[HN Gopher] Jaguar Land Rover to suspend output due to chip shor... ___________________________________________________________________ Jaguar Land Rover to suspend output due to chip shortage Author : jchrisa Score : 279 points Date : 2021-04-23 16:51 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bbc.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com) | intergalplan wrote: | Not relevant to production of consumer vehicles under a temporary | shortage of high-tech parts (though, under a longer-term | shortage, it might be) but the Soviets had an interesting | approach to high-tech dependencies in their military equipment: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_variants_of_Soviet_mili... | | I first encountered the idea of "Monkey Models" in Suvorov's book | (referenced on that page). | | The TL;DR is that the Soviets would design their equipment with | the best high-tech sensors, weapons, countermeasures, et c., that | they could reasonably manage, _but also_ design the equipment to | function with much simpler parts & manufacturing processes. So a | high-tech Soviet tank might have an electronic targeting system, | but also be designed to work with a simpler glass-and-steel | rangefinder that could be built with relatively simple tools, in | a half-decent machine shop shed. They might fit their best models | with advanced armor plating, but design a variant that replaced | all that with a little extra steel. They'd do this with | practically everything, including aircraft. | | Why? Multiple reasons: 1) it let them export "new" equipment to | allies and puppet-states at a lower cost and in much greater | quantities, by selling them "monkey models" with much of the | high-tech gear & parts swapped for low-tech counterparts (older | generations of top-end gear would be sent to the closest | allies/puppets or, more often, to domestic reserve units, in a | kind of tiered system), 2) since most of the Soviet gear the West | encountered was in direct or proxy wars with Soviet ally, client, | or puppet states, the West couldn't gain much insight into the | actual capabilities of modern Soviet equipment, 3) so-equipped | allies would be starved of gear that could threaten the actual | Soviet military, in case they became adversaries, 4) less- | advanced allies could more easily maintain gear without so much | high-tech junk in it, and 5) perhaps most importantly, it gave | the Soviets a kind of supply-line defense-in-depth--they had not | only designed these weapon systems so they could be built (as | weaker versions) without high-tech manufacturing, but _practiced | doing it_. In the event of a shooting war with, say, the US, the | Soviets could keep shipping (inferior, but much better than | nothing) tanks & aircraft to the front lines even if all their | high-tech facilities were bombed out of existence and they lost | access to advanced materials (say, high-tech armor material), | with hardly a hiccup. | sudosysgen wrote: | I knew about the monkey models from Iraq, but I never made the | connection to supply chain resiliency and wartime production. | Thanks for the new perspective! | bluesquared wrote: | Most comments I've seen on this and other related articles on HN | are too focused on the high-end chips doing fancy stuff. There | are not only supply constraints on these sorts of high-compute | chips, but also big shortages on practically all ICs in general. | | I'm a hardware engineer for a medical device company, and we've | been dealing with supply constraints not only with our MCUs but | other ICs like high-side power switches, LDOs, memory, and more. | It's tough when we're low volume (a few thousand a year) and the | huge automakers and other huge consumer electronics giants are | gobbling up all the parts. | _huayra_ wrote: | Do medical devices and auto tech use similar components? I | understand there's a lot in common, but I would think that | safety constraints for one domain would cause it to not overlap | with the other. | | Forgive my ignorance on this, as I am but a humble software | engineer who is forever in amazement at how all ICs are | basically flattened rocks we shoot lightning through to make it | do math real dang quick... | _pmf_ wrote: | Sometimes, automotive components are just better QA'd | (validated) regular components. | Exmoor wrote: | One would assume (or hope) that medical device components | are also QA'd to at least the standard of automotive | components. | wishysgb wrote: | well they are completely different standards. you | wouldn't expect a medical device inside a human body to | operate at 130C | jononor wrote: | One of the most common additional requirements on | automotive parts is extended range, often below -20 C and | above 70 C. That is often not relevant for medical | products which operate only inside, near room | temperatures. | treeman79 wrote: | Walked into an ice rink. | | They measured kids temperature. 107 degrees. | | After much confusion as to why the healthy looking child, | and that no I wasn't rushing her to the ER, they finally | figured out that for head scanners don't work right at 20 | degrees. | | The solution of course was to have someone sit on it when | not in use. | | A week later no more temperature scans. | cronix wrote: | And then there's also the vibration issue. I don't think | most medical devices need to stand up to continuous | vibrations like you'd have in an auto engine. If they are | not soldered well, eventually things can loosen up and | fall off, or minimally just break contact. I think the | car industry is closer to the aero/space industry than | medical industry. | digikata wrote: | In addition to the other good comments regarding | medical/automotive overlap, is that often those chip lines | have long lifecycle commitments built into them - ie. we | promise to make this set of parts for at least 10 years. For | both both of those customer areas, not having to redesign | your boards and recertify devices on an external timeline is | of value. | bluesquared wrote: | Often yes. "Medical devices" covers a large array of products | from in-vitro/small implantable to things similar to | laboratory equipment (think patient monitoring) or industrial | (MRI and the like, autoclaves, etc). "Safety" is not really | achieved on a per-component basis, but as a sum of the parts. | | As for other comments in this thread, depending on your | device, it can see a great deal of thermal stress (steam | autoclaves) or vibration (MRI), and not all components in | autos are experiencing the total vibrations from internal | combustion engines. I've typically designed in components | with extended temperature ranges, most commonly 85C+ or even | 125C. This increases the reliability and extends the life of | your product. | | "Automotive-grade" typically means extra lot testing, and | some parameters may vary in the datasheet due to the way the | parts were validated by the manufacturer, even though they're | technically the same part. For instance, I am using a Texas | Instruments part that became nearly impossible to source. I | had the automotive version in my bill of materials because at | time of the design, it was the only version out. An | alternative made by TI looked like a good fit, but a few key | parameters in the datasheet didn't quite line up. It was | because the automotive was tested at like 13.8V input whereas | the newer "industrial" part was tested with 24V and slightly | different loads. Same exact component, tested slightly | differently. | blihp wrote: | Similar but not the same. There is an insane variety of | _nearly_ identical MCUs, for example. For an otherwise | identical part, you can often get it in half a dozen or more | packages. (i.e. the chip has different physical form factors | in terms of how it attaches to the PCB, pin type and spacing | etc... but the actual die inside is the same) Then there are | subtle variants for a given MCU (differing types | /amounts/speeds of RAM/Flash/interfaces etc.) The matrix of | variants quickly gets out of hand. It's probably easily | 10-50x (depending on the part) the number of variants | Intel/AMD come out with each year. The autos also typically | use parts with an extended temperature range. | steve_b wrote: | For the subtle variants, I believe it's how they price | discriminate. It's all the same part, but they use fuses to | disable various peripherals. Way easier to do that than to | fabricate a whole bunch of different chips. | cossray wrote: | Since January of this year, I have been waiting for a certain | MCU (STM32F042K6T6) to be available but still no luck. I get | the bigger picture now: there's a shortage at the source. I | have to move fast and secure a stock of the rest of the ICs, | otherwise this supply-chain issue can be disastrous to small | hardware companies. | cushychicken wrote: | I'm convinced that, if in-person IEEE meetups were still a | thing right now, you could drop a tray of ST Micro chips in | the middle of the meeting and watch it devolve into a | fistfight in seconds. | | The chip shortage right now is _rough_. | joezydeco wrote: | We need thousands, and we need them in humidity-sealed | trays. A handful thrown on a table isn't enough. | zafka wrote: | Hi, My email is in profile. Also in Med devices, and always | looking to talk to others in the field. | Kliment wrote: | Hey, if you need help finding replacements I might be able to | help - I've literally been doing mostly this for customers | since January. It's absolute bullshit and I've never seen this | before in all my time in this industry. | | email in my profile. | baybal2 wrote: | Automakers are far from giant, and over the time their BOMs | actually shrank for most mainstream, high volume cars. | | Corollas are remarkable how "dumb" they are despite seemed | electronic sophistication. | | Automotive IC market aside from car only parts looks rather | random. | | You may have $100 mil spec(r) parts sitting besides 10C/ parts, | and doin essentially the same due to regulatory, and market | peculiarities. | turbinerneiter wrote: | We recently tried to get 150pc of the same uC that's on the | teensy 3.6 - no chance. Luckily we weren't bound to the exact | model and could substitute for a pin compatible model with | different flash sizes and without a certain feature. | | Then I had to design a board because a simple 5 to 12 V boost | converter from TI became unobtainium. | | We are a prototype shop and do quantities of 10 and less most | of the time. | sircastor wrote: | I saw Paul S (who makes the Teensy) posted recently that he's | having trouble sourcing some components. | | I'm projecting that a hobby project I make is going to be | delayed by not being able to get the LDO I worked into the | design. I'm contemplating switching out the component for | something a little more common. (AP2112 for an LM1117 for | anyone who's interested) | WanderPanda wrote: | It's sad seeing the price inelasticity causing a decreasing | productivity in this way. I hope this is a lesson for all | future considerations combining JIT with price inelastic | goods | dv_dt wrote: | I think thats two factors. One, the analog chip manufacturers | that deal with power ICs have been consolidating, and two the | power outages in Texas hit a number of foundries that tend to | focus on embedded parts. | Kliment wrote: | It's more than that. I explained this last time someone | asked, here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26842924 | gumby wrote: | What I (foolishly) hadn't realized until I saw it in EE Times the | other day: the shortage is in parts built on older tech (e.g. | larger feature size). These factories don't produce the high | margin parts so investment in them has lagged. | | Allegedly you can bring up a fab large node (still sub micron) in | just 4-5 months -- there's a lot of surplus / used gear out | there, but will anyone bother (try might not earn back your cap | ex). | digikata wrote: | Someone with the right background and contacts should put it | together, I think the smart move there is to not only plan on | selling chips into regular markets, but to get into talks with | customers to become a guaranteed supplier that derisks | correlated shortages from other sources. | gumby wrote: | One problem is the car companies have such razor thin margins | that investing for them specifically is pretty bad. They are | literally shaving pennies here and there on the backs of | their suppliers, which reminds me of the (physical) toy and | game business. | | It's no wonder there was inadequate response from their | supply chain. | digikata wrote: | There is a reason penny wise and pound foolish is an | enduring saying. | speedgoose wrote: | It seems that the Jaguar I-Pace production is not stopped. It is | produced by Magna and not Jaguar but perhaps it gets priority on | the parts. | wmf wrote: | So few i-Paces are sold that maybe it's no big deal. | speedgoose wrote: | In my country they sold about 400 of them in 2021 so far. | Which is the best seller for Jaguar Land Rover by a huge | margin. | pmichaud wrote: | Is there a good article around that explains the specific | semiconductor bottlenecks everyone is facing right now? I'd like | to know more. It seems like a huge opportunity, but also I am | guessing it's a very hard or impossible problem since it hasn't | already been solved by infinite money? | Kliment wrote: | I explained it in a comment here | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26842924 and here | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26659709 | tyingq wrote: | This article has some detail: | https://www.extremetech.com/computing/318554-a-massive-chip-... | | The summary there seems to be _" Insufficient investment in | 200mm wafers"_. Combined with everyone's demand forecasts being | screwed up due to COVID and being either too high, or too low. | Finally, you can't just move from FabA to FabB (even for the | same wafer and process size) quickly, so customers can't just | quickly migrate to whatever fabs ended up with excess capacity. | | _" 200mm fabs are older facilities that process chips at | mature nodes, which range from 350nm to 90nm"_ - | https://semiengineering.com/demand-picks-up-for-200mm/ | wernst wrote: | https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/TSMC-he... | | From TSMC's Mark Lui: | | - Supply chain disruptions from Covid | | - US / China trade disputes | | - Digital transformation from Covid (increasing demand for | chips) | | - "Double booking" feedback loop (companies preorder more than | needed, fearing fab capacity limits --> makes it seem like | there's less fab capacity --> companies book more capacity, | fearing capacity limits)...this is not specific to Covid, but | heats up in this kind of situation | pjc50 wrote: | A lot of people seem to have learned economics 101 but not | control theory, and seem to think that the economy will respond | to signals instantly rather than having a finite frequency | response. | | The high level of uncertainty doesn't help; how sure are you | that there won't be a pandemic related demand crash in six | months? | [deleted] | kalleboo wrote: | Right! I get it for the very high end chips used in CPUs and | GPUs that are in demand for home computers and cryptocurrency | mining are constrained by a very limited amount of fabs, but | what is holding back the older process chips? | InitialLastName wrote: | There's a confluence of things affecting the older-process, | more commodity chips as well: | | - Demand for electronics as a whole, at all scales (from | computers to cars to IOT to industrial controls and all kinds | of other things that we don't think about) has been shooting | up for the last decade (without compensating expansion in | fabrication capacity). This is the 3rd serious supply | shortage we've seen in electronic components in the last few | years (anyone else remember seeing MLCC lead times hit 100 | weeks in 2017-2018?). | | - All of these supply lines running all the way back to the | raw silicon operate with very lean (or no) supply buffers. | Think "suppliers making deliveries directly to the factory | floor" lean. These sorts of systems are not resilient, and do | not respond well to shocks (like suppliers having to shut | down due to a global pandemic). | | - As has been commonly noted, there have also been demand | shocks, where electronics consumers (especially car | companies) who are normally operating on timelines | forecasting out 6-24 months forecast reduced customer demand, | reflected that in their orders, and then had to adjust back | when demand for cars came back. | | - Similarly, with people locked down and working from home, | demand for electronics both for professional use and as a | replacement for entertainment options has expanded. | | - Finally, there are rumors (that I haven't been able to | confirm in a meaningful way) that some large Chinese | manufacturers have been stockpiling components in | anticipation of further tariffs, sanctions and trade tension. | baybal2 wrote: | > (anyone else remember seeing MLCC lead times hit 100 | weeks in 2017-2018?). | | I did, even Chinese domestic market still has months long | passives shortages even today. | | > - Finally, there are rumors (that I haven't been able to | confirm in a meaningful way) that some large Chinese | manufacturers have been stockpiling components in | anticipation of further tariffs | | Actually plain speculations, some times by people very far | from semiconductors market, just like with masks, baby | formula, apartments, cement, aluminium, stocks etc. | FearlessNebula wrote: | What is a fab? | Tortoise wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_fabrication_pla | n... | 015a wrote: | https://wiki.factorio.com/Processing_unit | JamesCoyne wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_fabrication_pla | n... | wlesieutre wrote: | Shorthand for "fabrication" | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_fabrication_pla | n... | [deleted] | beowulfey wrote: | I can't speak for semiconductors but it seems like supply | chains everywhere are hurting. I work in bio and it used to be | you could order something and it would arrive in 2 days. Now | literally every product I order is backordered 2 weeks to 2 | months. Even innocuous things like centrifuge tubes or common | chemicals! | dharmab wrote: | I have friends working in the physical side of the chip | industry- there is a lot of money being poured into the | industry right now to increase fab output, but it takes time to | build the physical infrastructure. Chip fabs are highly | hazardous environments and need to conform to pretty intense | standards. | | And of course, every time anyone on their specific team within | the fab gets COVID-like systems, the _entire team_ goes home | for two weeks. This has happened several times over the past | year. | UncleOxidant wrote: | You'd think that a fab would be one of the least likely work | places where one would pick up covid. The air is constantly | filtered, you're wearing bunny suits with face coverings and | the density of people is pretty low. | dharmab wrote: | This fab is in an ultraconservative city where masks and | social distancing are not practiced. The workers have been | getting COVID from the community, not at work. | ls612 wrote: | But if I have covid and you and I are both wearing those | weird space suit looking things (I don't know what they | actually are called) you would think the odds of me | giving you covid would be minuscule right? | jacques_chester wrote: | I assume people have to eat lunch somewhere. | dharmab wrote: | Not everyone at the plant wears a full suit. A lot of the | workers are sitting in offices most of the day monitoring | systems, or are working on supporting systems like | chemical pipes, or loading and unloading trucks. | | And then everyone sees each other outside of work anyway. | Some of the people at the plant are family, or as close | as family. Some go to the same church. Some go camping or | fishing together on the weekends | baybal2 wrote: | I once heard the story of a family of 6 all working in | one Intel fab. So small is the industry. | Arainach wrote: | Even infinite money can't set up new fabs overnight - factories | are tough. Unless you're a government paying for the strategic | advantage of domestic manufacturing, you have to decide whether | the plant will still be profitable when the shortage ends - and | whether it's currently profitable enough to merit building. | | It's not unlike the situation with PPE manufacturing circa | March 2020. | pmichaud wrote: | Yeah I guess I'm just surprised. It feels to me (who knows | basically nothing about it) that it's been a pretty big | problem for at least a few years, and it also seems like the | combined buying power of the entire world's hardware | companies would make the investment in new fabs trivially | worth it. | | Maybe fabs take longer than a couple years to set up | regardless of money spent? | | Maybe fabs take a level of expertise that only a handful of | people in the world have, and it's a matter of ramping up | promising undergrads to that level which will take like 15+ | years? | | Maybe analysts expect demand to even out so that capital | outlays right now don't make sense? | | But all of these are surprising to me to the degree that we | still don't have enough semiconductors. I'm just hoping for a | sort of comprehensive overview of the issue, if such a thing | exists. | pjc50 wrote: | From my perspective in the software side of a semiconductor | company, it's very much a problem of the last year. | | The AKM fab fire in November 2020 also made the situation | worse. | Leherenn wrote: | It's pretty much impossible to find GNSS chips currently, | at least the ones we use (ublox). There's a massive TCXO | shortage. | browningstreet wrote: | Fabs also have to be manufactured. | akiselev wrote: | _> Maybe fabs take longer than a couple years to set up | regardless of money spent? | | Maybe fabs take a level of expertise that only a handful of | people in the world have, and it's a matter of ramping up | promising undergrads to that level which will take like 15+ | years?