[HN Gopher] The global chip shortage is starting to have consequ...
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The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 458 points
Date : 2021-05-09 12:52 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| JessicaWade wrote:
| Now we have more legitimate reasons to hate miners. Right?
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| If you have a taste for irony, my company makes critical
| components for semiconductor equipment. If we can't ship, they
| can't ship. If they can't ship, semiconductor fabs can't increase
| capacity to meet the demand and solve the shortage.
|
| We went line down last week due to shortage of a critical chip
| for our component.
|
| In reality, the shortage is likely self-inflicted, like toilet
| paper a year ago, but for whatever combination of real demand +
| hoarding, we can't get them.
| FinanceAnon wrote:
| Interesting. I always imagined supply chains as a flow in one
| direction, with each further step of the chain making more
| complicated stuff. But your comment made me realise that supply
| chains can be more like a loop, with the more complicated
| components going back to make the earlier steps more efficient.
|
| And a semiconductor factory requires lots of semiconductors
| themselves. It's like bootstraping a compiler.
| mastazi wrote:
| > Everyday appliances at risk
|
| > Production of low-margin processors, such as those used to
| weigh clothes in a washing machine or toast bread in a smart
| toaster, has also been hit.
|
| Maybe the silver lining of this situation is that the current
| push to make every appliance "smart" will slow down? I will take
| a "dumb" bread toaster any day over the "smart" version. And
| finally @internetofshit will be able to take some time off.
| macspoofing wrote:
| This also feels like inflation.
| tyingq wrote:
| Used car prices going up 10% very suddenly is interesting...see
| the chart within this:
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/used-car-prices-saw-their-bi...
| varispeed wrote:
| It's weird that you can buy chips on Chinese sites in their
| thousands and western usual suppliers have no stock and the lead
| times are more than a year on some parts. Unfortunately you
| cannot just buy these Chinese parts and use in the products as
| they will likely have no certification or may even be fake. At
| least can be useful for prototyping although risky as well. I
| know many projects are on hold because of that.
| salawat wrote:
| This is the legacy of offshoring most production. We've lost
| the ability to drive our own supply chains based on nowhere for
| talent to work or land.
|
| Once you lose that as a nation, the tail wags the dog.
| f6v wrote:
| There's useful technology, like computer controlling your engine
| to make it more fuel-efficient or whatever. And then there're
| "smart appliances", like a fridge with a screen. Do we really
| need it? The companies try to sell us more useless stuff, that's
| what it is.
| michaelmcdonald wrote:
| I think it's rather short-sighted to refer to one application
| of technology as useful and another as not needed. Is the
| computer controlling the engine to be more fuel-efficient
| needed? No. Is the car even needed? No. But we have found a use
| for that technology that improves our daily lives.
|
| Perhaps for you a fridge with a screen is not useful; however
| for others it may be.
| f6v wrote:
| > Is the computer controlling the engine to be more fuel-
| efficient needed? No. Is the car even needed? No.
|
| We can continue ad absurdum, but it's clear that more screens
| is added to our lives to:
|
| 1. Consume more content
|
| 2. As a result, see more ads
|
| 3. Finally, buy more stuff
|
| I'm not against technology, but electronics producers have
| been going out of their way to continue growth. That's fine,
| but I'd love to have a robot doing dishes and cooking for me.
| Instead, there's a fridge that "Cameras recognize the food in
| your fridge so you can search for recipes based on what you
| have." [0]. That's such a marginal benefit.
|
| [0] https://www.samsung.com/us/connected-appliances/#get-app
| tazjin wrote:
| With those gimmicky features there's also only a slim
| chance that anyone is actually using them because it's
| often hard to impossible, especially for people with less
| interest in tech.
|
| For example, in a large company like Samsung some product
| manager might show up and require that users of the food
| scanning feature have a Samsung account. Now you have to
| register for a Samsung account on your fridge, but the
| embedded web view is being redirected to a new thing with
| 35% heavier Javascript which doesn't really run on your
| fridge anymore and that's the end of that.
|
| This example is made up but it wouldn't surprise me if
| things very close to this have happened on these fridges,
| and they definitely happen all the time in consumer
| electronics.
| cgriswald wrote:
| > With those gimmicky features there's also only a slim
| chance that anyone is actually using them because it's
| often hard to impossible, especially for people with less
| interest in tech.
|
| True life example: I have a washer. It was sold as being
| internet-connected. There are some mildly interesting use
| cases I could see for being able to control or check the
| status of a wash remotely.
|
| Well, it's internet-connected, sure, but you can only
| connect it to your network with WPS, many app reviews
| suggest the remote app doesn't work, the feature set is
| small, and the features it does have are hobbled in ways
| that make even that set pretty useless--seemingly in
| order to prevent lawsuits.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > especially for people with less interest in tech
|
| Hum... I can program in something around a dozen
| languages, can find my way around the Linux kernel code
| as well as enterprise software, can administer OSes...
|
| Yet, I am completely unable to set my fridge's clock (why
| does it have one?) since I lost its manual. I have spent
| some time trying.
|
| IoT and smart things are a great equalizer. Nobody can
| handle them. Some times it's even not possible.
| salawat wrote:
| The great VCR clock boss. Ah... Those were the days.
| Those were how I learned to finagle things that the
| manual was gone for.
|
| Still not sure whether I should consider the result brain
| damage though. I can set a VCR clock, but I can't grok
| people.
|
| Longer I live the more I wonder if I learned patience for
| the wrong thing.
| indymike wrote:
| If people do not want a screen on the fridge, then the sales
| numbers will tell manufacturers not to make that model. So much
| of product is experimentation, and often times the research and
| experiments ends up being wrong. So many products and companies
| fail when they go to market and find out nobody wants it. The
| other side of the coin are the products that are unexpected
| hits... There are so many things that have to go right... and
| it takes so few to go wrong.
| cgriswald wrote:
| It's not really about sales.
|
| First, sales numbers can only really ever tell you part of
| the story. If every fridge has a screen, sales numbers won't
| tell you about the demand for screenless fridges. If, at that
| point, some manufacturer tests a screenless fridge, the sales
| numbers might tell you about a lack of demand or might tell
| you about a failure in marketing. Additionally, if fridges
| with screens can be used to advertise to customers, get them
| to sign up for subscription services, steal their data, avoid
| the expense of bifurcating the line of fridges, or otherwise
| increase profit or decrease costs, they will be manufactured
| anyway.
| anonymousab wrote:
| > then the sales numbers will tell manufacturers not to make
| that model
|
| Doesn't really matter... if Fridge with a Screen makes 4x the
| profits or simply has a recurring revenue per unit where
| Fridge Without a Screen does not, then the market will become
| purely Fridge With a Screen.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Just to add on to this (because I think it's interesting)...
| the Engine Computer (PCM - Powertrain Control Module) does so
| much! Just to name a few:
|
| - Coordinates the engine and the transmission for smooth shifts
| - Holds a gear while the engine is in the power band if the
| throttle position meets a certain threshold - Makes diagnosing
| complex problems much easier, even remembering data so it can
| be diagnosed when the problem is not happening at the time you
| drop your car off with a technician - Shuts the engine and fuel
| pump off if it receives a message on the vehicle bus that an
| airbag was deployed - Can advance or retard ignition timing
| depending on the grade of fuel you put in the tank -
| Reads/Adjusts combustion parameters thousands of times per
| second on each cylinder (prioritizing fuel economy, power
| output, and emissions depending on the situation).
| framecowbird wrote:
| > Elsewhere, Renault is no longer putting an oversized digital
| screen behind the steering wheel of certain models
|
| At least there is one benefit of the chip shortage...
| andrekandre wrote:
| U.S. tech giant Intel has offered to help but it reportedly wants
| 8 billion euros in public subsidies toward building a
| semiconductor factory in Europe.
|
| wow....
|
| my immediate reaction is "then it should be a public foundry, if
| payed for by the public"... but maybe im missing some
| detail/nuance...
