #239

ashtonkem wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotes are always a mistake in these situations. You might have better luck with your tractor , which isn’t a car, but the average age of cars on America’s roads has been rising for decades. Your experience is, frankly, an outlier. Also, comparing tractors with cars is an extremely dubious proposition; these are different vehicles with different engineering constraints, uses, and consumer expectations. How many OE…

Just wait until the new generation of cars with touchscreens everywhere instead of buttons and knobs for control are old.

Do you have any actual data to back up the idea that touch screen interfaces are inherently short lived?

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

#247

Post by quacked » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

clintonb wrote: post #80

caeril wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, lots of internet people who don't want to be tracked (license plate readers notwithstanding). But also plenty of IRL people complaining about how, for example, they miss their $10k pickup with no power anything that worked great for anytime they needed to haul material X from location M to N, but now you need to drop a minimum of $50k for a vehicle you might use once per weekend to haul gravel, insulation, ceme…

That statement makes no sense. The folks complaining can still buy those old pickups if they want. All that has happened is they are now older. No one is forcing them to buy a new truck that they use sporadically.

I've investigated about 20 of those old pickups; they're crap, because they've been run into the ground. I want a new old pickup.

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

#248

Post by severino » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

minhazm wrote: post #136

Tesla has done a decent job of mitigating some of the chip shortages since they are so vertically integrated. Though obviously Tesla produces way less cars than Toyota/Honda/VW. But other manufacturers simply can't do this even if they wanted to since they outsource most of this stuff. > “We were able to substitute alternative chips, and then write the firmware in a matter of weeks,” Musk said. “It’s not just a matte…

> and then write the firmware in a matter of weeks

Well, it doesn't sound very reassuring to read that they just swapped out some chips here and there and then "hacked" the new firmware in a couple of weeks. It may be the chip for the FM radio or it could be part of the breaking system.

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

#249

Post by quacked » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

caeril wrote: 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 disagree with most of the people responding to you; I think if Toyota re-released the 2000 Tacoma with minor updates to the stereo system and a webcam on the back they'd do a billion in sales.

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

#250

Post by dahart » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #231

hutrdvnj wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scalpers are not the problem as they seem, they are like market makers for stock exchanges. They buy low and sell high, always. The factory could tell you that they're currently out of stock for the next few months, but a scalper will never be out of stock, because their prices rises so high that only very few desperate companies would buy. The point is, it's better to have the option to buy something at a high price…

The way I see it, this makes sense in a hypothetical world of perfect theoretical models (you may recognize this world as being the one inhabited by frictionless, perfectly spherical cows). In this world, scalpers cause the market to price in "stickiness" - the more critical an item is to the buyer, the more they'll be willing to pay - so the supply ultimately gets allocated to the most desperate of buyers, for the p…

This actually is the idea with truly “free market” thinking, no? The money wasted in a crisis, and the companies killed who would’ve otherwise limped through, is all assumed to be less waste and a better outcome than the alternative we get if we prevent scalpers and/or cap the prices. In this theoretical world, we waste more money when supply runs out too fast, and we get companies that are not as good at competing because they limped through.

The big question economically is whether these assumptions are generally correct. We have evidence in both directions, enough that most people can comfortably stick to their opinions and learned assumptions and political tribes. But is there a way to demonstrate that the money wasted is greater with hoarding/scalping than without, and under what conditions?