_ | | From the start of permitting to first tape out, I've heard | five years for cutting edge, three to four for mid range | (under 100nm), and two years for older processes. Subtract | a year for expansions of existing facilities where hazmat | permits and infrastructure already exist. | | Far more than a handful of people in the world are | qualified to set up a fab but it really is hard, time | consuming work that requires a lot of expertise. While most | of the equipment in a fab is customized off the shelf (not | totally custom but not cookie cutter), each piece has to be | carefully calibrated to fit in with the whole. | | Stuff like HVAC, which is normally pretty predictable in | commercial buildings, has to be custom designed for | seasonal variations which differ from region to region | while taking into account each piece of equipment's heat | generation and stability needs. Tens if not hundreds of | different robotic positioning and material handling systems | need to be calibrated so that they can move wafers entire | meters with a precision and accuracy measured in the tens | or hundreds of nanometers. The design of the factory even | needs to take into account regional variations in day to | day humidity which usually takes a year just in data | collection. | | Building the concrete shell for a fab is easy. It's filling | it with equipment that actually works together to produce | cutting edge technology that is the expensive part. | segmondy wrote: | When the pandemic started, most companies thought demand will | go down for things like cars, etc so didn't place orders for | semiconductors needed for things like cars. Instead demand went | up for devices used at home like laptops, webcams, etc. When | companies order component, they don't buy on demand, but they | order far ahead. So you might say something like, I want to buy | 10million units of X in 6 months, or next year. The | manufacturers operate at peak capacity already so they can't | crank up output on demand. You give them enough time to be able | to meet your needs. The companies that ordered say 1/3rd or 1/2 | of what they needed realized they need more since the pandemic | didn't slow sales down much. They went to order some more | components and the manufacture says, "sorry! lead time is now | 12 months" because they already got contracts with other folks. | This of course is not a one supplier to one product problem, | but possible across a chain of supplier/producer relationship. | The organizations that saw there might be a supply problem | earlier on, aggressively stocked up and bought up more than | they needed which placed additional strain across the supply | problem. The supply problem ends up cascading across industry. | This is know as the bullwhip effect - | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullwhip_effect. No one wants to | invest in new plant because by the time it's done, the issue | might be resolved and even if it's not, the plant might not | return the ROI. That's how we ended up where we are. | SubiculumCode wrote: | this is why I roll my eyes at anyone trying to deride the | stimulus bill etc about worries about inflation. The supply | shortages are temporary as expectation of lower demand did | not come true....it is not a fundamental limitation of supply | capacity...truly our capacity to supply products can be | ramped up enormously and fairly quickly. | WanderPanda wrote: | Thanks for bringing up the Bullwhip effect. Do you know about | any format where one can get insights into the current state | of the supply chain world? I don't get why podcasts and tv | channels talk about all and everything 24/7 but never manage | to pull up an interview with top tier supply | chain/logistics/purchasing manager people. Why isn't this | something that should be publicly debate? | pjc50 wrote: | Regular TV long since gave up on doing industrial coverage. | There might be a bit of discussion in the specialist press | e.g. EEtimes. | | There's no "push" demand by such people to get exposure, | either; they're buying not selling, so they're not needing | to market themselves. | nraynaud wrote: | anyone knows the beer game from the Fifth Discipline? | aazaa wrote: | > What has made the auto industry particularly vulnerable is its | reliance on just-in-time delivery, where parts are brought in | when needed, rather than being stockpiled. | | It's fascinating that the response is to close production rather | than increase prices. | | Those warning of inflation point to events like this as support. | But inflation requires that higher producer costs be accepted by | consumers. | | And for that price transmission mechanism to work, there needs to | be supply actually available at the higher price. It appears that | just-in-time economics mean that in the event of a shortage your | supply just goes offline. You don't get higher prices, just empty | shelves. | friedman23 wrote: | >It's fascinating that the response is to close production | rather than increase prices. | | They are closing production on their cheapest cars | ticviking wrote: | > You don't get higher prices, just empty shelves. | | Trying to buy on the used market right now. I promise you we | are seeing higher prices because people who had 30k to buy new, | are now spending more for the higher quality 1-3 year old used | stock. | Closi wrote: | > It's fascinating that the response is to close production | rather than increase prices. | | This assumes there is no substitute good - which there is. | Other cars. | brewdad wrote: | Jaguar. Accept no substitute. | stevehawk wrote: | We're not allowed to raise prices in respond to supply/demand | for consumer products anymore. The public cries "price gouging" | and you get canceled. | beowulfey wrote: | Ha! So instead the company just cancels the product anyway. | [deleted] | jtdev wrote: | You'll likely see higher prices in the used market... which | will almost certainly bubble up to the new market. | legulere wrote: | Chip supply is inelastic. Paying more still doesn't increase | production capacities. | treeman79 wrote: | Short to medium term very true. Long term if people (think) | prices will remain high, more factories will be built. | HPsquared wrote: | Higher prices in the secondary market. | mrh0057 wrote: | The model your are using is to simple. Since there is a | shortage of new vehicles it pushes up the price of used ones. | Then any supply of new vehicles that hasn't been sold yet goes | up. People will keep cars longer since the price of new | vehicles has gone up. The drives higher repair rate of vehicles | and parts prices will start to rise. Since there is a chip | shortages you may not even been able to get certain parts new | so it drives up the price of used parts containing the chips. | | As people put off buying new cars when cars start becoming more | widely available the prices stay higher until the shortage | worked out and then prices of used and new car drops. | Manufacturers are likely to overshoot the number of new | vehicles since the models they are using assume the increased | demand. This means once it is worked out a significant drop in | prices and you can get vehicles really cheap. See 2008 cash for | clunkers where it caused a spike in used cars price | temporarily. It also had the effect that leases where cheaper | since manufacturers believe they would be able to sale them | used at a higher price which was only temporary causing them to | lose money. | | You do get increased prices for new stock that don't have | existing contracts. If you screw up your estimate of what you | need and your suppliers don't have the capacity to make your | parts, now you have a shortage. Now you have to shutdown | because you can't get parts but a manufacturer who did a better | job of estimating will be able to charge a higher price. In | this case it would be Toyota which didn't cut their chip orders | when the crisis hit. Of course they are also likely to have | some shortage of certain vehicles since there will be a shift | in demand for their vechiles. So if you own work trucks the | value of them will skyrocket right now since most of them in | the US are made by the big 3 which don't have the chips to | manufacture them. | rightbyte wrote: | The cars are maybe already paid for. Then they can't increase | the prices until they cleared the pending orders? | edoceo wrote: | price up on _new_ orders. | rightbyte wrote: | Nvidia is not really doing that either. I wonder why so | many companies are reluctant to increase prices until they | meet demand. | elliekelly wrote: | I don't mind patiently waiting for a new Xbox but if | Microsoft suddenly doubled the price I'd strongly | consider patiently waiting for a PS5 instead. | | I'm guessing whatever companies expect they could gain | (or even retain) from raising the price in the short-term | doesn't exceed what they expect to lose in the long-term. | willcipriano wrote: | You have empty shelves, workplaces start going in person again | and demand for cars becomes less elastic. Potentially used cars | start selling for more than they cost new. | mleo wrote: | Used cars went up in value last year. Rental car companies | sold their fleet cars into a better market and did not | acquire new cars. This left rental car companies short on | supply and able to raise rental car prices to compensate as | people travel again. | | A couple of weeks ago, with seemingly no large events | occurring, all rental cars in San Antonio were rented. This | week, they are available, but at higher prices than I would | normally expect. | kyllo wrote: | I'm even seeing stories about U-Haul trucks all being | rented out by tourists because rental cars are unavailable, | causing a shortage of rental trucks for movers. | olyjohn wrote: | Man, U-Haul must be pretty happy. Just a few weeks ago, | my UPS driver showed up in a U-Haul truck and was using | it to deliver packages. | [deleted] | ericmay wrote: | Where are you seeing these stories? | jeromegv wrote: | Hawaii https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2021/04/22/why-are- | visitors-cr... | chadash wrote: | I bought a used car last year for 13k after taxes and fees. 9 | months later, I sold to Carvana for 16k (even with a few | scratches that would have been $300 to fix, plus a $200 | scheduled service coming up in a few weeks). Carvana needs to | make a profit, so presumably they're going to mark it up | further. It's a crazy world right now. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | Carvana is the Internet's BHPH lot. They don't care how | much they spend to buy the car because they're gonna sell | it for 50% down with 20% APR to someone who can't get | financing otherwise. | hyko wrote: | The empty shelves will cause cost-push inflation, as people try | to buy cars from a smaller available pool (e.g. substitute new | cars for used). The price mechanism for cars will respond to a | shortage of cars. | | Edit: it's maybe bad luck that this could coincide with a | demand-pull inflation pressure, as people ease back into | personal transit. | baq wrote: | Used car price charts are going vertical all over the world. | SyzygistSix wrote: | Jaguars And Range Rovers aren't "I need a car" cars. They are | optional luxury goods. The lack of new Range Rovers and | Jaguars won't keep anyone from getting to work or the store. | So I don't think the effect will be nearly as drastic as it | would be if the number of Camrys and Hiluxs had to be | curtailed. | nottorp wrote: | ... but guess who's next? | foobarian wrote: | Cue stock drop people buying up all new cars and selling on | Ebay for double... | olyjohn wrote: | Not only that, but the used car market is going to explode. | I knew my yard full of old crappy cars would be worth | something some day! | lotsofpulp wrote: | I'm hoping my 2003 car does not get stolen. | xxpor wrote: | It already has. Prices are up enormously. | hammock wrote: | >What has made the auto industry particularly vulnerable is its | reliance on just-in-time delivery | | Invented by Toyota, ironically the reason why Japanese cars | took over the industry a few decades ago | cm2187 wrote: | Chips become obsolete very quickly, and car makers create new | models every year or two. You are not going to keep a year | worth of inventory. Not convinced maintaining more stocks | would have bought them much more time. | jnwatson wrote: | Chips aren't that expensive per-unit, and they take up very | little space. It would not be cost prohibitive. | | Even better, force the cost of holding to the supplier like | Toyota. | turbinerneiter wrote: | It takes them 5 to 6 years to design a new model. The chips | they use usually come with a guarantee from the | manufacturer that they will supply it for the next 15 | years. | Swenrekcah wrote: | I don't think chips for cars become obsolete so quickly. | Well, self driving hardware excluded, but the other stuff | can probably run very well on 10+ year old designs. | jonfw wrote: | That's really not true, Car parts are heavily | interchangeable. Many parts are used across generations of | cars, across different models in a make's lineup, and even | across makes. | spamizbad wrote: | Automobiles don't always use the latest-and-greatest. Also: | There's really no hard and fast rule next year's model must | use all new electronics. | lotsofpulp wrote: | I was under the impression it was Japanese cars' superior | quality/reliability to price ratio that caused them to take | over the industry a few decades ago. Just in time might allow | for lower prices, but would it also have resulted in the | higher quality? | marshray wrote: | The 1970's saw multiple oil crises hit the US and the | smaller Japanese cars' better fuel efficiency was another | big reason for their new popularity. | macjohnmcc wrote: | I wonder if they have spare parts to repair existing cars or | if they would have taken some of their spares for new | vehicles. | toomuchtodo wrote: | Interestingly enough, Toyota modified their supply chain | operating model post-Fukushima. So the solution isn't as | coarse as a binary "stockpiles or JIT", but an intelligent | assessment of risk and managing that risk granularly. Kaizen | at its best. | | "Toyota may have pioneered the just-in-time manufacturing | strategy but when it comes to chips, its decision to | stockpile what have become key components in cars goes back a | decade to the Fukushima disaster." | | "After the catastrophe severed Toyota's supply chains on | March 11, 2011, the world's biggest automaker realised the | lead-time for semiconductors was way too long to cope with | devastating shocks such as natural disasters. | | That's why Toyota came up with a business continuity plan | (BCP) that required suppliers to stockpile anywhere from two | to six months' worth of chips for the Japanese carmaker, | depending on the time it takes from order to delivery, four | sources said." | | ""Toyota was, as far as we can tell, the only automaker | properly equipped to deal with chip shortages," said a person | familiar with Harman International, which specialises in car | audio systems, displays and driver assistance technology." | | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-fukushima- | anniversa... | slver wrote: | > It's fascinating that the response is to close production | rather than increase prices. | | Those aren't mutually exclusive... | | But you can't keep production running when you have no chips. | Throwing money at the complete lack of chips doesn't help. | phreeza wrote: | At some price point, you could probably substitute the chips | with FPGAs? Though I'm not sure if that would work for cars | without requiring some sort of recertification. | eklitzke wrote: | FPGAs are going to have a different form factor and higher | power requirements, it's not so simple. | fest wrote: | It's not that some of those are not affected by the | shortage. | usrusr wrote: | If you have a stockpile of your supplies you'll notice that | you can't replenish them long before actually running out and | you can therefore increase the price of your product to | extract the highest amount from whatever limited volume that | you can still produce. Except of course when you are working | off an order backlog, but then emergency procurement in an | empty market will be even more ruinous. | wmf wrote: | It sort of does help; chip prices have risen because | customers are out-bidding each other. If you're willing to | pay 10x 2019 prices you can probably get whatever chips you | need. Many companies are deciding that's not worthwhile. | Kliment wrote: | Car companies are literally paying 6x to 8x 2019 prices | right now and still can't get stock. | 55873445216111 wrote: | It's not correct to think that increased prices solves | shortages. I work in automotive chip industry. We have many | cases where no amount of money could fix the shortage | within the next 9 months. Only choices for carmaker is to | produce fewer cars or produce the car without the chip that | is short (which is not always possible). | nemothekid wrote: | > _If you 're willing to pay 10x 2019 prices you can | probably get whatever chips you need. Many companies are | deciding that's not worthwhile._ | | The problem as I understand it is a company like TSMC sells | capacity for the some time period - like a year. The | automakers thought people wouldn't buy cars, so they | relinquished their slots. Turns out car demand exploded, so | they went back to TSMC and said "hey we need those slots" | and TSMC said "sorry your slot already got sold to nvidia". | | Chrsyler could offer to pay TSMC 10x more, but that that | ultimately wouldn't do much, the slot is gone and they | would have to buy the capacity from nvidia. nvidia is in no | position to sell because they are also facing extreme | demand. How would it look to nvidia if, while gamers across | the world can't get their hands on 3080s, they sold their | fab capacity to Chrysler for $$$$?. | | So money isn't solely the issue here. | turbinerneiter wrote: | I think your simplifications could change the logic here. | | Chrysler does not directly buy from TSMC, they buy from | i.e. TI, Renesas, Microchip, NXP, ... | | Many of those companies do still have fabs, and even if | not, they are not competing with Nvidia. They are | producing on the old, old fabs, at 40, even 80nm. We | would need better numbers on where these microcontrollers | are fabbed to be able to tell how this interferes with | i.e. Nvidia and Apple on TSMC 5nm. | baybal2 wrote: | Not even 80nm. Most stuff in that space is 130nm+, some | extremely old, but still produced ICs from early nineties | are on 300nm+ for use on equally old automotive parts. | Plasmoid2000ad wrote: | I think there is also a substrate shortage | https://www.semi.org/en/blogs/business-markets/the- | substrate... | | And an Air Freight shortage even if you do pay 10x to | jump the production queue | https://www.wsj.com/articles/snarled-supply-chain-trips- | up-s... | | I'm not even sure it's strictly speaking still true that | automotive only uses outdated fabs. Tesla seems to have | disrupted the use of low-end chips at least in high end | cars, like Jaguar Land Rover. | turbinerneiter wrote: | I think they have a pretty wide spectrum - your ABS | controller will probably be on older node