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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%

#691

Post by sonthonax »

shadowgovt wrote: post #398
sonthonax wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that still true now?

Great question. It's still doctrinally true (i.e. governments believe it is true; it was one of the reasons cited for the US federal government buying key stake in domestic auto manufacturers instead of letting them go bankrupt during the real estate market crash), but whether light and heavy armor is actually of military worth in an era of drones and air power is a question I don't have the military training or know…

I'm unsure whether you can still retool an automotive factory to produce war materiel. During WWII Ford automotive plants produced aircraft, but back then the construction techniques needed to build a bomber weren't all together different from a car (think larger engines and chassis).

> whether light and heavy armor is actually of military worth in an era of drones and air power is a question I don't have the military training or knowledge to answer.

On this point, it obviously depends on what kind of war we're fighting. The British used unarmoured and open top Land Rovers with 50cals mounted on the rear for the first few years in Afghanistan until the government got its act together (they looked cool, but were IED death traps). There's a similar story with the Humvee.

Nonetheless, civilian style vehicles had their use.

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

#692

Post by a9h74j »

a9h74j wrote: post #584
robotresearcher wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grandparent gives the choices of ‘positive exponent growing against time’ or ‘negative exponent damping out against time’. Here we have a positive exponent damping (reducing) the output over time, because it’s value is less than one, resulting in a negative loop gain. The Wikipedia article linked up thread defines positive feedback as having positive loop gain, and negative feedback negative loop gain.

IIRC, generally a positive loop gain greater than one will lead to diverging behavior aka instability, whereas even a positive-sign to feedback, if loop gain is "less than one" will not. I might be brain-farting here, but I cannot be precise anyway, which IIRC gets into plotting poles in a complex plane. (Cue joke my applied math professor would tell, about why all the Polish people were asked to sit in the right-han…

Self-reply: Not a derogatory reference. Just: "Poles in the left half-plane cause instability."

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

#693

Post by randomswede »

robotresearcher wrote: post #415
a9h74j wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does have negative external effects, as you observe, in the sense of a viscious circle. But even a viscious circle, mathematically, has positive feedback, resulting initially in a positive exponent growing against time, not a negative exponent damping out in time.

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 have always understod "positive feedback" as "feedback that prompts the existing change to continue in the same direction, with equal or larger speed".

So positive feedback on a falling signal would tend to make it drop more. And positive feedback on a rising signal would cause it to rise more.

So, basically, for any signal S at time t, we would expect something like S(t+1) = S(t) + S'(t) * k, for some k > 0. And blatantly abusing derivatives for "should probably be a delta between S(t) and S(t-1)".

But, then, I am not a control theory specialist, I don't even play one on TV.

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

#694

Post by throwaway0a5e »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #609
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The edge between manufacturers in any given measurable attribute of vehicle performance is far, far smaller than a bunch of screeching fanboys on the internet would have you believe. If it weren't you'd see far less diversity of vehicles on the road. The humvee is also used by militaries all around the world. It's not known for particularly great reliability. Militaries have a much difference set of objectives when i…

While there might be a slight effect of Toyotas being used less intensively because disproportionally higher income people buy them, I doubt it is a material effect. The people that are not going to put pavers in their car because they can afford not to and want to keep it nice are buying Denali Yukons or other more expensive, luxury vehicles. Toyota did not start expensive, and even now it is not the most expensive…

>While there might be a slight effect of Toyotas being used less intensively because disproportionally higher income people buy them, I doubt it is a material effect.

It is a very massive material effect.

>The people that are not going to put pavers in their car because they can afford not to and want to keep it nice are buying Denali Yukons or other more expensive, luxury vehicles.

That's exactly the point.

Look at how the Eddie Baur trim 90s Fords SUVs were/are over-represented on the used market for a very long time. They didn't get rode hard and put away wet like the lower trim ones. Look at the market for used GM sedans. The Caddys are pretty much always in better shape at a given age than their downmarket equivalents.

The difference is that Toyota, because of their unwillingness to readily offer good financing and incentives (driving up the effective "out the door" cost) ensures that the buyers of their vehicles are wealthier than those of comparable brands. Even at low price points this holds. You don't see a lot of Echos and Yaris's street parked in low rent neighborhoods whereas the Soul, Sentra and Focus are staples.

Other brands have the same effect going on (Volvo is a good example) but Toyota's is massive and they lean into it much more than anyone else.

>Toyota did not start expensive,

It has always been expensive, at least as far back as the 80s. Compare MSRPs to comparable cars from the domestics.

>the resale market does not show any evidence of the quality slipping.

The market is based on consumer perceptions that are driven mostly by out of doubt hearsay. It is unwise to trust the market to show much of anything.

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

#695

Post by bluGill »

lkbm wrote: post #674
bluGill wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah. That might work out, but my investments are diversified more. I have real estate in the form of my house. I have stocks and bonds in my 401k. I have government in my social security. They are completely separate, so if any one fails I'm still okay. (well if the government fails I'm probably in trouble no matter what, but social security is limited at best)

Is this US real estate, US stocks, US bonds, and US social security? :-) I've tried to diversify to more international mutual funds, but they also tend to have higher fees.

My 401k does have some international funds. While it is good to have a bit, they are as you say higher fees and so not always a good investment.

