My car is on order. I ordered it weeks ago. It was scheduled for a "week 16" build, but was bumped to 18, and now week 21. Every lot around here is empty. No new car inventory anywhere. I realize it's the same deal everywhere.

Does this make sense to anybody? It does not to me. I assume some places shut down for a few weeks. I can't imagine much more than that, right? How can a chip shortage result, that lasts more than two years??

This is not a Pitch Your Bitch complaint. It's genuinely a question. Is this truly possible? For years?..

Did a chip plant burn down or something, and I missed it?

Leading up to the Winter Olympics, China had a zero-COVID policy in place. It hasn't even been 2 months since the winter olympics ended. Examples of major commerce impacts of dumbass zero COVID policy:

Last August, they made world news for closing the 3rd largest ports in the world over one (not a typo) worker getting sick.

They also closed down the busiest port, but not sure if it was as stupid as one case.

If they're willing to close down a port that affects an entire province then they're willing to close an individual computer chip plant.

I haven't been following COVID news for a long time, and Googling to write this I was surprised they still have the zero COVID policy. It's causing the busiest port int he world, Shanghai, to operate at 40% capacity.

---

Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

My rudimentary understanding is that the car makers panicked at the beginning of the Plandemic with a slowdown in sales and cancelled chip orders. When they realized they needed those chips it was to late, the chip makers already filled orders elsewhere. I had read that an individual chip takes 18 months to manufacture

Add in shutdowns in these Asian countries and you have a big problem

Also, it's not just chips, it's different parts besides chips. Supply chain. I have had built trucks sitting at the plants since September waiting on various parts and chips.

The whole Covid mess affected just about everything. I would imagine a chip for a vehicle passes through ALOT of hands before coming here so I can kinda get it.
Why not just make it here in the United States? Better question yet.

Intel is building a huge plant in OH I believe

Billions of our tax $$$ heading their way

Someone posted a thread here a few weeks ago about the two major neon suppliers in Ukraine shutting down as soon as the shooting started. They supply 50% of the world's industrial neon, which is used in the production of chips.

Google "Ukraine chip shortage" and read about Neon and palladium.

Neon shortage

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:
Intel is building a huge plant in OH I believe

Billions of our tax $$$ heading their way

I heard about that too, but it is for modern scale chip architectures and will not affect automakers current woes.

I guess if they canceled all of their supply orders, and the chip makers shucked them all over to someone else, but who in the hell could soak that supply bubble? That's a lot of X-Boxes.

It's amazing isn't it? I can't believe that you almost can't buy any new car today.

I waited over a year for a Graphics Card (essentially in a queue for the 'opportunity' to purchase one) from EVGA! There are MILLIONS of people still waiting!

No...NONE of this makes ANY sense!

Yes.

Chip shortage will continue for some time.

The production rate for semi-conductors is more or less fixed. No one will spin up an new factory to produce the kinds of semi-conductors that the auto industry needs. The tech is old and has limited future usefulness.

When the auto industry cancelled their chip orders at the beginning of the pandemic, chip manufacturers idled their plants or sold their production capacity to other buyers. Now that auto industry wants those chips again, there's no way for the chip industry to backfill that demand.

Basically, whatever chips were cancelled are gone. If the industry cancelled chips needed to make 500,000 cars, then the industry is just going to be short 500,000 until A) a new chip factory is spun up (not going to happen), B) cars are redesigned to be sold without those chips (happening, but slowly), or C) prices of cars go up due to limited supply, and demand for those 500,000 cars dwindles.

When they say that this chip shortage is going to last however many more months or years, they are projecting (C) above, not that the industry suddenly got their shit together and can make more chips. They're speculating that, 12 months from now, demand for vehicles will finally dwindle down to the point that current production capacity (supply) can meet it. Not that supply will increase to meet demand.

I think there are widespread shortages in components that are getting lumped into one bucket. For instance, the Porsche plant has recently slowed production since they source wiring harnesses from Ukraine.


--K

What is Ford doing different? In NoVA it seems like Ford dealerships have cars, but others do not. Ex Warrenton Toyota = sad, right next door Warrenton Ford = cars...though that was a few months ago, but still Toyota was basically single digits.

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
Did a chip plant burn down or something, and I missed it?

1. Yes, a chip plant burnt down in Japan. I think it came back online in the Fall of 2021.

2. When Covid hit, all the automakers cancelled their orders. At the same time, other demand for chips went up. Everyone stuck at home and ordered new computers and entertainment consoles. So the chip manufacturers switched to other chips. Switching back is hard because it is not like turning a switch, plus auto chips are the least profitable.

then... around Dec 2021/Jan 2022... the bleeding stopped. Production numbers began to stabilize.... at least it reached rockbottom.... until Putin invaded Ukraine.