than the | processor for the entertainment system. | totalZero wrote: | Change "probably" to "definitely" and I'm with you. | Automotive chips need to be a lot more reliable than a | PS5 GPU, and that kind of reliability takes time to test | and prove. Not to mention that automakers try not to | change parts unnecessarily because their economies of | scale are only as useful as their ability to use one | component across several models and years. If you care | little about thermal efficiency and power consumption, | and you're not doing extremely abstract computations, | there's no reason whatsoever to spend tons of money on a | smaller lithography. I was looking into this recently, | and the price difference between some of the equipment | involved is around two orders of magnitude from the | leading edge to the trailing edge. | [deleted] | ghostpepper wrote: | Not to detract from what you're saying but gamers aren't | getting the cards anyway; they're going to bitcoin | miners. | CydeWeys wrote: | No, they're not going to Bitcoin miners. Ethereum miners, | sure. | jachee wrote: | It seems inevitable that "bitcoin" (as opposed to | "Bitcoin") is destined to become the "kleenex" (as | opposed to "Kleenex") of crypto. | | Etherium fits the bill: it's a digital (bit) currency | (coin). | Ekaros wrote: | That will be actually fun. Make a company invest in some | random crypto coins, presents movements. Just call all of | them bitcoin... Argue that at this point it is generic | name... Skim your fees from top. | CydeWeys wrote: | There's already a generic word: crypto/virtual currency. | But Bitcoin itself isn't mined with GPUs. You can blame | other cryptos for that shortage. | jachee wrote: | There's a generic word for facial tissues, too. Language | doesn't care about the semantics. | totalZero wrote: | If you look at the concurrent user numbers on Steam, it | seems like there's overwhelming engagement in the gaming | space right now. I thought the same as you until I looked | into it a bit more. | | (Also, bitcoin is mined on ASICs nowadays, but I get what | you mean.) | oneplane wrote: | There are contracts that might prevent that from happening, | just like lead times don't disappear, even if you outbid | everyone else (if it was a bidding issue). | | Throwing money at a problem to try and solve it can be | impossible in various ways. | impalallama wrote: | Chip shortages are at a point in the US were government | contractors who already have right by law to jump ahead of | anyone else in line when ordering and can probably pay | whatever price they want are still being told that new | shipments won't come for 16 months. | | There just are not enough of them being made. | treeman79 wrote: | So is Bitcoin screwing over the rest of the economy now? | jachee wrote: | All proof-of-work is. Because the "work" being "proven" | isn't actual work. It's just waste. | henvic wrote: | Congratulations! I see you got downvoted for telling the | truth. | jachee wrote: | After being here for 12 years, I'm used to it. ;) | redis_mlc wrote: | PoW = Proof of Waste :) | wmf wrote: | Unlikely. Everyone is screwing everyone else. | laurent92 wrote: | Does that make Apple's M1-in-all-devices announcement | twice a demonstration of strength of their supply chain? | wmf wrote: | Yes, Apple has presumably locked in both supply and | prices of all their components including Ax/Mx, DRAM, | flash, LCD panels, etc. | Spooky23 wrote: | Yes. It's really a testament to the praise of Tim Cook as | a master of operations. | | It's quite a statement that Apple launched four variants | of the same product (M1 Air, M1 Pro, M1 iMac, M1 iPad) in | the middle of a supply chain apocalypse, all within a few | weeks and is both delivering on schedule and even putting | the product on sale. | | Call your HP rep and try to buy an LCD monitor right now. | baybal2 wrote: | 10-15 years ago, Cook's level of competency wouldn't have | been anything special, but that of competent operations | lead. | | The industry in the West not only shipped everything to | outsourcers, but even forgot how to manage outsourcers as | well, being fully reliant on turnkey services. | ariwilson wrote: | https://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-27-inch- | Backlight-27xw/dp... ? | goodcanadian wrote: | We are having a similar problem, and certain chips simply | aren't available at any price. | SilasX wrote: | Yeah, but -- though I haven't run the numbers -- it seems | like Jaguar would be better off taking smaller profits | while overbidding for the chips rather than just go idle | and make something. Even selling at a loss may be | preferable to the huge damage to brand from such a | discontinuity. (Remember how hard the major internet sites | work to avoid downtime.) | vanviegen wrote: | On the other hand, the car industry never seemed to care | much for catering to instant (or even just somewhat fast) | gratification. | | Even a car from stock usually takes at least a week to | make 'road ready', which seems suboptimal from a | marketing perspective. | cigaser wrote: | Capacity is sold out for several months. Next free slots | are in several months. Even 1000x price may not get chips | manufacturers need. | skeeter2020 wrote: | I wonder if it's possible to retool production lines to keep | going without the chips, then add them later. It increases | WIP but we saw this in the 80's with computers; they soldered | sockets for those chips then only needed to snap them in to | complete the machine. | chrisco255 wrote: | > It appears that just-in-time economics mean that in the event | of a shortage your supply just goes offline. You don't get | higher prices, just empty shelves. | | If the demand is there, the price increase will find its way to | the market, either in the resale market or in alternatives to | Jaguar Land Rover. | ab_testing wrote: | Exactly. Look at what is happening in the user car market for | now. Used cars that people bought a few years ago are | appreciating because the new ones are slow to hit the | dealerships. Also cars are interchangeable, if a consumer is | not able to buy a model of a luxury car, they can always buy | another one that might be higher priced. | daniellarusso wrote: | Except there is tablet epoxied to the dashboard, almost. | insert_coin wrote: | Inflation means some things become economically impossible to | produce, that is why the rest of the stuff becomes more | expensive. | | Prices always lag behind because they are the result of all the | economic processes that take place, not the cause, and this is | just the beginning of the process. | [deleted] | 14 wrote: | I have been looking to buy shocks for my motorcycle for months | but the cost was very high and I wasn't sure I could spend the | money. But every few days would check out the shocks online. | Then I started noticing the shocks I wanted started selling out | everywhere. You can not buy them on ebay even. I literally | found the last place with a set and bought them. I did so | because I noticed that after everywhere sold out the | manufacturers website has suddenly increased their MSRP by $50. | The place I found them at had them at the old price so I pulled | the trigger before they went up. | daniellarusso wrote: | Well, used car prices continue to increase. | | Some one or two year old used vehicles sell for above their | MSRP new prices now. | vineyardmike wrote: | Except it takes weeks/months to prep a fab to start making | these chips. If the car companies start getting their orders | then switch back to JIT manufacturing, then the fabs won't want | to waste these months idle thrashing the manufacturing lines | across products. | | Raising prices only helps if you can get more supply at a | higher price, and you can't when it takes months to start. | hinkley wrote: | I'm curious if automotive systems used more generic controllers | for cabin systems if shortages like this would be less or more | severe. | | If the AC and the power seats and the cabin lights used the moral | equivalent of a raspberry pi compute engine, would we see supply | harder to disrupt, or massive consolidation that just makes these | problems worse, for instance every single car plant shutting down | for two weeks out of the same three months as the pause wends its | way through the supply chain. Today a Chevrolet plant gets the | only truckload, but Ram doesn't run out until tomorrow due to | transit delays. | amluto wrote: | The RPi compute engine is a PCB, a fairly large number of | components, and a complicated chipset meant for video | processing and Linux. This is not what your power seat wants, | and it's probably considerably more expensive than what your | seat wants. | | In any case, the current bottleneck is, to a vague | approximation, a bottleneck on total output. An RPi compute | module has a lot more mm^2 of silicon than a little ECU. You | also likely can't make a good RPi compute-like module on the | larger-feature-size fabs that make ECUs. | nottorp wrote: | Also a RPi won't survive at car temperatures. | sigstoat wrote: | > I'm curious if automotive systems used more generic | controllers for cabin systems if shortages like this would be | less or more severe. | | that wouldn't help. generic and not-generic controllers would | still use ICs, and ICs are still what we're slowed down on. a | more generic design might have to use more (or more | complicated) ICs as well, to have more tolerant inputs. | | more generic/standardized controllers might help if there were | limits on printed circuit board manufacturing, or board | assembly capacity. (as those things get cheaper/easier/faster | the more identical units you make. and yes, that applies to ICs | as well, but all of the widely used microcontrollers / | jellybean parts are already produced in huge volumes.) | wlesieutre wrote: | The mass market parts probably wouldn't stand up to car | environments, these are expected to operate for years with | temperatures that range from well below freezing in the winter | to over 150 parked in the sun when it's hot out. | hinkley wrote: | > the moral equivalent of a raspberry pi compute engine | | I did not mean mass market parts when I said "moral | equivalent" since that was not clear. I meant automotive | grade controllers. | | I guess the real problem, besides shortages of the IC on the | board as someone else said, would be