I'm not sure they are really diversification though. The major US companies have a lot of international exposure already so you don't gain much diversification. And of course they don't really protect you from a collapse of the US government (odds are either they are hit as well, or you can't prove you own them anymore)

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

#696

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

UseStrict wrote: post #246
ghaff wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and might be more reliable in general Cars in, say, the 1960s were not "more reliable in general." It's not all semiconductor-related of course--they also rusted out quickly in areas that got snow--but 5 years/50K miles is about what you were looking at for vehicle lifetime. Also much lower fuel efficiency, to say nothing of lack of what we'd consider routine safety features today.

Vehicles made a massive leap forward with the introduction of electronic components - fuel injection, oxygen sensors, throttle control. Not to mention essential safety components like traction control computers and anti-lock braking. There's no way a vehicle without these features would pass any sort of environmental or safety regulation today.

have you see the rust belt in the US? lot of junk that doesnt pass emissions test. my truck included.

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

#697

Post by acdha »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #245
acdha wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve taken my son on an e-bike daily since he was 11 months old - he loves it compared to being in the car. There are a range of products on the market handling up to 4 kids and with creature comforts like rain shields. I use one of these: https://yubabikes.com/cargobikestore/electric-boda-boda/ A relative uses one of these in the Boston area, year round: https://www.ternbicycles.com/us/bikes/472/gsd A friend loves t…

For anyone with a small commute I’d recommend this too. Our Yuba (spicy curry) has around 3000km on it over 2.5 years, is going strong, and I’ll still be commuting ~30km per week over the next year with it taking my 4 year old to daycare then going to work. I’ll likely continue commuting with him on it to kindergarten and perhaps early grade school. It wasn’t cheap initially ($7000 CAD), but the cost per km drops eno…

Seconding everything you wrote, especially “It’s a major quality of life improvement for us”. When we visit friends & family who live in typical car-centric neighborhoods we’re reminded of just how much time they spend sitting in cars, which is especially rough on kids. The bigger house & yard just doesn’t seem worth an extra couple hours a day sitting strapped into a car seat.

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

#698

Post by bumby »

wincy wrote: post #548
bumby wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Government can't make a website, let alone a chip fab. Tbf, many (most?) government websites are built and maintained by private companies. Remember the ACA website debacle a few years back? The government was mad at the contractor for building a shoddy product. They claimed they would take action against them but I’m not sure anything happened. If the government should be held to task on anything it should be an i…

Anecdotal, I know, but the saddest interview I’ve ever done was a state government web developer. I was writing a js on the whiteboard, setting up a problem that started something like var a = 1; a = 2; Before I got any further they blurted out “that’s false! The second line is false” and this was someone who had been writing production code for the government for the last five years. I honestly just felt really bad…

I wonder how much of this is due to being forced to select lowest bid contractors.

I’ve seen some orgs rely on rely bad programmers because they were relatively cheap. Programmers who make changes on the fly in meetings to live production systems or say their test plan is to push it to production and just wait for customers to send in work tickets when they encounter a bug. Or blatantly lie about feasibility because they would prefer to work in an antiquated framework rather than learn a new one.

The govt owns some responsibility for lack of technical oversight but I can’t help but think a lot of it is due to business contracting incentives.

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

#699

Post by bumby »

Causality1 wrote: post #679
bumby wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for clarifying, although I disagree that a collapse of family run farms (while bad) is worse than scarcity of food, both at the personal and national security level. I personally wouldn’t want the government to necessarily optimize for “number of family farms” at the expense of other concerns

That's a false dichotomy. The choice isn't between food scarcity and food waste but between a normal industry and decades of enormous waste. Experts were complaining about the subsidies damaging the dairy industry all the way back in 1983 yet those same subsidies are still here forty years later. The US government is happy to smash a problem with a hammer made of other peoples' money but they have zero ability to for…

I’m not claiming a dichotomy in that family farms and food abundance cannot coexist; I’m saying you are using a metric (family farms) that is not the intended goal (national food security). So again, I’m asking what is the better alternative for implementing subsidies?

I don’t know if we’re just talking past each other, but it’s hard to make sense of your stance. If you think subsidies are a viable solution to some problems but the US govt can’t manage subsidies, are you implying the US should not use subsidies, even on the problems they would solve? If so, can you elaborate on govts that have used subsidies to solve similar problems by better implementation? When govt is, by definition, who wields subsidies these are difficult points to reconcile.

Pointing out less than perfect implementation isn’t really helpful unless you can figure out a way to improve it. Just saying “the govt is inept” isn’t helpful when they are literally the only organization who provides subsidies.

I don’t disagree with the problems you point out but they come across as flippant “see!? See how bad the govt is!?” Dogmatic axioms might make someone feel good without actually addressing the problem.

I’ll give an example. I think subsidies need to have clear metrics to measure effectiveness and sunset clauses. This would help prevent things like alpaca subsidies meant to assist in the Korean War somehow staying in place until the mid 1990s.

The point of the subsidies was national security, not “protecting the family farmer” or “minimizing food waste.” To that end, they worked.

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

#700

Post by tharne »

Crazy idea: make cars that don't rely on microchips and software. As a bonus, they'll probably last longer, be cheaper to repair, and won't distract drivers as much.

There is software in too many consumer goods, usually with very little benefit to the end user, beyond marketing and being able to justify a higher price tag (oooh, it's a "smart" toaster). I don't need the Toyota equivalent of an iPad on my dashboard.

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