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| > "then it should be a public foundry, if payed for by the
| public"
|
| It sounds to me like Intel is willing to set up a fab in
| Europe, and they've stated their asking price. Why does this
| immediately result in people saying that it should be a public
| foundry just because it would ultimately be paid for by the
| public?
| geitir wrote:
| I guess it's a case of "if you hold the cards..."
| anticristi wrote:
| What does this _actually_ mean? Will we be forced to produce less
| electro junk in the near future? I see no urgency to change car,
| toothbrush, washing machine, dishwasher, headphones, laptop, etc.
| anytime soon.
| smiley1437 wrote:
| Interestingly, there is an embedded video in that article that
| explains the issue specific to the automotive shortage - it's
| because the automotive industry cancelled a lot of chip orders in
| anticipation of low vehicle demand and that caused chip makers to
| reduce their production for the kinds of chips that go into cars,
| and now it takes time to ramp back up:
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/03/02/how-the-global-compute...
|
| It's at the 4m15s part of the video
|
| I think a facepalm is in order.
| banbanbang wrote:
| That's not true and disinformation being pushed by the real
| culprits of the chip shortage: crypto miners. It's pathetic.
| mortdeus wrote:
| I think the reality of the economy is more obvious than any of
| this.
|
| In other words if the economy "stops" in the automotive
| department, how fucked are we in general?
| mortdeus wrote:
| Seriously, assuming the economy is just as dependent as any
| motor is with "cogs and wheels" how dependent are we on our
| weakest parts?
| mortdeus wrote:
| a better question is what can we do to help?
| kenniskrag wrote:
| I think it is called bullwhip effect: The bullwhip effect is a
| distribution channel phenomenon in which demand forecasts yield
| supply chain inefficiencies. It refers to increasing swings in
| inventory in response to shifts in consumer demand as one moves
| further up the supply chain.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullwhip_effect
| samfisher83 wrote:
| Its the whole JIT inventories stuff they preach in business
| school. Toyota actually stocked enough chips to handle
| something like this.
| fatbird wrote:
| I'm starting to think historians will look back at our age
| and say "it was the MBAs who doomed them", much the same way
| that historians look at China's history and point to an
| excess of court eunechs as the reason this or that dynasty
| fell.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| The eunechs being blamed was mostly a "polite" fiction as
| they had no descendants to offend, especially important if
| the same dynasty is in place. Badmouthing the current
| emperor's ancestors isn't good for your health.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| It's funny because systems dynamics have been known in supply
| chain optimisation for like 4 decades and the research itself
| is from the 60S. JIT is an obvious case of overoptimising
| leading to fragility so the fact that its accepted as the
| ideal is ludicrous.
| giardini wrote:
| The shift to JIT ("Just In Time") inventory has proven
| problematic:
|
| "Coronavirus pandemic exposes fatal flaws of the 'just-in-time'
| economy"
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-02/coronavirus-pandemic-...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Nothing wrong with JIT. The mistake was thinking you could
| dole penalties for late deliveries, but stop purchasing
| whenever you like without consequences.
| shitpostbot wrote:
| I'm about 95% sure the constant wave of chip shortage news is
| actually the U.S. semiconductor industry astroturfing to
| establish a narrative about their critical role in the economy,
| with the end goal being favorable governemtent regulations or
| even direct subsidies.
|
| Not that that it isn't true that they are important or
| anything. But this feels inorganic and the real shortage is
| just in the limited availability of cutting edge processor
| nodes. The automakers just kinda misplanned and thats getting
| spun hard
| christkv wrote:
| They also seem to point the finger towards hoarding by
| electronics companies in china to prepare for possible future
| sanctions.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Chinese companies produce those chips, that explanation makes
| little sense. Rather than the companies "hoarding", it may be
| they're simply not exporting as much to the US and Europe
| anymore, for political reasons. Any major company in China is
| under CCP supervision and towing the party line. It's not
| like it's a free market where private corporations do as they
| please.
|
| Turns out relying on a single region and in that region
| mainly on a single country for producing most essential goods
| wasn't such a good idea. Especially when said country is
| ruled by a rival regime.
| christkv wrote:
| https://archive.is/0LTBa from financial times seems to
| suggest a lot of hoarding is going on.
|
| But the shortage has been worsened by hoarding by
| sanctions-hit Chinese groups, which has made it harder for
| some companies to secure components for everyday
| electronics such as washing machines and toasters.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| It does highlight the problem with having the origins of your
| supply chains in a potentially unfriendly country.
| bluedino wrote:
| Automakers don't carry much inventory. Issues at any of the
| suppliers can cause big holdups in production.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| It's all their lean manufacturing concentration. Inventory is
| anathema to lean manufacturing and should only have a little
| bit of anything extra on hand. It works well when everything is
| running smooth, but in a pandemic shit is going to happen and
| now they have to pay the opportunity cost. Car purchases are
| fairly elastic and they'll make up for it next year though but
| the "quarterly" mentality of WallStreet likes to make mountains
| out of mole hills.
| bredren wrote:
| Since 14% of renters are behind on rent and evictions begin
| June 30, aren't vehicle repossessions going to kick in July /
| August?
|
| Presumably, due in part to eviction protection, they have been
| able to divert all or a portion of their rent payments to
| keeping up with bad car loans for commute vehicles that often
| will not be needed.
|
| These folks need them for housing unfortunately.
|
| If repossessed cars start showing up that should put downward
| pressure on people wanting to buy new ones. Most new cars still
| suck / Do not offer meaningful new features.
|
| And of those who do buy new, that will be another fresh supply
| of used cars.
|
| How long is this chip shortage due to vehicles going to last
| given these circumstances?
|
| https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/05/07/are-renters-and-the-u-s...
| itsoktocry wrote:
| What do you consider "meaningful new features"? What about
| new cars "sucks"? They are more reliable, safer, quieter,
| more powerful, more fuel efficient and more full featured
| than ever.
| bredren wrote:
| We are in the iPod Video stage of individual car ownership.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Are you saying that the next step will be the best
| version of individual car ownership?
| bredren wrote:
| I sure hope so. I think car culture is bad art.
|
| But to defend the analogy, iPod Video was iPod gen 5.
| Apple did two more generations on that format with the
| minimum additional feature set.
|
| That might take a while. And there will be many a Zune
| sold in the meantime.
| tricolon wrote:
| Can you elaborate a bit? I am quite familiar with the
| various iPods but quite unfamiliar with cars.
| bredren wrote:
| There are a lot of car enthusiasts here who can explain
| what makes new cars cool. You'll have to make your own
| comparison to iPod features from 2005.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Yeah, I'm tryign to make my dino car last until I can get
| a $40k electric car that will go 500 mile on a single
| charge running AC in the Texas heat. THen I'll run that
| into the ground for 15-20 years hopefully.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| Whether your into sports cars or fuel efficient cars,
| both categories have meaningfully improved over the past
| few years.
|
| For sports cars, there's a number of 500,600,700hp cars
| on the market. Corvettes went mid engine (2020), Miatas
| lost 400lbs of weight(2016), Mustangs/Camaros/Chargers
| are now 460+HP (2018ish), a VW Golf R will hit 60MPH in 4
| seconds with a 2.0L motor, and that's not even getting
| into Teslas.
|
| For economy cars, a Rav4 hybrid gets about as good of
| fuel economy as a 2014 Prius, while being substantially
| larger. There are good hybrid offerings from non-Toyota
| brands, such as KIA. Plug in hybrids are pretty widely
| available. Even non-hybrids such as the Civic improved
| substantially in fuel economy in the past few years. In
| 2016, Civic fuel economy improved about 8% across the
| lineup.
|
| For many auto makers, the transition from early 2010s to
| late 2010s came with substantial improvements. Not just
| in measureable metrics either. Transmission performance
| has improved so much between 2010 and 2020. It's really
| insane to experience a 2010 6 speed automatic, then
| compare it to a car with a modern 8,9,10 speed. The
| difference is night and day for most cars.
| bredren wrote:
| I'm sure people who pay attention to cars and their
| performance would agree. And I think many cars will sell.
|
| But I think "meaningfully improved" is in the eye of the
| beholder.
|
| Steve Jobs' one more thing for iPod gen five included the
| exclamation "calendars never looked better!"
|
| You look at the slide he has behind him and it looks
| ridiculous. How useful was that calendar, how silly does
| that look now? What is the meaning of 0 to 60 in 4
| seconds when there's traffic anyway? Isn't there a safer,
| less expensive way to get a rush than pushing a pedal
| with a foot?
|
| I'm not arguing that these features you're describing
| viewed through the lens of today aren't meaningful.
| Breakout on iPod Video was cool too. But these
| improvements do not change the fundamental experience of
| personal transportation. They make it marginally better
| at best.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyblf2P_q5Q
| ev1 wrote:
| > What is the meaning of 0 to 60 in 4 seconds when
| there's traffic anyway?
|
| I take public transit and don't own a car ($500/m
| parking, insane insurance rates in SF, cars broken into
| within minutes in daylight), but drive rentals/carshare-
| by-hour periodically. Merging and accelerating onto a
| freeway from a rate limited entryway stopped to 60 is
| somewhat useful while keeping up with flow.
| tpxl wrote:
| With brakes connected to the internet and useless
| touchscreens.
| gumby wrote:
| It's hard to predict, even if only a couple of months ahead.
| As the economy picks up a lot of people who had rent relief
| may have some sort of income, perhaps enough to push them
| positively over the line. Not all of the renters on relief,
| obviously, but perhaps enough to chop the number of actual
| car repossessions significantly.
|
| Separately, I suspect that quite a few of the ppl who had
| rent relief had cars that, let's just say, wouldn't be highly
| sought in he used vehicle market.
| bredren wrote:
| > Separately, I suspect that quite a few of the ppl who had
| rent relief had cars that, let's just say, wouldn't be
| highly sought in he used vehicle market.