Chip shortage, part 2.

3. Ukraine supplies roughly 50% of the neon gas in the world. Neon gas is used in lasers that etch pathways during chip production. Ukraine supplies roughly 40% of the Pallidium to the chip industry. Apparently, Ukraine also supplies a significant portion of the wiring harnesses that connect electrical stuff everywhere in a car.

4. China is going thru another massive Covid shutdown again. So many chips lost again.

Just to frame it some more, a conventional car needs roughly 1,500 chips. New hybrid/electric cars need double that, roughly 3,000 per car.

If Ukraine trips into hot WW3, forget about it.

Dave Bean

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
<snip?
B) cars are redesigned to be sold without those chips (happening, but slowly)
<snip>

So are we going to go back to crank-up windows, manual locks, no cruise control, and (gasp!!!) manual transmissions?

[/sarcasm]

quote:

Originally posted by RobLew:
What is Ford doing different? In NoVA it seems like Ford dealerships have cars, but others do not. Ex Warrenton Toyota = sad, right next door Warrenton Ford = cars...though that was a few months ago, but still Toyota was basically single digits.

Ford decided to keep production going and install the missing chips later. They did that for the F150, there are lots of them sitting in storage lots and some dealers. This was the first round strategy. Many of the cars you see cannot be delivery to the customer because they were missing important chips related to the safe operation of the car. They are still catching up with that batch

Round 2 - Now Ford (and I think GM) will manage shortage. They priortized chip manufacturing to important systems. For example, they will deliver n F150 with chips for the engine, brakes and traction control installed. However, the heated seats and heated steering wheels related chips will be installed later, the purchasers have to bring it back to the dealership to have the chips installed.

^^^ Yes.

Plus a chip fab is not something you just shut down and start back up. Arbitrary shutdowns due COVID, loss of workers, loss of technical experts, and slowing or stopping of production can result it in taking a very long time to get back up to full production with acceptable yields. If they didn't shut things down correctly, they may have a hell of a time just getting the internal fab environment back to necessary levels.

The short answer is the folly of stupid government people and their need to "do something" about something that nothing can really be done about leads to all kinds of negative direct and indirect effects throughout the entire economy. Or worse, their need to prevent a crisis from going to waste to do things they normally could not do, requires a whole lot of stupid to cover what they are really doing.

China now has nearly universal tracking of their population by positively ID'ed mobile devices linked to personal health. You can't do shit without a phone that says you are allowed to go somewhere via the required vaccination and testing results. No doubt this will be used to monitor a lot of other things in the future and control the people even further. So it would seem they will the "zero COVID" mandate as long as possible until their tracking/control objectives are fully in place.

Xi wants to be Mao. He also wants to be Big Brother. He is succeeding at both.

Makes it look even more likely there was some deliberate action by China in all this.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
B) cars are redesigned to be sold without those chips (happening, but slowly)

I might just be a Luddite but I really miss the simplicity of cars of years ago. As an example my sons learned to maintain and respect a vehicle on a Dodge Dart slant 6.

Today's vehicles have not only electronic engine management computers but damned near some chip based electronics for everything else including features that I frankly question the need for. In my view they've gone too far, so redesigning to remove a lot of the electronics would be a welcome change in my mind.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
B) cars are redesigned to be sold without those chips (happening, but slowly)

I might just be a Luddite but I really miss the simplicity of cars of years ago. My sons learned to maintain and respect a vehicle on Dodge Dart slant 6.

Today's vehicles have not only electronic engine management computers but damned near some chip based electronics for everything else. In my view they've gone too far, so redesigning to remove a lot of the electronics would be a welcome change in my mind.

You can't meet Fuel Economy, Emissions, and Safety regulations without all the electronics. Blame the federal government for all the mandates. It's not going to decline, it will continue to get more complex.

Thankfully LED lighting is becoming the standard, which at least reduces wire gauges, weight, heat, current draw, alternator load, etc. and frees up power for the other electronics.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
You can't meet Fuel Economy, Emissions, and Safety regulations without all the electronics. Blame the federal government for all the mandates. It's not going to decline, it will continue to get more complex.

I know you're right but I still can't help but think there is a lot of superfluous "stuff" in today's vehicles that could be eliminated. I can parallel park myself as an example.