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Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

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Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#291

I don't see this raised anywhere -- but what's so bad about producing fewer cars (the poor neglected shareholders and exec bonuses aside)? It's almost as if we would need to lean into this, reducing growth and producing fewer cars would be in line with efforts to mitigate the drivers of climate change. What if car manufacturers pivoted their KPIs and focused on making long-lasting, serviceable vehicles? Toyota is alr…

> It's almost as if we would need to lean into this, reducing growth and producing fewer cars would be in line with efforts to mitigate the drivers of climate change. Newer cars pollute far less than old cars. > What if car manufacturers pivoted their KPIs and focused on making long-lasting, serviceable vehicles? They do make long-lasting, serviceable vehicles. Where have you been?

> Newer cars pollute far less than old cars.

More cars pollute more than fewer cars.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but does anyone still produce cars without chips? It's possible, and in the current environment it seems like it would be a major competitive advantage-- and might be more reliable in general.

I don't even know if you can buy new off-road toys that don't have chips - four wheelers, side-by-sides, snowmobiles and the like. Pretty sure they all use electronic fuel injection these days, and that requires at least one chip.

Even before EFI, almost all dirt bikes and snowmobiles built since probably the 1980s have had electronic ignition. You have to go pretty far back in time to find a vehicle of any sort with a points ignition that has no silicon/transistorized electronics in it.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#293
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's true. What most of us care about in cars is that they work when we want to drive them someplace right now , won't leave us stuck on the side of the road, and don't have prohibitive (time or money) planned maintenance. What's probably true is that older cars that aren't rusted out can probably be kept running by people with the appropriate mechanical skills even in the absence of proper factory/3rd part…

True, as an owner of a car from 1982 I agree. Requires a lot more preventive maintenance, e.g. oil changes every six months or 5-6k km, but runs perfectly fine when properly maintained. Also, I cam probably fix most issues with tools carried on board on the side of road. Enough to get to a proper workshop at least, I converted it to 2WD after killing a diff and drove for 200 km that way. If you cannot do that yoursel…

> Also, I cam probably fix most issues with tools carried on board on the side of road.

I think that is the largest appeal to me of older cars. There are only so many parts that can fail, and they are all repairable with some time and hand tools(and maybe a Haynes manual!).

(for people unfamiliar, a Haynes manual is a 3rd party manual customized for most makes/models of automobiles. It describes with pictures how to perform [almost] any repair.)

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A negative feedback loop in semiconductor supply seems like a situation where a government should just step in manage the market a bit.

Why? Is the government better at inventory and/or supply chain management than the current players in the market? My experience with COVID tests says no.

No one is saying the government should start producing chips, but they can offer financial incentives to encourage chip manufacturers to build fabs here instead of overseas.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But longer term this opens the door wide open for new competitors in the market and / or vertical integration. Not really. Chip fabrication requires enormous upstart cost - IIRC, TSMC plans with something like 10-20 billion $ - and a lot of time, to the tune of three years at least ( https://pr.tsmc.com/english/news/2033 ). There are not many companies in the world who have that amount of cash lying around, and eve…

> There are not many companies in the world who have that amount of cash lying around Which is why establishing a chip fab to me seems like an obvious national goal. It's a booming market with costs of entry that few private companies can afford, why not make it a national capability? Resilience and profitability in one package.

Even for a nation, that is a lot of money - Germany's budget is about 500B €, a 10-20 B € investment would be a 2-4% of that.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I capitalized on it by buying a new car and selling my old one. I sold a 3 year old camaro for $1000 less than I paid for it. I didn't get very much off MSRP of the new car, but I got way more value from a three year old camaro than I ever expected to get.

So... you got more for your used car and paid more for your new one. Which is exactly the point being made by the parent comment that you can't capitalize on the upside. You'd have to sell and step out for a while.

What do you mean I can't capitalize on the upside?

Sure, my purchase costs went up some, but no where close to the additional value I got over normal for my sale. Put it this way, I paid a few hundred dollars, maybe a thousand dollars more for the car than I would normally, but I sold my old car for thousands more than I normally would have been able too.

That's capitalizing on the upside for sure.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#297

If you have a taste for irony, my company makes critical components for semiconductor equipment. If we can't ship, equipment companies can't ship new equipment. If they can't ship, semiconductor fabs can't increase capacity to meet the demand and solve the shortage. We went line down last week due to shortage of a chip for our component. In reality, the shortage is somewhat self-inflicted, like toilet paper a year ag…

A negative feedback loop in semiconductor supply seems like a situation where a government should just step in manage the market a bit.

Just the opposite. Need to let people raise prices to encourage slack in the system. Let’s prices settle where chip makers can produce new chips.

There are market failures where the government needs to step in, but this isn’t one. Even with climate change (where they should step in) the government can’t get to the point of saying it’s ok for gas prices to be high.

We don’t want the government to pick winners and losers when it doesn’t need to.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's almost as if we would need to lean into this, reducing growth and producing fewer cars would be in line with efforts to mitigate the drivers of climate change. Newer cars pollute far less than old cars. > What if car manufacturers pivoted their KPIs and focused on making long-lasting, serviceable vehicles? They do make long-lasting, serviceable vehicles. Where have you been?

> Newer cars pollute far less than old cars. More cars pollute more than fewer cars.

>More cars pollute more than fewer cars.

It must be nice to live in a sunny place where you can walk or bike to work.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world, including that which services fancy "green" neighbourhoods, require vehicles.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#300
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JIT is probably the most mis-understood supply chain concept.

How?

Because people equal JIT with close to zero buffer inventory. JIT is basically a concept of defining the correct and minimal buffer. If that's close zero, cool. If it's more than zero, cool as well. It also puts a lot of emphasis on lot sizes and lead-times. No one in the right mind would implement JIT for stuff involving sea freight without buffer stock close to production.
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