|
| Perhaps.
|
| Vehicles have been pushed in every medium as status
| symbols. Creative financing options and cheaper insurance
| have allowed those affected by this to continue to
| participate. It isn't just new cars but expensive
| restoration and customization of old ones.
|
| I think this is beginning to fall away, in part because
| young people do not rely on physical presence to gain and
| maintain social standing among their peers as much as they
| used to.
|
| So a better phone camera matters more than nicer rims.
| Selfies in front of a fancy car get less likes than
| swimming next to a sea tortoise.
|
| That said I think groups that have been economically
| disadvantaged over long periods of time process and
| integrate culture shifts like this more slowly.
| justapassenger wrote:
| > Most new cars still suck / Do not offer meaningful new
| features.
|
| In terms of bells and whistles? Yeah, not that much. But in
| terms of safety tech, there has been a huge progress in last
| 10 years and it's not slowing down. New cars are not only
| getting harder to crash, but in case of crash they're getting
| better and better at protecting you.
|
| Safety is main reason why I update my cars every few years,
| even tho it's pretty costly. But so is having my family
| seriously injured or killed.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Safety is main reason why I update my cars every few
| years
|
| It's probably only only worth it after a redesign (every 6
| years, or so), and I'd wait for the second model year in
| the new generation for them to work out the kinks. That
| said, the EV of added safety, especially coming from a car
| generation build before the small overlap frontal crash
| test was added in 2012, is pretty good.
| kens wrote:
| A couple of days ago I was watching a dramatic video
| showing test collisions of old cars vs modern cars. I was
| surprised by how much safer a 2016 car was than a 1992 car.
| Not to mention the 1959 death trap Bel Air. (It's alarming
| though that 1992 is now the olden days.)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TikJC0x65X0
| geerlingguy wrote:
| But a 2010+ car is not that far off a brand new car. Used
| doesn't just mean old junker!
| megablast wrote:
| Maybe that was better for society.
|
| In those days, dare devils didnt last long.
|
| Now, they can crash and kill, and drive again in a few
| hours.
| logicalmind wrote:
| I often wonder about things like this. It reminds of
| Tullock's spike:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Tullock#Tullock's_sp
| ike
| tomschlick wrote:
| Yeah I remember talking to my grandfather a few years ago
| and he made a comment about cars being so fragile now.
| One accident and they crumple costing thousands to fix
| when "back in the day" it would just be a bent bumper. I
| explained that in the old days the car was built sturdier
| and survived but the people had worse odds, now the car
| is sacrificed to take the brunt of the force. That
| finally clicked for him as he remembered quite a few
| friends being in life threatening crashes back then but
| barely any today.
| bluedino wrote:
| >> Since 14% of renters are behind on rent and evictions
| begin June 30, aren't vehicle repossessions going to kick in
| July / August?
|
| Americans will pay their car loan before their rent.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| You can sleep in your car but you can't drive your house or
| apartment.
| vmception wrote:
| Looking forward to major US regions becoming market-based
| economies again.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| The issue is that supply is greatly exceeding demand. It also
| isn't constrained to Vehicles. Apple's Q2 guidance has said
| that iPads and Macs supplies have been constrained. [1].
| Also, if you get reposessed cars that doesn't mean you will
| be able to resell them. Sure the automakers made a mistake in
| their orders for chips but since everyone is now trying to
| get foundries making chips and we are still having logistic
| problems with Air and Ocean freight no one really knows the
| answer to your question. [2]
|
| [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-29/apple-
| fin...
|
| [2] https://unctad.org/news/shipping-during-covid-19-why-
| contain...
| ineedasername wrote:
| _Most new cars still suck / Do not offer meaningful new
| features_
|
| That really depends on how old your car is. I generally buy
| instead of lease, and run the car until it starts having
| regular problems. As a result, my car is 12 years old, and
| any new one from the last few years is a significant upgrade
| in terms of features. I don't really want a monthly car
| payment again, but I'm almost looking forward to when my
| current car starts having enough problems to make the upgrade
| worth it.
| MandieD wrote:
| We had a 2020 Corolla as a rental over Christmas/New Years
| 2019/20, and it was amazing. What we drive at home: a 2008
| Ford Fiesta that my husband bought in 2013.
|
| My only worry is that something will go wrong enough with
| it in the next year or so that we'd be compelled to get
| another car in this rather tight market, but otherwise,
| knowing that your car's current resale (and repurchase)
| value is approximately the secondary wage earner's monthly
| after-tax income is liberating.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Next year will probably be better. The current shortage
| in materials and chips is a product of so many things
| (supply chains) getting mothballed, they'll be up to full
| production by next year.
| o-__-o wrote:
| All modern cars have amazing new features. Air bags,
| reverse cameras, steering by wire, ABS, direct fuel
| injection, massively boosted turbocharged engines (on
| econoboxes!) and traction control as standard. My 7 year
| old car has all of the above and can park itself, has
| adaptive cruise control, and for $400 I added a 12" touch
| screen stereo. Compared to my last car, my current car
| outputs up to 20psi of boost compared to the 6psi of four
| generations ago. My current car has part time AWD that is
| just as efficient as my old mechanical always on AWD car of
| yesterday. I bought my car for under $20k. The car is worth
| under $10k right now. That is massive value available to
| everyone right now.
|
| Maybe you could upgrade your car now for much less than you
| think, or maybe you only want the latest shiny parts.
| Either way you need to be honest with yourself, cars have
| evolved and stayed modern over the past 2 decades compared
| to any time in automobile history
| pja wrote:
| I bought a perfectly ordinary second hand vehicle for
| PS3k in 2003 (it had been built in 1999) which had ABS,
| air bags everywhere, direct fuel injection, turbo-charged
| engine & traction control. Modern cars are pretty amazing
| things: a lot of these features have been standard for
| twenty years at this point! (The vehicle I bought was
| much favoured by UK taxi drivers at the time, which shows
| you how very boring & practical it was.)
| o-__-o wrote:
| Since 2003 that has only gotten better. My turbocharged
| engine gets 35mpg on the highway while putting out 240hp
| on demand. 2003 cars couldn't do that. my 2000 A4 with
| mods put out 250hp and had some sort of vacuum leak every
| other week, meanwhile that's normal for my 2014 car and
| adding meth injection puts me as 300hp with zero problems
| after 2 years of continuous use
|
| Remember when cars of the 90s were so much better than
| cars of the 80s? Going over 100k mi/km in most cars
| wasn't a concern anymore. Now a large majority of cars
| are going 200-300k without a sweat
| Animats wrote:
| _All modern cars have amazing new features._
|
| Oh yes. Remote monitoring, tracking for advertising,
| contact list stealing through the USB charger port...
| o-__-o wrote:
| My cars have no such remote monitoring or tracking
| outside of government regulation (airbag crash sensor
| recording). Is this going to turn into an Apple vs Google
| phone style debate? Let's stop before it gets there; Buy
| from a company that respects your privacy, but be
| prepared to spend more.
|
| Also all of your other ten year old hardware probably has
| vulnerabilities you are not aware of as well
| Animats wrote:
| _My cars have no such remote monitoring or tracking
| outside of government regulation (airbag crash sensor
| recording)_
|
| There was a time when people were worried about that as a
| privacy invasion. Even though, to access it, someone has
| to dig into the wreckage and retrieve the recorder. And
| all it yields is details of the last 30 seconds before
| the crash.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Maybe not always the good kind of amazing?
| merb wrote:
| you forgot the most important thing. cas, one system
| (aeb) is required in european in 2022.
| whitepoplar wrote:
| Which car do you have?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| If you don't want a monthly car payment, start your
| "monthly car payment" into a savings account now. You'll
| end up paying less for your next car if you can maximise
| the up-front payment.
| vlunkr wrote:
| Or save up enough that you can pay cash. I would think
| for the HN crowd it should be feasible. I think when
| you're spending money that's already in your account you
| make better decisions. Like you'll be less inclined to
| pay thousands more for an upgraded model with a bunch of
| superficial nonsense added
| nradov wrote:
| Current low interest rates on car loans make that
| approach a bit pointless.
| mywittyname wrote:
| They've been low for a while now too. As annoying as it
| is to have a $670 car payment each month, you really
| can't beat 0% interest on a $40k loan. Especially in a
| market where the average monthly return on $40k in stocks
| has been pretty substantial.
| heisenbit wrote:
| 0% loan on the sticker price. The goal of coming in with
| cash is to get as far as possible below the sticker
| price.
| giaour wrote:
| Don't dealerships make a good percentage of their profits
| from finance charges? The last time I bought a car, it
| took an hour of cajoling to get the cash price of a three
| year lease
| giobox wrote:
| Absolutely. To take Ford as an example, It's not that
| huge an exaggeration to suggest Ford manufactured cars
| with virtually no profit margin to help sell profitable
| loans via its Ford Credit arm at various times in its
| recent history, rather than providing loans to help sell
| the cars at profit. Ford Credit is a huge part of Ford'
| overall business.