connectors. The circuit | boards aren't just built different, the connectors are | ruggedized and in some cases water/dirt resistant too. | There's no way you'll use the same connector for a five way | adjustable seat as for the cabin light controls. And if you | did you couldn't put any of them next to each other or | someone plugs the defroster into the cruise control and | somebody dies. | | Best you could do is a standard circuit board and custom | housing that has the wiring harness, and at that point things | look pretty similar to the status quo. | | Also relays in that situation are probably a bigger part of | the wiring than I'm allowing. | colechristensen wrote: | There are automotive rated parts which comes down to an | increased temperature range and (where applicable) vibration | tolerance, electrical transients, etc. | | Sometimes it involves different materials but usually it's | just more testing on an increased range. | | For example a part which handles electric current might be | rated to 100mA at an ambient temperature of 20C but only 40mA | at 60C or -40C. | | Regular consumer electronics you can just ignore these ranges | as unreasonable but a car is going to get that hot or that | cold so you have to have parts rated for those conditions. | dapids wrote: | Problem is everything needs to be automotive grade components, | and if the supply is already low such a type or in contention, | they are going to cost a heck of a lot more than the absurdity | which is the 100% additional cost for a automotive grade | resistor or IC versus a consumer level component. | mulmen wrote: | This is already the case. A new Chevy pickup and a new Ford | pickup have the same _transmission_. BMW and Mercedes buy | transmissions from ZF or other vendors. Bosch provides engine | management systems to like... everyone. I 'd be astonished if | there are more than a dozen power seat motors in use across the | entire new car fleet. | | Tesla is a notable exception because they actually make their | own components, like the Model X Gull wing door actuators. | hinkley wrote: | I meant within a single vehicle but that's probably the best | you're going to get. | | It wasn't until I was an adult living on the coast that I | understood this and why Midwestern auto shops were so | resistant to foreign cars. This process was still in | development, and so while one set of brake assembly might fit | twenty Chevy and Ford vehicles over a five model year period, | you were always having to special order parts for the "weird" | cars because you couldn't keep them in inventory, and so you | had to deal with a hostile customer who didn't understand why | their wife's car got brakes in one day and the Subaru was | going to take a week. They storm off to another shop and get | the same answer. | mulmen wrote: | Ah yeah that is different then. I do wonder where these | supply chains broke down specifically. Is it compute | modules or specific chips/components? How feasible is it to | have interchangeable compute modules with different | internal implementations? | | My car was available with I think six different batteries | depending on options but they are also two entirely | different chemistries (AGM and lead-acid). If there is a | lead-acid battery shortage for some reason presumably | everything _could_ have been AGM. | mschuster91 wrote: | The car itself doesn't care about the battery chemistry | at all - it's actually not even a different chemistry, | only a different way to build them -, it's always a | nominal voltage of 12V and a charge voltage of about 14V. | You can put in whatever battery you want, in theory. | | Practically, your choice will be influenced by: | | - price (lead-acid are cheaper) | | - usage frequency (AGM have lower self discharge rates | and can stand up for a year or more without charging, | while a lead-acid will grow sulfate crystals in a matter | of months) | | - peak current capacity and temperature range (again, AGM | are better, and you _must_ use a battery that can supply | the crank with enough amps... and note that the crank | will need more power in colder climates) | | - capacity (obviously... depending on options like a | beefy sound system, service lights, antitheft systems or | seat heaters, you need higher capacity) | mulmen wrote: | My car absolutely cares about the battery chemistry | because it optimizes the charging based on battery | performance and capability. It also uses this information | for the condition based service to indicate when the | battery needs replaced and as an input to identify other | electrical problems such as excessive discharge. | protoman3000 wrote: | I fear our upcoming high inflation will be abused as an example | to legitimize harsh austerity in the future, because liars will | draw the causality with the expansive monetary policy of the | 2010s and not with the Corona pandemic. They already conveniently | forget that there was a flu pandemic in the beginning of the 20th | Century. | SubiculumCode wrote: | same. but I truly don't think we will have large inflation. | This is just creakiness of a machine restarting after being | turned to a lower setting based on unmet expectations of a long | span of limited consumer demand. | whereis wrote: | Unscientific dogma: Mother nature is telling us through Taiwan's | drought to slow down and redesign chips to be secure. | | My late model American vehicle is my home. Earlier this week, the | locks kept popping open when I was trying to go to sleep. Nobody | else besides me has a remote entry key. | j8014 wrote: | I hopped into a Jeep Cherokee that I thought was mine and drove | it down the road for a minute before realizing I was not in my | vehicle. Keys are funny like that. | whereis wrote: | You'd think keyfob security would be worked out by now (just | look at the prevalence of skeleton key software defined | radios amongst the grayhat crowd). There's probably a | limitation in security complexity due to limited power | availability in the keyfob. | WanderPanda wrote: | How can that be an argument, when we can sign secure | transactions using RFID? | whereis wrote: | Ah, cool. Sounds like there's no excuse. My mistake. | | I mistakenly assumed you'd need some kind of | cryptographic key signing handshake via active | electronics from within the keyfob to achieve secure | comms with the host vehicle, and that such a requirement | may have been some kind of implementation limiting | factor, security-wise. | ArcFeind wrote: | I checked a Jaguar dealer page now and I see they're still | offering finance incentives which I didn't except since their | inventory is taking such a hit. Plus luxury cars have been | selling for over MSRP on most popular models for the last year. | lotsofpulp wrote: | It's better to raise the net price by raising the price and | then offer incentives from a sales perspective than to leave | the price alone and remove incentives. People feel good when | they get "discounts" or "deals". | somethingwitty1 wrote: | Many finance incentives are usually restricted to current | dealer inventory and previous model years. They also get people | in the door, since often times, people don't truly qualify for | the advertised rates (if we are talking about financing terms). | Jaguar is still suffering from depressed sales (though it has | been getting better), so they may feel the demand isn't there | to get those vehicles off their lots and increasing | prices/reducing financing incentives would potentially make | that worse. | | Of course, it might just be that they are slow to react and | changes will be reflected in the coming weeks. | decafninja wrote: | Jaguar is probably not considered on the same level of demand | as say, BMW, Benz, Audi, or even Lexus. The fact that they | were notorious for having problems probably doesn't help. | | They make gorgeous cars though, with good handling and driver | engagement. A V8 (or maybe electric!) F-Type is my attainable | dream car. | seomint wrote: | It's toilet paper all the way down... | pbreit wrote: | I don't understand how cars, which sell in relatively low | quantities and use relatively unsophisticated chips, would be | delayed by chip shortages. | dvh wrote: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26891094 | koreanguy wrote: | European chip production within 3 years, Asia has become | expensive and unreliable. | MangoCoffee wrote: | "Other automakers purchase much less valuable silicon content, | and become less of a priority when compared to Tesla, who designs | chips in house, secures wafer supply from foundries directly, and | buys chips directly from the various chip designers like NXP, | Infineon, and so forth," according to a note from Cho Research. | "They don't outsource the design of their chip stack; they in- | source wherever possible and work extremely closely with their | suppliers." | | https://www.benzinga.com/news/earnings/21/04/20771098/tesla-... | | Tesla doesn't seem to have a chip problem. | | this whole auto chip shortage is auto maker's own f'ck up | GloriousKoji wrote: | Just because Tesla and Toyota did something that ended up right | doesn't necessarily mean all the other auto manufacturers did | something wrong. I don't the blame the other auto companies and | think their actions to be prudent at the time. We have a global | pandemic for the first time in 100 years where people were | required to not travel and stay indoors. Seems logical to | expect demand for automobiles to go down and cut back on | ordering chips. Turns out reality was the exact opposite. | Certainly something I wouldn't have been able to predict. | iscrewyou wrote: | That is exactly the situation they are in. They have | plans/contingency plans to make sure they don't end up in a | similar situation while the other manufactures don't. Their | plans paid off and the others' bet not on having the | plan...well that also paid off. | sircastor wrote: | I'm willing to bet Tesla runs into this in just a few months. | This is coming in waves across the industry, and I doubt Tesla | is equipped to deal with it any better than any other | manufacturer. | | (Full disclosure: I work for an Automotive OEM. I do not have | any inside knowledge about the shortage in general, or how it's | affecting my company. All my comments are from my own | observation of public news sources.) | [deleted] | jonfw wrote: | That doesn't