261–270 of 495 posts
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Why do the scalpers get first dibs on the supply?
That's the right question. As Huang said a few years ago: the more you buy, the more you save
This is what wholesalers do: they buy large quantities at low prices and then sell small quantities at high prices.
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Indeed - not many manufacturers could get away with Tesla's strategy of charging money for features that are in Alpha state, to put it charitably (e.g. Autopilot).
Many manufacturers had no shame to charge for shitty features in alpha state like the "ping pong" line assist.
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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.
Regardless I do appreciate the simplicity of long past inventions.
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Is the _market_ begging, or a few folks on the internet? The only folks I know that complain about technology in cars are a couple posters on internet forums.
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…
An old Ford Ranger was 175-200 inches long depending on year and model. The new one is 200-210 inches.
Sort this list by class and you'll see a total of two compact trucks in the US market. Both are debuting either this year or the next: Ford Maverick (200") and Hyundai Santa Cruz (195").
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Maybe we should amend/change those laws back.
Perhaps we shouldn't. The EU estimates that half the fatalities on the road will be prevented with these systems. That's 10.000 lives each year. If that's true, increasing the cost marginally is more than worth it (and it really is marginally, budget cars have not noticably increased in price).
Actually, they did. The new Dacia Logan starts at 8500 euros, back in 2009 you could buy an entry-level one at about 5500-6000 euros, which would be around 6400-7000 euros in today's money. At those entry level prices those extra 1500-2000 euros do count.
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…
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.
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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.
Apples to oranges comparison.
One important part of the chip shortage is the massive amount of price gouging going on. Every IC is being bought up by new 3rd party distributors to scalp to desperate electronics manufacturers. Take a look at this chip we are just now crossing as an example, click on 'Non-authorized stocking distributors': https://octopart.com/tps2052bdgnr-texas+instruments-699312?r... Win Source has a bunch, but you will pay 6x th…
How do the scalpers get the supply before someone else gets it? What do the scalpers do when IC manufacturers increase supply and electronics manufacturers decrease demand by switching to similar components? What if one of the scalpers panics, dumps its inventory, and causes a price drop?
The whole situation could just as quickly turn into the opposite when production returns to normal.
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My understanding is that JIT, as performed by Toyota, takes into account the differences in difficulty of sourcing different inventories. If this is true, one would expect that Toyota faced shortages later than other manufacturers. Does anyone have a source proving or disproving this?
Toyota was among the last to be hit. Also, JIT is not having zero inventory. It is about having the right amount of inventory.