| dntrkv wrote:
| Dealers don't care whether you pay cash or finance. Just
| call around dealers within a certain mile radius you are
| willing to drive and find the best deal. This has been,
| and will always be, the best way to get a deal.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| This is a really common misconception that buyers have.
|
| Just stop and think for a second - put yourself in the
| dealer's shoes - why do you think the dealer would want
| cash? No reason. They don't want your cash. A cash buyer
| is a pain. They want to sell you a loan.
|
| The last time I bought a car I offered cash, and they
| countered with a four-figure discount (on total cost of
| ownership) if I took part of it as a loan. I now have
| that part of the price invested, creating money, while I
| gradually pay the loan.
|
| And my credit score went up as I had a new, responsible
| loan!
|
| Cash buyers are fools, unless you're really at the point
| of valuing not having a loan for moral reasons (maybe a
| German?) at four-figures.
| wingspar wrote:
| I always separate trade-in and financing from the price.
| Deal on the price first then the trade, then the
| financing.
|
| Trade ins are good for negotiation too. Wanted the
| factory extended warranty. Dealers in other states will
| discount the extended warranty but can't sell in my
| state. Dealer wouldn't discount the warranty to the price
| of the out-of-state so I had them keep it that price and
| up the trade in value to match it. They can show they
| didn't discount the warranty. I get the discount.
|
| They did that if I would get finance thru them, matching
| my prearranged banks rate. Deal made.
|
| Went in the next Monday to the local bank and refinanced
| the car loan.
|
| Also made them give me so thing for signing the
| arbitration agreement. Everything is negotiable. I did
| have to walk away but they called me back on the drive
| home.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Exactly - agree a sale price. Then discuss payment. And
| at that point cash has no benefit to the dealer, but a
| loan does. So the loan can get you a discount but the
| cash cannot.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| And if you had walked out the door they would have run
| after you to take the cash deal AND given you the
| discount. You think they prefer to deal with the time and
| uncertainty of putting you through a loan application,
| when they could pocket the same sale in cash? Nobody is
| coming out with less money on a loan purchase vs. cash,
| except the buyer.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I think you're mistaken about how dealerships and car
| sales are structured, at least in places like the UK and
| the US. Maybe it's different where you are?
|
| They get a proportion of the sale price, and they get
| paid a referral fee for you opening a loan, and then on
| top of that they can offer extras that you probably don't
| need like fabric protection products.
|
| > Nobody is coming out with less money on a loan purchase
| vs. cash, except the buyer.
|
| The dealer is _paid to get you to get a loan_. If they
| don 't get the loan, they get less money. My
| understanding is that their referral fee is somewhat weak
| about how much the loan actually has to be, so they just
| care that you take it.
|
| It's worth it to them to discount the price by less than
| their loan referral fee, in order to get the loan
| referral fee.
|
| > And if you had walked out the door they would have run
| after you to take the cash deal AND given you the
| discount.
|
| No they'd just have sold to someone willing to pay their
| price.
|
| There's a car supply shortage... that's the whole point
| of the article... did you miss that? If you want to buy a
| new car at the moment and you go in haggling them on a
| mid to high end spec car they'll just tell you to fuck
| off and you won't get the car you want.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > they get paid a referral fee for you opening a loan
|
| Which is added in to the finance charges or amount
| borrowed. Ever wonder why the salesmen always want to
| negotiate a "payment" amount instead of a purchase price?
|
| > No they'd just have sold to someone willing to pay
| their price.
|
| And I'd have just gone to another dealer willing to work
| with me on my terms.
|
| > There's a car supply shortage
|
| True, and that causes higher prices overall. But
| negotiation strategies for getting the best deal haven't
| changed.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Ever wonder why the salesmen always want to negotiate a
| "payment" amount instead of a purchase price?
|
| Well that's the point - say you want agree a purchase
| price for the car before you talk about how you'll pay.
| Do that and get an actual number from them. Then...
|
| Offer to pay the agreed price cash and ask for a discount
| based on this - you won't get one because _there 's no
| benefit to the dealer in taking cash_ it's just an
| inconvenience to them.
|
| or...
|
| Offer to take at least a small a loan and ask for a
| discount based on this - you might get one because the
| way they are established means there are strong
| incentives for them to make loans.
|
| In either case you can of course threaten to walk away if
| the price isn't right, but paying cash isn't going to
| increase your bargaining power it's going to diminish it
| - 'not only is this person wanting to pay less but they
| also want to fuck up my loan referral rate and fee and
| make me unpopular with my manager'. And at some point I
| presume you need a car so you can't walk away forever.
|
| The idea that you're an attractive customer if you'll pay
| cash is a 90s thing.
| nradov wrote:
| You simply don't understand how modern franchise dealers
| operate. Cash discounts are no longer a thing. Due to
| incentives they prefer to finance through the
| manufacturer's captive lender. The F&I guy is already
| sitting there in his office with nothing else to do and
| as long as you have a decent credit score the approval
| process takes literally a few minutes.
|
| Sure the dealer will take cash if that's how you want to
| pay but you're not getting any extra discount.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Not my experience. I have always gotten the best deals
| paying cash, and threatening to walk away.
|
| The key is to not get emotionally invested in owning the
| car before you actually own the car. A lot of people
| can't do that.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Yes, if you're going to cash buy, you can frequently get
| a better deal off the sticker price by agreeing to
| finance and then simply paying the loan off. How you
| structure things really depends on priorities though.
| Normally I buy the car (through financing) but right now
| I prioritized low monthly payments during financial
| uncertainty, so I leased. If things are different in
| three years, we'll either buy a new car or buyout the
| lease-- I made sure the lease buyout price was something
| we would be comfortable with: the TCO came out to only a
| little more than if we financed a purchase w/ higher
| immediate monthly payments, and I judged that a slightly
| higher TCO is worth the current ability to keep monthly
| expenses to a minimum.
| SilasX wrote:
| Yes, and the smart move there is to take the offer and
| pay it early, which is still stupid on the dealer's part.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Assuming you can. Some deals are set up so that you have
| to pay most of the interest even if you pay the loan off
| early, or other prepayment penalties.
| SilasX wrote:
| Yes, prepayment penalties are a thing. But every time
| this comes up, we see reports of too-good-to-be -true
| deals that don't have them. See, for example, this
| thread:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14484615
|
| I also had a friend do exactly what I described, and
| there was another thread where they only had to make two
| payments and then could pay off the rest without penalty
| (and even that was an unspoken gentlemen's agreement with
| the dealer) -- will find if I get a chance.
|
| The point is, it's simply not warranted to assume as a
| bedrock of truth that no dealer every makes a confused
| deal in this respect, as chrisseaton was insisting.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > Cash buyers are fools, unless you're really at the
| point of valuing not having a loan for moral reasons
| (maybe a German?) at four-figures.
|
| German Ideal nowadays is to buy a house for a couple
| hundred grand on a loan that you finish paying off when
| retiring.
| nradov wrote:
| It's actually the opposite. Most franchise dealers get
| incentives for financing through the manufacturer's
| captive lender, so you can often negotiate a slightly
| better deal by taking a loan.
| ineedasername wrote:
| One offer I was looking at recently was 0% OR $4k cash
| back off the MSRP. The interest rate on taking the cash
| back offer ended up working out to near exactly $4k.
| Though if you have good credit and went through a credit
| union you could probably get a much better rate.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Except for the part where $0 down, 0% interest loan make
| people go for the 40k car they don't need instead of the
| 25k one.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| You lose all of that and more on depreciation in the
| first two years.
|
| I buy older than most people; currently my newest car is
| a 2009. I do maintenance and routine repairs myself, and
| I lose almost nothing on depreciation. But you can still
| come out ahead by buying 4-6 years old and letting the
| original buyers take the bulk of the depreciation losses.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| For me the sweet spot has been 5 years old and < 60K
| miles, usually cars with that description haven't been
| run into the ground. Currently driving a mustang with
| 200K miles on it and it still runs like a sewing machine.
| It's harder now though, pandemic has really driven up
| used car prices, makes more sense to buy new currently,
| especially if you're getting something like a honda or
| toyota that holds value.
| daniellarusso wrote:
| Not anymore.
|
| Car market is a bit strange right now.
|
| Check the price on your 2009 on eBay or craiglist. Is it
| worth more than you think it should be?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Borrowing also means you have to carry collision
| insurance, the surplus value (over the expected payout)
| of which should also be considered a finance charge if
| you'd otherwise not carry it.
| vel0city wrote:
| If you were to buy a car in cash for $40k+, would you
| really not bother to carry comprehensive insurance on it?
| Are there really that many people out there where a $40k+
| oops just isn't a big deal, just go buy another?
