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Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

bbc.com

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

#431

Post by Unklejoe »

Veliladon wrote: post #7

Toyota was one of the few (only?) companies to keep a large stockpile of chips on hand to continue production in case of a supply interruption. They kept something like two years worth on hand. I guess 18 months of doing the extremely heavy lifting for the whole industry has taken its toll and now they're in the same boat.

I just wonder how deep this goes down the line of third party suppliers. Like, I know a lot of auto manufacturers use Bosch or Siemens for their ECUs, so I would think it’s really out of their hands. Then again, maybe they have terms in the contract to force Bosch to maintain a certain inventory?

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

#432

Post by Kye »

jvanderbot wrote: post #417
Scoundreller wrote: post #328

Many countries have a funny concept of strategic industries. In mine, dairy is a strategic industry that is coddled by government so that we can have a local source. But every country thinks that so there’s foes and allies that can supply us UHT or powder milk on a moment’s notice. And if our milk supply disappeared tomorrow, everyone over 1y could substitute with 10000000 different things for nutrition. Cars are ano…

How much would it cost to set up TSMC inside US borders? One president cycle? 4 F-35s? One SLS? A nuclear submarine? According to this page, sorting by cost, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat... the most expensive fab is 33 Giga$. TSMC is 17G$. pennies on the dollar in our 1-3Trillion infrastructure bill. Make america fab again. EDIT: it appears this is in the 2T infrastructure bill. https:…

Isn't TSMC working on expanding into the US?

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

#433

Post by phreeza »

jvanderbot wrote: post #417
Scoundreller wrote: post #328

Many countries have a funny concept of strategic industries. In mine, dairy is a strategic industry that is coddled by government so that we can have a local source. But every country thinks that so there’s foes and allies that can supply us UHT or powder milk on a moment’s notice. And if our milk supply disappeared tomorrow, everyone over 1y could substitute with 10000000 different things for nutrition. Cars are ano…

How much would it cost to set up TSMC inside US borders? One president cycle? 4 F-35s? One SLS? A nuclear submarine? According to this page, sorting by cost, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat... the most expensive fab is 33 Giga$. TSMC is 17G$. pennies on the dollar in our 1-3Trillion infrastructure bill. Make america fab again. EDIT: it appears this is in the 2T infrastructure bill. https:…

I assume that is if you already have the know-how. Starting from (almost) scratch would require more upfront work, right?

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

#434

Post by imtringued »

kube-system wrote: post #342
abfan1127 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Federal Reserve hardly responds to market conditions. Their free and open printing of money is arguably the greatest risk to our economy. Milton Friedman has great resources on this, including a video series from the 1970s (based on clothing alone) called Free to Choose. Its on Youtube, amongst other places.

Natural boom-and-bust cycles are a huge risk to economies as well, despite the fact that they're natural and don't have anyone for which we can point a finger at.

I don't know what you mean by "natural boom and bust cycles" but credit cycles and other financial cycles are just a property of the money system. Alternative money systems do not have this property.

The cycles only make sense because people like and want them. I.e. they love the scarcity of money. For example, in a depression the return on money is greater than the return on labor, people logically flock to money rather than labor even though real wealth is eroding as people stop working.

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

#435

Post by throwawaygh »

diveandfight wrote: post #427
throwawaygh wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, I never thought about what are the strategic industries, when voting. You're clearly not a dairy producer in Wisconsin, a military contractor in Virginia/Maryland, or a property owner in Southern Pines, NC.

Is there something uniquely strategic about property owners in Southern Pines?? If anything, based on my knowledge, military contractors would be the strategic play down there (just as in VA/MD).

Camp Mackall, Fort Bragg, the complex around those two, and an officer corps/civilian contractor base that enjoys golf.

I was just giving it as an example of how whole tertiary industries that aren't directly part of the military-industrial complex will none-the-less vote (R) like their lifestyle depends on it, and for the same reason as contractors.

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

#436

Post by huge87 »

mywittyname wrote: post #418
sonthonax wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that still true now?

Yes. One scary fact that I learned is that, in war games between China and the USA, China almost always wins due to superior production capacity. Those $100B American battle carriers and $40MM advanced fighter jets can be taken out by $50,000 rockets/missiles produced at a rate of hundreds or thousands per day.

This is in line with my intuitions; do you have any sources so I can read more?

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

#437

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

itsoktocry wrote: post #282
rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #23

On one hand, Toyota buys so many chips that their supplier will probably prioritize their orders. On the other hand, Tesla is tiny compared to Toyota but is probably more flexible and can adapt faster, e.g by using alt chips with new firmware and by using fewer chips per vehicles (to be proven, but we know Model Y has half the number of ECUs of Mach E / ID.4 for instance). Also, without dealers, Tesla could better ma…

> to push customers towards high margin vehicles Wait, isn't this what people tell us is wrong with dealerships, and why the Tesla method is superior?

Not a sales method, just raising price on the cheapest models. I meant pull not push.

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

#438

Post by jccooper »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #75
Veliladon wrote: post #7

Toyota was one of the few (only?) companies to keep a large stockpile of chips on hand to continue production in case of a supply interruption. They kept something like two years worth on hand. I guess 18 months of doing the extremely heavy lifting for the whole industry has taken its toll and now they're in the same boat.

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.

No; it would be illegal in every major market, which if nothing else all require some sort of on-board diagnostics system. OBD has been required in California since 1988. India just recently required OBD on everything.

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

#439

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaygh wrote: post #428
robotresearcher wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t positive feedback require a positive loop gain? Right now, not enough chips are available to make new chips. So the loop gain is less than zero, damping the output recursively.

I'm also confused by the confusion here... probably naive pattern matching? Reminds me of TAing undergrad courses where you could get more than half the class to confuse "positive feedback" and "negative feedback" on a midterm by just giving examples where stability = bad :)

[deleted]

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

#440

Post by jvanderbot »

phreeza wrote: post #433
jvanderbot wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much would it cost to set up TSMC inside US borders? One president cycle? 4 F-35s? One SLS? A nuclear submarine? According to this page, sorting by cost, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat... the most expensive fab is 33 Giga$. TSMC is 17G$. pennies on the dollar in our 1-3Trillion infrastructure bill. Make america fab again. EDIT: it appears this is in the 2T infrastructure bill. https:…

I assume that is if you already have the know-how. Starting from (almost) scratch would require more upfront work, right?

The US isn't starting from scratch. And presumably the total cost includes all the R&D cycles. TSMC was started by a Texas Instruments employee.

But, if we assume they were, just double the cost as a sign-on bonus for all the engineers and poach away.

This is problem that can be solved with money, and not a lot of it in the grand scheme of things.

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