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Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

reuters.com

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

#371

Post by newswasboring »

hutrdvnj wrote: post #137
kbaker wrote: post #114

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…

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…

You are literally defending unnecessary middlemen. They add no value, all they do is create artificial scarcity. If they didn't exist someone would have made use of the chip. Instead they hoard it. I don't understand why you find this ok behavior

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

#372

Post by polskibus »

hutrdvnj wrote: post #137
kbaker wrote: post #114

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…

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…

They are similar to a market maker but it's not the same. They are like predatory HFT, benefiting from fast information propagation. Most of the time the market would function well without them, with much less volatility in the price. In that sense, scalpers en masse are destabilizing the economy.

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

#373

Post by Swenrekcah »

medvezhenok wrote: post #241
Swenrekcah wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peopl…

Sure, I get all that but scalping is still in essences a leeching practice.

And yes they can suck up profits, that’s their whole thing. Are you saying that profits can’t exist in a functioning market?

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

#374

Post by hef19898 »

bsder wrote: post #332
hef19898 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then what? Just stockpile a year of everything? At every company along the supply chain? It is the first time in my life, professional in SCM and otherwise, that something like Covid and a global trade disruption happened together with a global shortage of one class of products. No way you for see or prepare for something like that. Hindsight in 20/20, just imagine the automotive OEMs would have gotten rid of the…

> And then what? Just stockpile a year of everything? Or run a fab. Fabless isn't a God-given right. Vertical integration is a thing. Vertical integration got a bad reputation because financial engineering dipshits like Carl Icahn would come in and strip mine your company for the single super profitable division and destroy the rest (see: Mesta Machinery).

Sure, that's a solution. Or own one as subsidiary. Not sure if would have really helped so, there were decisions to order less. Reasonable to assume that production at the own fans would have been ramped down as well.

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

#375

Post by hef19898 »

tuatoru wrote: post #348
hef19898 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toyota was among the last to be hit. Also, JIT is not having zero inventory. It is about having the right amount of inventory.

The conventional wisdom is that Toyota (and Honda, Nissan, etc.) learned the value of keeping buffer stocks after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake.

JIT always has some buffer, just smaller ones than in other models. True that Japanese manufacturers increased those after 2011.

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

#376

Post by 88840-8855 »

winkeltripel wrote: post #101
88840-8855 wrote: post #17

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, ro…

"right wing ideas"? You must be kidding me. Are you one of those valley hackers who changed his gender 300 times and who is only wearing pink runes to protect his/her/its aura?

Sorry, but not everything is "right wing", except ofc you are one of those "special kids".

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

#377

Post by manquer »

baybal2 wrote: post #129
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Taiwan would work too perhaps ? Maybe even South Korea/ Japan as well.

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

#378

Post by mrweasel »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #205
mrweasel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to buy a car without AC, but as it turns out that’s almost impossible. They had never imported that model without AC and the waiting time was pretty long, because they where not really built in large numbers. The models without AC mostly exist so they can produce ads saying “available from less than X“

What's the point of buying a car without A/C? You might save $1000 now, but you'll lose several thousand at trade-in time because no one else will want your car.

That depend on your country. I would save closer to $2500 on the budget model. Other than that you are completely right.

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

#379

Post by chrischen »

Smashure wrote: post #351
chrischen wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla dropped radar because they are moving to vision only systems like how the Comma AI/OpenPilot works. Vision models are superior to radar since radar can't detect stopped obstacles.

Radar can absolutely detect stationary objects. Your vehicle moving at 50 mph means a stationary object is moving at 50 mph relative to your radar.

Yea but they need to distinguish between the stationary objects that are inconsequential to the car.

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

#380

Post by xyzzyz »

drdeca wrote: post #313
TeMPOraL wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It seems to me like most of the (alleged) benefits of scalpers would be equally well achieved by selling (some fraction of) the items in auctions, instead of just picking a price. However, my impression is that consumers would view this in a negative light, and that the harms to the seller’s reputation would be enough to outweigh the initially increased income. This seems to be the source of the inefficiencies that s…

This is exactly how concert ticket scalpers work. Bands/producers covertly but with full awareness sell most of the ticket to scalpers, which outsources the reputation hit.
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