scale. The reason Tesla's not having problems is | because they have first dibs. That only works for them because | the companies who don't have first dibs are taking the hit, not | because this is some solution to the issue of shortages on the | macro-economic level. If everybody did what Tesla did and in- | sourced, somebody who in-sourced would be taking the hit. | [deleted] | reactspa wrote: | Recently there was news about India's push to incentivize chip- | fab makers to start chip-production in India. | | I thought the threat to Taiwan (from China) was driving that. | | But buried in the news was that Tata was going to build a chip- | fab in India. | | Tata owns Jaguar Land Rover. | throw7 wrote: | subaru is also shutting down some plant(s) temporarily due to | chip availability. | dpedu wrote: | I find it bothersome that this situation is referred to as simply | a shortage without any mention of the incorrect predictions or | decisions the automakers made that lead to it. | TillE wrote: | "Just-in-time" logistics are by definition highly susceptible | to disruptions. Of course it can make sense in some cases, but | I've never understood it as a near-universally applied | doctrine. There are serious drawbacks. | snemvalts wrote: | Are you seriously suggesting something as complex as this could | have been predicted with certainty? Seems like retrospective | wisdom. | Leherenn wrote: | But it's affecting everyone in electronics as far as I know. My | company is not in automotive, but pretty much every lead time | has exploded, prices have increased and some pieces are just | not available at all. | | The automakers might have messed up their predictions, but | they're not disrupting the whole electronics market like that. | Kliment wrote: | They actually did disrupt the entire market like that. They | cancelled all their orders, causing fab capacity to be | redirected to other markets, then they came back and asked | for their orders back, at any price, and everyone who was | already making something else switched their now fewer | available slots to service the car industry. See | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26842924 | jonvk wrote: | Well, at least less of these heavily polluting cars is the best | thing that can happen for public health. | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13522... | beiller wrote: | I think car manufacturers have been specializing their chips and | electronics more and more to avoid 3rd party servicing and now we | see the fallout which could still be a win for them. Just jack up | the prices! How about we standardize the chips used in automotive | manufacturing to help alleviate this problem and cut down the | number of unique SKUs fabs have to make. | calvinmorrison wrote: | That's an extremely bad take. Cars have had and shared ICs | since they became mainstream. Bosch shared electronics between | Volvo, Saab, Porsche even BMW bikes as far back as the 80s. | Often times parts like air fuel meters, sensors, etc are all | designed and manufactured upstream by companies like Bosch or | Febi or other companies that sell systems to manufacturers. | | We have platforms, like the GM2900 that many cars were based on | as well to reduce numbers of skus | | Shortages are shortages | beiller wrote: | I think it's fair to say cars today are packed with more and | more full blown cpus since 2010 onwards and so much of it it | just junk. Maybe partially due to safety regs like mandatory | backup cameras but android auto and car play? Notice how | difficult it is to get aftermarket android auto (in my | experience). Why can't it just hook up to my cell phone? But | to be fair I am totally shooting from the hip here, and the | article isn't making it clear which chips are in short | supply. But as some other commenters pointed out, if it is | really purely a shortage, why don't they just jack up the | price. These are luxury brand cars I don't think consumers | aren't willing to pay. | | Have you heard of the automotive right to repair initiative | from 2012? Why do you think such a thing was necessary? And | guess the main method used to circumvent right to repair | automotive laws that were passed in the USA? More complex | electronics. | UI_at_80x24 wrote: | > What has made the auto industry particularly vulnerable is its | reliance on just-in-time delivery, where parts are brought in | when needed, rather than being stockpiled. | | In another version of my life I was a truck-driver bringing parts | to Ford/Chrysler/GM/Honda/Toyota on a daily basis. I've done this | for many trucking companies, and the warning/threat that you get | at 'orientation' (aka training for 15 minutes) is the same for | all of them: | | GM Charges us $24,000/hour if we are late for our window by more | then 15 minutes. | | I'm sure the other automakers had similar threats, but I only | ever heard it about GM. | jacques_chester wrote: | > _What has made the auto industry particularly vulnerable is its | reliance on just-in-time delivery, where parts are brought in | when needed, rather than being stockpiled._ | | This idea has gotten a lot of play lately. But the unstated | alternative is to somehow perfectly forecast future demand for | parts. That's very difficult in general and doubly difficult | during a global pandemic. And, in fact, well-practiced lean | outfits are better at knowing which inputs are potentially most | disruptive, because they already obsess over lead times for | everything. | | Without lean practices you just wind up with giants piles of | almost random inventory. That you'd have wound up with a giant | pile of CPUs is a total crapshoot. But you would absolutely | positively have a bunch of stuff you don't need _and never will_. | And that inventory would choke the whole company to death. | | The whole idea that JIT destroyed some glorious, flawless past is | the Nirvana fallacy. "Oh, supply chain disruptions happen at all, | therefore JIT is entirely useless". It's just a silly idea and | needs to be mocked at every opportunity. | mmmBacon wrote: | I don't know any chip manufacturers that shutdown due to COVID. | Everyone has been shipping the entire time and fabs are at | capacity. The way chip manufacturing works is that you get a slot | and if you cancel they fill your slot with something else. There | have been fab issues but these have been unrelated to COVID and | would have happened anyway. | | To me this seems like auto industry trying to shift blame away | from their supply chain management to their vendors. | waschl wrote: | What I couldnt find out so far is what the chip manufacturers | are producing instead of automotive chips then? There must be | another industry which has a significantly increased need or | will get a lot of chips earlier than planned. Wondering which | industry that will be. | | Cant be the GPU market either ;-) | WrtCdEvrydy wrote: | Car manufacturers released all of their slots at the | beginning of 2020 so those were sold to the entertainment | industry instead. Turns out there is a price on not dying and | it's "a car instead of public transportation". | mschuster91 wrote: | It actually _is_ GPUs and CPUs. | | AMD growth is gone through the roof in general computing, and | they're the sole supplier for both PS5 and Xbox's CPU and GPU | chips. Unlike Intel who have their own fabs, AMD is locked | into TSMC - and when auto manufacturers relinquished slots, | they went in. | | Nvidia ships a boatload of chips for Nintendo Switch plus | GPUs for almost all altcoin miners that can be mined with | GPUs _and_ everyday regular gamers. | WanderPanda wrote: | Maybe it's some state actor piling up bitcoin miners :p | bluesquared wrote: | Texas Instruments has a facility that has had output reduced | due to COVID staffing issues for at least the past 6 months. | They produce parts that I use in my 1000 pc/year medical device | that Toyota and GM vacuum up at a _much_ higher rate. Hard to | compete against those heavyweights for available stock. I 'm | sure there are other manufacturers encountering the same. This | isn't just the fancy very-small nm processes, it's effecting | the whole industry. | | There have also been unfortunate disasters such as a fire at | Renesas https://www.yahoo.com/news/renesas-says-plans-restore- | full-0... that have affected lead times. | nitrogen wrote: | Has there been any detailed reporting on the root cause of | the fire? It's strange that an electrical fire can start in | the first place in what should be an extremely well- | engineered factory, let alone spread to over 6000 square | feet, and if that's possible there, it'd be great to learn | more to avoid it elsewhere. | avmich wrote: | Funny nobody considers designs which don't rely on complex chips | - and simple ones can be made cheaply in many places. Are we that | demanding that WiFi and USB are required for cars? | | I'd buy a simpler car instead of having no car any day. | [deleted] | Zenst wrote: | I was looking for some graph to show the average number of | silicon chips in a car over time, alas nothing. Some indication I | guess from growth forcast like | https://www.marketwatch.com/story/want-to-invest-in-self-dri... | | But not ideal. Though all that, I wonder if this was a perfect | storm and with the increases and demands for all things smart, it | may be that we are playing catchup with a moving goalpost for a | few years yet. | Kye wrote: | You'd think with decades of CAD experience we could figure out | how to build a chipless car that has all the benefits of | computers in cars and none of the downsides of carburetors. How | long will this have to go on before someone considers it? | devwastaken wrote: | I can hear the youtube video now "how I replaced my unavailable | ECM with an arduino" | | I wonder if anyone has documented the various sensors and | algorithms used for basic vehicle functionality. | rightbyte wrote: | Good luck with the ECM. A college did a custom one and it was | alot of work. | | However you can probably hack together something easier that | follows the AUTOSAR standard. E.g. the window elevator conteol | unit or something. | cronix wrote: | Rovers, boats, drones, planes, helicopters, submersibles, all | done with Arduinos or similar. It seems it can be done if one | really wanted to. When I think about all of the things my drone | can do that are seemingly more complex than