|
| I don't carry comprehensive insurance on my car. I drive
| a 2000 Honda Accord though, so the KBB value (and what
| they quoted me for) was only about $1000. I wouldn't
| carry comprehensive on that. But you bet if I've got
| $40k+ rolling down the road and in the elements it's
| going to have _some_ insurance on it.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I've usually dropped collision coverage on cars when they
| get under around $15K. (All but one of my cars was
| _purchased_ for less than this, often much less.)
|
| If I had a 0% loan on it for some reason at that point,
| that meant paying off the loan to let me do that. (If you
| assume an 8% nominal return on investments, that means
| when paying off the loan would cost me under $100/mo.)
|
| I think you should insure against risks that would be a
| substantial impact to your life and (generally) not
| insure against risks that wouldn't.
| dahfizz wrote:
| It would be better to take the car payment and invest
| that money. You can get a car loan for less that 3%
| interest, and you can easily make double that with low
| risk ETFs. Hell, you could invest your savings into a
| dividend fund and use that to pay your car payment
| directly.
| dwighttk wrote:
| If you don't want a monthly car payment pay a monthly car
| payment so later you can have a smaller monthly car
| payment?
| jimbob45 wrote:
| I think the idea is that you accrue the interest yourself
| instead of paying it to someone else.
| syshum wrote:
| Interest on savings accounts is far less than inflation,
| out side of an emergency fund there is little reason to
| save cash.
| imtringued wrote:
| Isn't the benefit of the car loan that you can have
| emergency funds? I mean, if you save up $5k and get a car
| loan for $25k you for years you effectively have a 2 year
| emergency buffer.
|
| If you pay off the car up front you may run into
| liquidity issues until you have restored your emergency
| fund.
| syshum wrote:
| No one should consider using their emergency fund for
| anything other than emergency's, so I am not sure what
| your point it
|
| The comment I was responding too talked specifically
| about saving money in a savings account for the purposes
| of buying expensive things like a car. It should go with
| out saying one should not use their emergency fund for
| these purchases (unless they are an emergency)
|
| Once you have the 6mos to 1 year of expenses in your
| emergency fund you should divert any other cash to other
| accounts such as Debt Repayment (providing the debt is
| more than 5-7% interest or current inflation) and/or
| investments such as tax advantaged retirement accounts
| ironmagma wrote:
| The amount of interest accrued in a savings account is
| pretty wimpy though.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| Yeah, but a savings account? Interest rates for savings
| are abysmal, and auto-loans are themselves frequently
| near (or at) zero these days, so it's losing advice as-
| given.
|
| Better advice: put the money in the market or other
| higher-yielding investment, then take a low or no
| interest loan on the vehicle when the time comes so those
| investments can continue to grow at the much higher clip.
| Money's just too cheap to give away your own cash.
| Obviously, if the interest rate environment changes, this
| should be re-evaluated.
| Larrikin wrote:
| What percentage are you talking about as being abysmal.
| 0.1% offered at some shitty brick and mortar bank is
| terrible but nearly all the online first banks offer (or
| offered before covid) what I thought was a decent 1-3%
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| I'm not seeing anything like that. Here's the latest
| roundup of "the best rates" over at Bankrate [0], which
| includes some online-only banks. Highest I see there is
| 0.57%, with most at 0.4% and 0.5%.
|
| You might be able to scrounge up a few basis points
| somewhere if you're really determined and/or willing to
| meet some requirements. Still, even with our low-
| inflation these days [1], you're actually _losing_ money
| in these savings accounts.
|
| Main point though is that it's more of a relative game vs
| your ROI elsewhere. Even indexes and ETFs that are
| reasonably "low-risk" are routinely returning much more
| these days, and of course over the long haul equity
| markets still beat this handily, even when smoothed for
| downturns.
|
| [0] https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/rates/
|
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/244983/projected-
| inflati...
| Larrikin wrote:
| TMobile Money is 4% for the first $3000 and 1% after that
| for customers and 1% flat for everyone else. Ally used to
| be pretty good but I've moved all my savings over for now
| X-Istence wrote:
| Highest these days is like 0.5%. If you are really lucky
| you can find 0.8%
| ratsbane wrote:
| You don't have to put it into a savings account. I do the
| same thing but into a stock fund.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Yes, we save a healthy portion of our income, but
| increasing that now just shifts the timing, not the pain,
| of when have to start a new car payment.
| thisCtx wrote:
| The unbearable suffering of being a first worlder with
| material comfort kings of old could never imagine.
|
| What a narcissistic culture we've built if such a reality
| brings "pain".
| lostcolony wrote:
| Depends on the interest rate of the loan, inflation rate
| of money between now and the time the loan is paid off,
| and any gains/losses you could make now investing that
| money.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| A savings account is just a way to burn money at the
| moment. Not recommended.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I tend to buy around 4-6 years old and run them for 10-12
| years as well, which is limited by New England tinworm from
| the road salt we use rather than mechanical issues.
|
| Beyond airbags and ABS (both now ubiquitous), I don't need
| the new feature faff. I just need something that will start
| everyday and that I can do the basic maintenance on.
| Fortunately, that's still easily available and cheap in the
| 5-ish year-old "those cars are too old to be reliable"
| mindset-driven market.
|
| I can't believe that people are willing to borrow money to
| keep driving 0-4 year old cars forever, but I'm glad they
| do because it greatly subsidizes the cars I drive.
| Mavvie wrote:
| I feel like each year cars get way safer. It started with
| blind spot detectors/cameras, and modern cars will even
| brake automatically and keep you in your lane (or at
| least warn you if you leave it).
|
| Maybe new features like self-driving aren't as
| interesting, but I would buy a new car instead of a used
| one just for the perceived improved safety.
|
| I don't know if there's any research showing that these
| features actually reduce accidents/fatalities though
| (plausibly if they malfunctioned it could be worse than
| nothing)
| wetpaws wrote:
| Most of the improvements are invisible. Better crumbing
| zones, better shock absorption, better composite
| materials. If you watch crash test of a modern car Vs
| 10-y old car, the later is significantly more dangerous.
| 20+ year old? Basically a death trap.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| The number of deaths per 1 million miles driven hasn't
| dropped in the past 10 years so that puts a huge dent in
| your theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_
| fatality_rate_in...
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Many of these features add minimal benefit if you do some
| common-sense stuff such as, don't drive when you're
| really tired (or drunk, or on drugs, etc.); don't play
| with your phone while you're driving; don't read, do your
| makeup, shave, etc. while you're driving. IOW put your
| focus on the task at hand and you don't really need blind
| spot detectors. Of course the reality is that people are
| pretty bad at these things.
| wetpaws wrote:
| I found them invaluable, especially BSM saved me from a
| lot of near-crash situations. When dealing with fast
| deadly chunks of metal every % of reduced chance of death
| is a good investment in my book.
| sokoloff wrote:
| How many serious crashes or near-serious-crashes were you
| in in your prior cars without BSM? Assuming no other
| changes, that seems the most realistic measure of risk
| reduction.
| mbreese wrote:
| You can't measure the risk of a rare event like this.
| Accidents are (thankfully) rare events. There is too much
| variability with a single person. You can really only
| measure these risks across an entire fleet of cars. Rare
| events are Poisson distributed, which requires many
| observations to be significant.
|
| So your question should be, across all cars, how many
| accidents have there been with and without blind spot
| monitors? Even then, it would be hard to control for all
| other factors (newer cars have blind spot monitoring, but
| are also safer in general, you need to compare similar
| years, traffic conditions, etc).
|
| All of that to say -- any single comment online is just
| an anecdote.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I agree. A scan of the research seems to suggest the risk
| reduction is bounded at around 40% on the high side of
| "potential risk avoided if all vehicles were equipped"
| with actual results of equipped cars coming in the range
| of 19-45% depending on the paper and type of accidents
| and aids focused upon.
|
| Which is to say "quite meaningful", but when the absolute
| rate of serious crashes per driver is as low as it is,
| it's statistically impossible that driver aids are saving
| the typical individual driver from a serious crash
| multiple times in a driving lifetime, let alone multiple
| times since their introduction.
| mbreese wrote:
| Another thing to think about is that "accidents" isn't
| the only outcome that could be measured. I like my blind
| spot monitoring. But not necessarily because it makes me
| safer -- I always turn my head to check blind spots
| anyway. But what it does do is make driving less
| stressful. Safety aids and driver assistance tools can
| make driving a better experience. That, in and of itself,
| is a worthwhile outcome.
| eropple wrote:
| I'll cape up for blind spot detection. My current car
| doesn't have it and I out-of-the-box I found that I had
| to move pretty extensively to see things that are to my 5
| or 7 o'clock; even with my mirrors correctly positioned
| there's a gap between what I can easily perceive from the
| wing mirror and from the rear mirror and I had to buy
| blind spot mirrors to compensate. (It's much better with
| them.)
