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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

#461

Post by ashtonkem »

newsclues wrote: post #457
ashtonkem wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car screens are built to different tolerances than cell phones. In particular they must survive a much more harsh environment than most other consumer electronics. This is precisely why the first Tesla screens were so shocking in their size and so unreliable; when Elon Musk found out that he couldn’t get auto screens that large he demanded they use consumer screens, which yellowed and failed due to the heat cars are…

I’m not referring to the big screens but the replacement of buttons and knobs with multiple small ones. Like putting touch screens on the steering wheel!

How many vehicles do that though? I can only think of Tesla, and they’re already pretty notoriously unreliable straight from the factory. All of the vehicles I’ve been in, including at trade shows, had physical buttons for most of the vehicle functions, and touch screens for secondary and tertiary operations.

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

#462

Post by cwkoss »

nosianu wrote: post #307
cwkoss wrote: post #303

Is there a DIY chip fabrication scene? What is the cutting edge of what hobbyists are doing in their own garages?

That was actually a post here on HN just a few weeks ago. Here's one "point of entry" (to find the homepage and similar videos and pages): https://youtu.be/IS5ycm7VfXg "Upgraded Homemade Silicon Chips"

This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks for sharing!

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

#463

Post by Retric »

roenxi wrote: post #454
Retric wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the math works fine. Ignoring baggage fees and first class vs catch etc. If you have a flight with 300 identical seats and you could sell everyone single one of them for say 100$ and that’s your maximum possible revenue from a single price point. Now the question becomes how do you capture value from people willing to pay more than 100$? You can play some games with round trip tickets and minimum stays, but again…

You're running in to a pretty fundamental problem with the maths here - if we have Retric-Air and Roenxi-Air, Roenxi-Air is going to be making more money because my plan is to copy your plan then sell a couple of extra $100 cheap tickets to fill the plane up. Your strategy is completely dominated by a strategy that just does that and sells a few more tickets. You're segmenting the market, I'm segmenting the market an…

> copy your plan then sell a couple of extra $100 cheap tickets to fill the plane up.

How and or when exactly to you plan to sell those tickets?

Do it after the price hike and people will just wait.

Do it before and you need to see the future to know how many seats will eventually be sold otherwise you just traded a 400$ ticket for a 100$ ticket. It’s no more a viable option than suggesting it’s easy to win the lottery just pick the correct numbers.

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

#465

Post by newsclues »

ashtonkem wrote: post #461
newsclues wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not referring to the big screens but the replacement of buttons and knobs with multiple small ones. Like putting touch screens on the steering wheel!

How many vehicles do that though? I can only think of Tesla, and they’re already pretty notoriously unreliable straight from the factory. All of the vehicles I’ve been in, including at trade shows, had physical buttons for most of the vehicle functions, and touch screens for secondary and tertiary operations.

Ferrari is the only one I can remember but it’s a trend car reviewers have negatively remarked upon

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

#466

Post by roenxi »

Retric wrote: post #463
roenxi wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're running in to a pretty fundamental problem with the maths here - if we have Retric-Air and Roenxi-Air, Roenxi-Air is going to be making more money because my plan is to copy your plan then sell a couple of extra $100 cheap tickets to fill the plane up. Your strategy is completely dominated by a strategy that just does that and sells a few more tickets. You're segmenting the market, I'm segmenting the market an…

> copy your plan then sell a couple of extra $100 cheap tickets to fill the plane up. How and or when exactly to you plan to sell those tickets? Do it after the price hike and people will just wait. Do it before and you need to see the future to know how many seats will eventually be sold otherwise you just traded a 400$ ticket for a 100$ ticket. It’s no more a viable option than suggesting it’s easy to win the lotte…

I agree with the logic; it would need to be before. I'd use statistics and a team of actuarial types to try and get the numbers right. It wouldn't be perfect, nothing ever is.

Your strategy has the same problem - you have to predict how many last minute travellers there are too. If you just leave an unnecessary buffer then the strategy fails. The one of us who does a better job of putting exactly 100 bodies in 100 seats - none left over - is going to have a more profitable airline. That is somewhat core to the argument us pedant capitalists make.

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

#467

Post by Retric »

roenxi wrote: post #466
Retric wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> copy your plan then sell a couple of extra $100 cheap tickets to fill the plane up. How and or when exactly to you plan to sell those tickets? Do it after the price hike and people will just wait. Do it before and you need to see the future to know how many seats will eventually be sold otherwise you just traded a 400$ ticket for a 100$ ticket. It’s no more a viable option than suggesting it’s easy to win the lotte…

I agree with the logic; it would need to be before. I'd use statistics and a team of actuarial types to try and get the numbers right. It wouldn't be perfect, nothing ever is. Your strategy has the same problem - you have to predict how many last minute travellers there are too. If you just leave an unnecessary buffer then the strategy fails. The one of us who does a better job of putting exactly 100 bodies in 100 se…

I completely agree they would try and maximize revenue by selling as close to the correct amount of tickets as possible.

It’s just the math works out so on the margin having even slightly better than a 1 in 4 chance of selling at 4x the prices is a net gain. Suppose their reserving 50 seats and have a 26% chance of selling all 50, only a 50% chance of selling 20 or more.

That means on 1/2 of flights their intentionally flying with 30 or more empty seats, but reserving even 49 seats rather than 50 loses them money.

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

#468

Post by Grakel »

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…

Completely agree and it's because they don't want to make great cars they want to make profit on add-ons.

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

#469

Post by mensetmanusman »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #459
mensetmanusman wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For driving indoors.

I'm trying to think of a case where regular passenger cars are driven in climate-controlled indoor settings, and I'm not having much success. What do you have in mind?

Teslas in the Las Vegas hyper loop.

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

#470

Post by mendigou »

lvl100 wrote: post #430
mendigou wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of us affected think it's very true. There are 60-70 million cars sold worldwide each year and many chips of different kinds in each. If you have some deeper insight it'd be great to share it.

What we are seeing is basically hoarding across the board and pandemic-induced manufacturing disruptions. And suppliers are going along with it because they make substantially more profit in this situation. This notion that car manufacturers are responsible for halting the entire world for chips is simply a narrative to hide what’s really happening. Even if car mfgs cut production due to pandemic miscalculations, tha…

Nothing new here. We are all stockpiling components because we have no idea what the market will look like in the coming months, and that is causing further market distortions.

However, one of the largest triggers for this madness was the miscalculation by the car industry that had an effect on a large portion of chip factories.

Even the comment linked in the parent acknowledges that it's not all about car manufacturing, it's the ensuing madness (that they caused in large part) that is making it worse.

Your comment clashes directly with the reality of multiple car plants closing or slowing down considerably due to the shortage.

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