a non-self driving | car can do it seems more than plausible. | https://ardupilot.org/ardupilot/ | bri3d wrote: | Yes, Speeduino, Megasquirt 1 (not the newer closed source | ones), RusEFI are all open-source engine control software. | | Not even in the same dimension as commercial stuff, but the | primitives are there. | pradn wrote: | Toyota was one of the leaders in just-in-time manufacturing, yet | they're doing just fine with the chip shortage. They stockpile | parts, and try to understand how they work in depth. | | > After the [Fukushima] catastrophe severed Toyota's supply | chains on March 11, 2011, the world's biggest automaker realised | the lead-time for semiconductors was way too long to cope with | devastating shocks such as natural disasters. | | > That's why Toyota came up with a business continuity plan (BCP) | that required suppliers to stockpile anywhere from two to six | months' worth of chips for the Japanese carmaker, depending on | the time it takes from order to delivery, four sources said. | | > The sources said Toyota has another advantage over some rivals | when it comes to chips thanks to its long-standing policy of | ensuring it understands all the technology used in its cars, | rather than relying on suppliers to provide "black boxes". | | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-fukushima-anniversa... | riskable wrote: | If all the manufacturers did what Toyota did that would have | exacerbated the chip shortage. | kaesar14 wrote: | Not if the other car companies realized that the lead time | being so long meant that cancelling their orders was a | horrible idea. | spfzero wrote: | I think I know what you're getting at: If all of the | manufacturers suddenly requested private inventories to be | set up, the chip manufacturer would be dedicating all of its | production to filling up warehouses rather than shipping. | | It seems like Toyota was farsighted in this. | fgonzag wrote: | That's backwards. It would had prevented the shortage. | | The shortage is happening because manufacturers cancelled | their chip orders from their suppliers because of reduced | sales forecasts due to COVID. | | When the manufacturers cancelled their orders from their | suppliers, the supplies cancelled the orders from the | foundries, which cancelled their slots and gave them to | consumer electronics which had increased demand. | | When sales of new cars rose, manufacturers called their | suppliers for more parts, which called the foundries to | increase production only to find out their previous slots had | been sold. | dv_dt wrote: | Well also the climate induced power outages in Texas | knocked out three (4?) foundries in the Austin area from | suppliers that tended to supply embedded customers. | Foundries really really hate to be interrupted and getting | them back up seems to be taking longer than anticipated. | oivey wrote: | The stockpiled chips would have been made before the | shortage, so that doesn't follow. | totalZero wrote: | Toyota also part owns Denso. They're closer to their supply | chain than many of their competitors. | NDizzle wrote: | No wonder Denso parts are so good. | redstripe wrote: | I don't know if we should give Toyota any praise over their | supply chain management. Consider the situation with their | electric vehicles. | | The plug-in hybrid "rav4 prime" has a 2 year wait list. They | sold 3200 last year because they don't have any battery | capacity. https://insideevs.com/news/466641/us-toyota- | rav4-prime-sales... | | This is a bit of digression on this thread, but it's stuff like | this that makes it seem like traditional car companies are | still out to lunch vs Tesla. They're just too slow to adapt and | give up what has worked for decades. | ethagknight wrote: | This may be a dumb question, but is it still "Just In Time" if | the parts are just stockpiled on shelves owned by someone else? | noelsusman wrote: | That has always been the core innovation of JIT. Offloading | inventory costs onto suppliers makes your books look a lot | better. Toyota did make a bunch of other improvements to | streamline their manufacturing processes, but the just in | time part is really just bullying suppliers into taking on | some of your cost and risk. | _s wrote: | Partially - suppliers can offset that by increasing their | cost to do business; but also most contracts in that world | are multi-year deals with ranges of minima / maxima for | quantity, time etc. | notyourwork wrote: | I had the same question, I'm not versed on manufacturing | processes but "Just in time" would seem to imply inventory is | nearly 0 and as parts come in, they are used for assembly and | go right back out the door. | | Perhaps they realized the limits of JIT and have looked at | storying inventory based on the impact to assembly | continuity? | wheelinsupial wrote: | Worked in automotive, not at Toyota. | | > storying inventory based on the impact to assembly | continuity? | | It's always been about that. | | JIT can be looked at as, "right part in the right quantity | at the right time." That can mean "milk runs" where | assemblies are delivered to the final assembly plant twice | a day. An AM delivery where the last assembly is bolted to | a car as the PM delivery arrives. Or it means "kanban | orders" where 1 week supply of parts is delivered on a | Monday and a refresh the next Monday. Or it means you buy | in bulk and get 3 months supply at once. | | JIT and everything around "Lean manufacturing" and the | "Toyota Production System (TPS)" are ideals to strive for. | Not everything in Toyota operates according to the ideals. | There are certain fundamental things (e.g., stability in | material, personnel, machinery, and methods) that need to | be in place before starting to reduce inventory. | | When suppliers have trouble with providing defect free | parts, the orders start to increase in quantity and | decrease in frequency. These can be subject to 100% | incoming inspection if the supplier's quality comes into | question enough. | pradn wrote: | I think the article is implying that they moved away from a | "pure" JIT model, to somewhat of a hybrid model. Their in- | depth knowledge of their suppliers is orthogonal to their | stockpiling, but it still helps them plan better. | quotemstr wrote: | Sure. That's technically not inventory for tax purposes. | goodoldneon wrote: | Having the supplier store them still uses the same | distribution network as if they were shipped directly. If | Toyota stored them, they'd need to develop an equally robust | network from their warehouses to their factories. It's more | expensive to maintain your own distribution network and | warehouses than to just pay the supplier to store stuff | yardie wrote: | This is really ironic given the fact that Toyota was really at | the cutting edge of 90s JIT manufacturing and this was one of | worries that was raised in the. Their response, "we have | multiple sources for parts." [0] But over time those multiple | partners migrated to the same geographical locations, and then | an earthquake hit. | | [0] I'm totally paraphrasing here as I remember reading it in | some magazine years ago. | jacques_chester wrote: | They famously maintained production after that earthquake. | It's a common case study of how to adapt to supply chain | shocks by being good at running a supply chain in the first | place. All the things they needed for resilience -- plentiful | data, high trust relationships with suppliers, flexible and | skillful workforce -- were things they had built up to | support their JIT manufacturing capability. | eloff wrote: | I bet Tesla's decision to design and manufacture their own | machine learning chips for their "self-driving" functionality is | looking pretty smart now. They have their own contracts with the | fab companies to produce them. These are not the only kinds of | chips that go into cars by a long shot these days, but it is the | biggest ticket one. | | That was a multi-billion dollar, very bold and risky bet that | paid off. How many car companies do you know where they decided | to take on industry leaders like Nvidia and Intel and actually | produce a better product? That's really quite remarkable. | | If GM said tomorrow that they were going to build better machine- | learning chips than Nvidia, we'd all get a good laugh at that. | baybal2 wrote: | You see Tesla's BOM? | | I bet thet have the very same problem, it's not only the | dashboard computer they need chips for. | WanderPanda wrote: | But I get a sensation that they are more into off the shelf | parts than traditional automakers. SpaceX is also known to | use consumer grade chips in their rockets | eloff wrote: | They're also big on doing things themselves if they can't | get a supplier at the right price. | eloff wrote: | That is highly possible, I did allude to that. | Plasmoid2000ad wrote: | Maybe. Things that succeed in the face of an issue no one | predicted don't really stand out as smart - just lucky. It | might prove smart in the long run for many other reasons of | course. | | For all we know, Tesla could be locked into TSMC like everyone | else, while Nvidia has their current high-end chips on Samsung | as well relationships with TSMC. | eloff wrote: | Luck often looks smart in hindsight. You're right of course | that it was lucky. | | I think it was a smart decision for many reasons, that worked | out well. It was also a big risk. | jryle70 wrote: | The beauty of luck is that it can be used practically any | time as explanation for success. Tesla bet big on vertical | integration. Who knows what they took into consideration but | it was surely bold since they were not as flush with cash as | they are now. | MangoCoffee wrote: | Not TSMC but Samsung. Tesla have wafer agreement with Samsung | for 14nm and 5nm. | clouddrover wrote: | > _These are not the only kinds of chips that go into cars by a | long shot these days, but it is the biggest ticket one_ | | Still can't build the car without the rest of them: | | https://electrek.co/2021/02/25/tesla-shuts-down-model-3-prod... | | Tesla said their ambition was to out-Toyota Toyota in | manufacturing. They haven't: | | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-fukushima-anniversa... | mhh__ wrote: | > we'd all get a good laugh at that. | | And who are we to laugh? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-04-23 23:00 UTC)