|
| The car isn't even that long--the back pillars and back
| window are just weird (Hyundai Veloster).
| saltcured wrote:
| As I understand it, the physical blind spots are getting
| larger in very recent model years as the car shapes keep
| changing. The blind spot monitors are partly a
| compensation for this, so you need to compare driving
| experience in these rather than with an older model where
| we easily drive without such electronic aid.
|
| It's not clear to me how much of this change to the car
| shape is driven by competing safety standards, i.e. side
| impact and rollover protection, and how much it is the
| continuous march of fashion/stylistic tweaks.
| azernik wrote:
| Even people in good condition make mistakes and miss
| things. That's why airplanes have stall-warning stick
| shakers and pull-up alerts even for trained
| professionals.
| aerophilic wrote:
| A somewhat not intuitive fact: Most renters prioritize their
| car payments over other debts/rent. Without a car they have
| no income...
| azernik wrote:
| And in many states, your car is one of the things that
| cannot be repossessed in case of bankruptcy.
| pjmorris wrote:
| And you can sleep in a car, if need be.
| SilasX wrote:
| "You can sleep in your car, but you can't drive your
| house."
| vxNsr wrote:
| > _Since 14% of renters are behind on rent and evictions
| begin June 30, aren't vehicle repossessions going to kick in
| July / August?_
|
| > _Presumably, due in part to eviction protection, they have
| been able to divert all or a portion of their rent payments
| to keeping up with bad car loans for commute vehicles that
| often will not be needed._
|
| There are gonna be far fewer evictions and/or mortgage
| defaults than people think, all those ppl who have been out
| of work are likely making more money right now than they were
| at the start of the pandemic just from unemployment,
| additionally bec they're unemployed they may qualify for
| their states' Medicaid benefits and food stamps, not to
| mention the free school lunches than many states have turned
| into a basically tons of raw produce and other various meal-
| making materials delivered/picked up each week. All those
| extra benefits mean the raw unemployment dollars go farther
| compared to a normal income creating an effectively higher
| $/hr wage than if you just look at the $300-600/wk(+state
| unemployment).
|
| All this distills down to the fact that everyone has been
| flush with cash the entire time so much so that I know a few
| people in March 2020 who were behind on rent but due to all
| the aforementioned benefits were able to pay the rent they
| owed. Meaning that people having been making rent and/or
| mortgage for the most part and have probably been living
| beyond their (normal) means for the last year. If there's
| gonna be any sort of correction it's not coming until
| mid-2022 at the earliest.
| syshum wrote:
| It is going to come sooner than that, people keep talking
| about inflation "coming soon" I think those people are
| blind because it is already here.
|
| Right now if we just get off with a little stagflation that
| would be a blessing, unfortunately I think it is going to
| far far worse. All those people depending on government
| checks are going to get hit hardest by the combination of
| inflation and the required austerity measures
| imtringued wrote:
| The economy is projected to grow quickly in 2021 though
| and even 2022 is projected to grow 3.5% which is still
| higher than trump's 2.5% average. The debt burden may
| shrink from sheer growth alone.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Trumps 2.5% avg which includes a global pandemic that all
| democrats decided required shutting down their economies
| for. I think context matters and those types of
| comparisons are dishonest.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| I treated myself to a medium frozen yogurt yesterday, no
| toppings, after carrying a sheet of peg board about a
| mile. It was $8 after tip. Maybe that's small tourist
| town price rather than inflation, but all the restaurants
| in the area definitely jacked prices up 50% over the last
| two years.
|
| I had to carry the peg board from the in-town hardware
| store because it wouldn't fit in my Mustang. A Ford
| Mustang has the same sticker price as it did when I
| bought mine 10 years ago. So, if there's inflation,
| Mustangs have comparatively gotten cheaper.
|
| The peg board itself was $18 for a 4'x4' sheet. I haven't
| looked it up, but I suspect I could have paid 4x cheaper
| by area by buying full sheets at Home Depot. I would have
| paid the difference in transportation costs just buying
| the one sheet, though.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| That's an interesting theory. Anecdotally, I occasionally
| pass by a lot where repossessed cars are stored. I've noticed
| there have considerably fewer cars in their lots of late,
| with whole sections completely empty. I'd guessed bad car
| loans just weren't being made with the pandemic, but this
| theory makes a lot more sense.
| bredren wrote:
| I like that you have this small visual indicator of vehicle
| repossession rates. If someone took sat photos and
| performed vehicle count on lots like this across the
| country that would be a quite an interesting set of data
| frames.
|
| If might not matter if a person pays the rent, but people
| are definitely on the hook with both their lenders and
| their auto insurance providers.
|
| It has also never been easier to recognize a vehicle marked
| for repo than it is today. Vigilant's (Motarola) DRN and
| MVTrac are mature, growing while the cost of new LPR
| equipment continues to go down.
|
| When it comes to the repo man, It's never been a worse time
| to be in violation of a car loan or lease.
| neltnerb wrote:
| I get that this is a potential big problem, but I had to stop
| reading when the dog washing company blamed needing to respin a
| new board on a chip being out of stock due to this.
|
| I'm sorry, but if you aren't buying enough chips to build all
| the boards you want to build of a revision, this is just what
| happens, chip shortage or no. Stuff gets obsoleted all the
| time, it doesn't take a chip shortage.
|
| Blaming a black swan shortage instead of your own poor planning
| for something as commonplace as needing to respin one board to
| make more new products is embarrassing.
| syshum wrote:
| Never let a crisis go to waste
|
| Companies always piggy back on the current crisis to make
| changes or blame issues on that crisis that have nothing at
| all to do with the actual crisis...
|
| come to think about it, governments also do this.
| dahart wrote:
| > come to think about it, governments also do this
|
| This was my thought watching the video in the article. It
| went on and on about supply shortages, China, and the Biden
| administration's talks to prevent shortage as well as
| Chinese competition, and then near the end of the video,
| two little details slip by so fast you could miss them:
| auto makers cancelled their own orders, now they want their
| place in line back, and the biggest chip maker (TSMC) is in
| Taiwan, but it's _really_ close to China, so it still
| counts.
|
| Yes, preventing supply shortages and paying attention to
| national security are good things. But neither of those
| would address the specific "shortage" behind this article &
| video.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| And so do individuals. There's plenty of tragic or
| difficult moments that come unexpected in one's life, and
| it's easy to make them cover for unrelated issues, because
| questioning the explanation would be greatly untactful. A
| somewhat stereotypical example - a student that excuses
| their lack of homework and unpreparedness by mentioning
| their aunt died, even though they weren't really close with
| their aunt and they learned about the death an hour before
| the class started - it's an easy way out that nobody will
| dare question.
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| Many small manufactures can't afford to order much more than
| the MOQ on parts. PCBs generally have much higher MOQs than
| parts you can buy from digi key, I ran a manufacturing
| business fit years and a PCB MOQ could last me a whole year
| but I could say cash flow on buying the components more just
| in time. It's not "poor planning" it's working within the
| realities of your business and it's limitations (and he's
| saving a few hundred in a month at cash low could have been
| the difference between me just not taking a pay check that
| month or paying part of an employees wage from my own savings
| on top of not getting paid myself)
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| ROFL. Yeah, I'll just do a lifetime buy of these:
|
| https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/xilinx-
| inc/XCVU13...
|
| ... as soon as my board hits production. If they give me any
| grief at DigiKey, I'll have my VP of Procurement fly up there
| in the company G5 to give them a piece of my mind.
| 99_00 wrote:
| But it's a great save your ass tactic that's used all the
| time.
|
| If it's a big news story people are focused on it. And humans
| mistakenly attribute events to what the are focused on.
|
| Trump was a great scapegoat for local, city, regional, state
| politicians.
|
| All kinds of things can be blamed on climate change,
| systematic racism, etc. Basically anything that a leader
| can't fix but is in the news is a great scapegoat.
|
| Not to say that these aren't real issue. They are, but once
| you hear how they are over attributed as causal you can't
| unsee it.
| TomVDB wrote:
| > Stuff gets obsoleted all the time, it doesn't take a chip
| shortage.
|
| This is just not true. But when it happens, there is usually
| an announcement well ahead of time (e.g. 1 year), as well as
| a last time buy option.
|
| Historically, there has never been a need to buy the chips of
| all the boards of a revision. If you are in the position of
| being able to buy all the components of all the boards you'll
| ever make for a certain revision, you're probably just above
| hobbyist level.
| neltnerb wrote:
| I meant the parts that are not common enough to have pin-
| compatible substitutes from multiple vendors. I have worked
| with people way above hobbyist level and it is those
| obnoxious non-standard parts that are the ones that
| suddenly go out of stock everywhere even if they aren't
| actually obsoleted. Sometimes they just haven't done a run
| manufacturing that part number in a while and the stock ran
| out.
|
| I've seen this happen with everyone from ST to Microchip to
| Atmel (when it existed) to Qualcomm to Analog Devices
| (though interestingly never Texas Instruments so far); this
| is just something that happens...
|
| Thank you for the clarification, my initial comment was
| flippant and needed like four paragraphs of caveats.
| TomVDB wrote:
| "The parts that don't have a pin compatible substitute"
| is usually 80% of your total BOM cost. It's not a helpful
| clarification.
|
| Let's take something totally ordinary like an STM32 MCU,
| and let's ignore for a moment that there are now some
| clones on the market, with questionable compatibility at
| times.
|
| Even though they're unique parts, there is no way anybody
| sane would stock up on those for the lifetime of a
| product revision.
|
| It was never needed and it's ridiculous to plan for a
| black swan event like the one we're experiencing now.
|
| And here's why: even if you had planned for a sudden
| shortage of an STM32, you'd still be screwed on some
| generic components. Because I've seen people get stuck
| recently because they couldn't source certain generic
| diodes.
|
| It makes no financial sense to always plan for the worst
| possible case. The whole reason distributors exist is
| because they are the buffer that moderates spikes in
| supply and demand.
|
| The system has worked very well for decades. It's much
| better to be right or wrong along with everybody else
| than to be wrong 99% of the time (and waste margins
| compared to the competition), and being able to say "I
| told you so" to the rest once.
|
| And that 99% is not hyperbole.
| teclordphrack2 wrote:
| What are you talking about. The vast majority of companies
| use just in time stocking. If you sell x amount of a product
| that is when you order x amount of each item on the BOM. It
| has been this way for decades for manufacturing in the usa.
| There are tax and other liabilities when keeping more than
| required stocks on hand.
| robomartin wrote:
| > I had to stop reading when the dog washing company blamed
| needing to respin a new board on a chip being out of stock
| due to this
|
| ...
|
| > if you aren't buying enough chips to build all the boards
| you want to build of a revision
|
| Friendly advice:
|
| If you are going to be a consultant to industry, don't post
| comments like this.
|
| As someone who has been manufacturing tech products for over
| thirty years, my first reaction to your comment was "this guy
| doesn't have a clue". Then I looked at your site and was
| absolutely floored. My guess is you have lived in what I like
| to call the "SBIR distortion field", which is a domain that
| is very, very far from the realities of, say, a dog washing
| company. Not just because of usually just having to make one
| or a few of something (rather than 10,000), but also because
| of the financial dynamics of these programs --I have
| experience in that domain as well.
|
| Your vision of how this dog washing-machine company should
| operate does not align with the realities of a business
| outside of the "SBIR distortion field". Companies don't have
| cash reserves to fill the warehouse to the brim with
| components and product, weather a storm, keep the business
| afloat and everyone employed simultaneously. On top of that,
| manufacturing at any non-trivial scale is such a cash
| intensive endeavor that cash must be managed very carefully.
| If you buy too much inventory you can end-up in financial
| dire straits.
|
| The phase lag between spending money to manufacture a product
| and getting a return on that investment can be in the order
| of months, and that assumes a "linear" market. If you include
| R&D in that equation, it's even worse, years.
|
| I experienced this personally back in 2008. I did _precisely_
| what you suggested above and filled the warehouse with some
| two million dollars in components and assemblies to get ready
| for sales of our new product. We had demand. In fact, the
| purchase of the components and assemblies was triggered by
| receiving a purchase order for five million dollars of this
| product. And that was just one customer. I didn 't know
| better. I thought it was perfectly sensible to place large
| PO's for critical components that would cover us for at least
| a year and tool-up. We even bought a bunch of brand new CNC
| equipment to bring manufacturing of heat sinks and other
| mechanical components in-house in order to reduce our cost
| basis. In fact, interestingly enough given some of what you
| have on your site, I made the single largest purchase to date
| (at that time) from Osram's high power LED division. No
| company in the world had ordered that many high power LEDs
| from them.
|
| And then the music stopped.
|
| The economy came to a grinding halt.
|
| Sales went to ZERO.
|
| The five million dollar purchase order? They went insolvent
| when their bank cut-down and eventually cancelled their line
| of credit. Other orders from major companies were put on hold
| (we had a PO but were told they were not going to accept
| deliveries, so, don't ship). We went from having tens of
| millions of dollars in orders for that product and that year
| to, effectively, zero.
|
| What was the end result? It was very rough. All of our cash
| was in the warehouse, on shelves, as components and
| assemblies we could not sell. We couldn't even get a loan to
| weather the storm. Nobody was buying anything, not at scale
| anyhow. We had to sell some of our component inventory for
| ten or twenty cents on the dollar just to bring in cash. It
| was worthless.
|
| I had to take a second mortgage on my home and use credit
| cards to make payroll (big mistakes, both of them). We
| survived for two years on bread crumbs. And then I had to
| shut down the company. It too me years to even be able to
| talk about this episode of my life to anyone. It was
| horrible.
|
| The two millions dollars I spent on "buying enough chips to
| build all the boards", as you put it (it was more than chips,
| but the example fits) was the single biggest mistake I have
| made in my business career. And this one cost me a business I
| built over a decade, starting in my garage with $5,000 to
| receiving a $30MM acquisition offer just as the economy took
| a shit (the offer was rescinded).
|
| So, please, pretty please, with sugar on top, if you want to
| be a consultant, don't say anything unless you really
| understand it. In this case, you clearly do not. To someone
| like me --who has actually lived through many ups and downs
| in life and business-- such comments result in what I will
| call "less-than-favorable conclusions" about the author. This
| isn't good for a consultant, unless the consulting is in a
| domain that does not necessarily align with reality outside
| of something like the SBIR/academic domains.
|
| It took years to recover, both mentally and financially. I
| eventually launched a new business, also in tech. Today we
| are facing having to manufacture 10K to 20K units per month
| of a new product. When we started design we picked readily
| available components and went on to design the product over
| about twelve months (real product design for scale
| manufacturing takes time).
|
| Today, as we approach production requirements, we are being
| quoted anywhere from 40 to 50 weeks for some of the
| components. In other words, we can't even buy them. We are
| having to consider having multiple alternative designs to see
| if we can manufacture functionally equivalent versions of the
| hardware using different chip sets. This means all of our
| regulatory and safety testing --another thing you ignored--
| (FCC, CE, TUV, UL, environmental, thermal, lifetime, etc.)
| has to be redone, not once, but likely four to six times
| (depending on how many versions we end-up with). It's a
| nightmare.
|
| And, no, buying a million chips a year ago wasn't the
| solution. The cash drain would have resulted in people losing
| their jobs and possibly even going out of business again as
| sales levels last years went down some 80%.
|
| You buy as close to just-in-time as you possibly can. This
| practice has gained acceptance over the years for a reason.
| Sadly, I happen to have learned the lesson the hard way. If
| you have to weather a storm it is far better to have cash in
| the bank than a warehouse full of worthless components that
| you can't turn into cash precisely because of the storm.
|
| "A man holding a cat by the tail learns something he can
| learn in no other way". --Mark Twain
|
| So true.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| That's a tale as old as time to anyone who weathered the
| great recession, and I can deeply sympathize.
|
| You've highlighted exactly the value and difference
| experience makes. People born at the crest of the wave can
| only take for granted their position until they have lived
| enough to reflect.
| robomartin wrote:
| As I finished writing that comment (and I truly tried to
| be constructive as the author is young and inexperienced)
| I remembered another traumatic event of that era.
|
| Every order we received was like precious molecules of
| much needed oxygen. We got this order from one of our
| resellers (we had about fifty all over the world at the
| time) for about half a million dollars in product. This
| needs to be in the right context: I had just taken out
| nearly all of the equity in my home to keep the business
| going and took out a bunch of cash on all of my credit
| cards, personal and business. I had already been to the
| hospital once due to stress and dehydration (I managed to
| do that twice in a year). A half million dollar order
| felt like a billion dollars.
|
| We had product. We shipped it and awaited payment in
| thirty days. That's the other reality, it just takes time
| to convert components to money.
|
| Almost precisely thirty days into this cycle FedEx
| freight shows-up with a shipment. Our reseller returned
| 100% of the order we shipped a month earlier. All of it.
|
| I called the owner of the company and unloaded on him. At
| the end of the call I ended-up having to thank him.
|
| You see, they were going down in flames, just as most of
| us were. He was at the point where the banks forced him
| into bankruptcy. He knew that within days people were
| going to descend on him to take inventory (and
| possession) of everything under their roof.
|
| He sent us our hardware back because he actually care for
| us and did not want the bank to grab hardware he had not
| paid for. Like I said, I had to say "thanks" and wish him
| luck.
|
| I can't remember if we ever got another order of that
| size between that point in time and when we closed our
| doors.
| devit wrote:
| Maybe the real lesson of the whole thread is to require
| customers to pay in advance with a non-reversible wire
| transfer, or at least via an escrow service contingent on
| delivering the goods. Or alternatively, somehow buy
| insurance against the customer failing to pay.
| megablast wrote:
| This is great. Thank you. This is like flippantly
| suggesting we all just drive on the other side of the
| road. Genius. Ignoring all the complexities involved in
| getting such an endeavour to happen.
| quirkot wrote:
| If you can find a customer who will pay in advance on
| product with (reportedly) 40+ weeks lead time, then
| you've found a customer who will probably be insolvent by
| the time you ship
| seabird wrote:
| You are not going to find any sizable player who will
| agree to immediate payment. Even getting someone to agree
| net 30 can be pulling teeth from time to time.
|
| This war was fought decades ago. Just-in-time production
| won, and it was a decisive victory. This chip shortage is
| rough, but nowhere near as rough as it would be if we
| weren't doing things the way we are right now. Everything
| that has happened has happened for a reason. Attempting
| to disrupt this will put you in way over your head in
| ways you couldn't imagine.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Thats called supply chain financing but of course the
| biggest company in that space Greensill just went up in
| flames.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Greensill were a colossal fraud. That's why they
| recruited David Cameron as political cover. https://www.t
| heguardian.com/business/2021/apr/28/greensill-c...
|
| Huge mistake, they should have bought Johnson instead.
| im_down_w_otp wrote:
| There are an enormous number of marketplace norms which
| prevent being able to make demands on a customer like
| that. If you're the only vendor trying to protect your
| downside like that, then you look like a bad vendor, and
| it can affect your ability to close the deal _at all_.
| Especially in enterprise /B2B markets there's an amount
| of ceremony and playing of the game required, not because
| it's actually good for any of the parties involved, but
| because it's just the thing everybody does, so you have
| to do it too.
|
| For example, we sell into markets like automotive,
| aerospace, and medical. Being a startup we have basically
| zero leverage in how to go about conducting business with
| large well entrenched enterprises with business
| development dynamics that were calcified decades ago.
| Part of managing my business is accepting and working
| with the risk profile of having to keep the company
| solvent long enough to actually engage these customers in
| the ways they're able to be engaged. I'm not going to be
| in a position to make demands that they conduct business
| significantly differently with us relative to their
| hundreds of other vendors regardless of if it would
| ultimately benefit both of us to do so. There's an amount
| of inertia in any status quo that needs to be overcome,
| and the problem with that is that the party with the most
| motivation to displace that inertia is also the one with
| the least power to do so. That reality gets baked into
| our capitalization and operations strategy.
|
| I'd love to be able to demand that automotive OEMs
| actually cover the cost of engaging in a PoC with them
| which isn't going to have any real payoff for months or
| years, but every single other supplier they have eats
| that cost just like we do, and betting my company on the
| incredibly low probability that I'm going to displace the
| pandering that they expect from their supply-chain all by
| ourselves would be crazy.
| robomartin wrote:
| > There are an enormous number of marketplace norms which
| prevent being able to make demands on a customer like
| that
|
| There's also the reality that every business is on a 30,
| 60 or 90 day phase lag from delivery to getting paid, and
| so they have no choice but to enforce those rules up the
| supply chain. If you don't you need piles of cash upfront
| months before you generate any revenue, at scale that is
| really tough to manage and there's a very real cost to
| money.
|
| The simplest example of this I can offer is that if you
| have to borrow ten million dollars to pay all your
| suppliers upfront and this money cost you 1% per month
| (making the numbers simple for the sake of an example),
| you are going to incur a 5% cost of money if you have to
| wait five months to get paid (again, keeping numbers
| simple).
|
| I have a friend in the production business who made
| commercials for a major animation studio. He told me it
| typically took them about six months to collect. They
| would invest massive amounts of money on equipment and
| personnel to shoot, edit and deliver a commercial and
| their payment would not come for six months after
| delivering the end product. The entire cycle would easily
| have taken a year.
| robomartin wrote:
| > Maybe the real lesson of the whole thread is to require
| customers to pay in advance with a non-reversible wire
| transfer
|
| Not so easy. This is particularly true as you start to
| get into higher dollar amounts. Also, it tends to be far
| more common with international orders than with domestic
| business. I can say that nearly 100% of our international
| business was prepaid. Sadly, during the 2008 downturn,
| all business came to a halt. There were very we places
| where you could find income that could sustain the prior
| state of business.
|
| In the case of the the five million dollar contract I
| mentioned, we did get a $500K deposit with the order.
| Well, the $500K was spent on components pretty much as
| soon as it hit the bank, within a week. It's very hard to
| escape something like what happened in 2008 if all your
| cash in in a warehouse filled with parts and product you
| just can't sell.
| tomcam wrote:
| First off, I really hope things go well for you and thank
| you for sharing your amazing story. I went through
| something similar in the software side of things.
|
| Second, that was a great post and I want to read your (I'm
| sure imaginary) blog. It was like a mini business education
| in modern manufacturing.
|
| Finally, I am amazed you're able to write this with no
| bitterness. Hats off to you.
| robomartin wrote:
| Oh, there's emotion there. No question about it. Not
| bitter. Angry, maybe. I made a really bad decision
| because I thought business was going to take off like
| crazy that year. We were running on all cylinders. It was
| going to be the culmination of a ten year effort.
|
| You don't go through something like that without the
| emotion staying with you. Yet, if you are going to move
| on you have to be able to put it in a drawer and only
| look at it every so often just to make sure you are not
| going to do something dumb again. As time passes you have
| less time to make mistakes like that.
| 45ure wrote:
| >It too me years to even be able to talk about this episode
| of my life to anyone. It was horrible.
|
| I am glad you found the courage to share a bleak chapter in
| your life, and for being unflinchingly honest. I hope it
| was cathartic - your lived experience will serve as an
| extremely valuable lesson for those of us, who might
| encounter such circumstances.
| neltnerb wrote:
| I'm sincerely sorry for offending you so badly.
| robomartin wrote:
| You did not offend me at all. I'm not a kid. I am just
| offering a mirror from the perspective of someone who has
| actually lived the kind of thing you are proposing.
|
| Look at it a different way: Back then I thought what you
| are proposing was sensible enough that I spent two
| million dollars to execute precisely that strategy. I
| ended-up losing a business that I built over ten years
| because of that decision at a time when it was the worst
| decision one could make.
|
| In other words, if I called you a fool I would be calling
| my younger self an even bigger fool. I actually believed
| it enough to effectively destroy my company and affect my
| life for years. I am not calling you a fool. I am sharing
| a lesson I learned the hard way and simply warning
| readers not to assume they understand reality without the
| benefit of experience. Sadly some of this stuff we only
| learn after the fact, not before. I can't blame you at
| all for not understanding it.
|
| EDIT: If there's emotion in my tone, please forgive me,
| ten years later and this still hurts. The experience put
| me in the hospital more than once and nearly cost us
| everything, we were horribly close from losing our home
| and everything we built over decades.
| neltnerb wrote:
| I appreciate it, but still apologize for being flippant.
|
| I did intend the comment to be about the dog washing
| startup that I assumed to be a fairly small business. Not
| buying the (presumed to be in the 10,000 quantity range)
| MCUs they needed ahead of time, knowing that they will be
| the single linchpin chip that there will be no pin-
| compatible replacement for, is what I found to be
| ridiculous.
|
| I hope you find that perspective to clarify my intent
| some.
| robomartin wrote:
| That's the good-old hindsight is 20/20 business, isn't
| it?
|
| No need to apologize at all. This is conversation. We all
| have much to learn.
|
| Today, what you suggested is precisely what I do. I try
| to make sure there are at least three pin/function-
| compatible chips that can swap in for any given device.
| Preferably from different manufacturers. I also talk to
| distributors to get a sense of volume. I prefer to buy
| devices and components that are being manufactured and
| stocked in larger quantities. A silly example of this is
| that it is much easier to find a 47 uH inductor in stock
| than a 50 uH part. One has easy substitutes, the other
| can turn into a nightmare.
|
| As for buying 10K microprocessors, again, that can be a
| tough decision to make. On the financial front, you could
| be talking about a $50K to $200K expenditure before you
| sell any product. In terms of logistics, if I have $200K
| in microprocessors in stock and I can't buy RS422 drivers
| I can't build a product. Which means that the decision of
| locking-up cash in the warehouse can quickly turn into a
| nearly all-or-nothing proposition. In other words, if you
| are going to stockpile microprocessors you might have to
| stockpile another $500K in parts in order to ensure that
| the investment isn't worthless if there's a shortage.
|
| And then there's the issue of what you do with your nice
| pile of components if nobody is buying anything. As 2020
| has proven, if you are in the wrong category, you could
| literally sit there for a year without selling much.
| That's what really hurts when you locked-up a pile of
| cash in the warehouse. We have a client who's business
| went down 80% last year. They had to shrink from 50
| employees to three. They had to further shrink from a
| 100K square foot facility to a 22,000 sq ft building. And
| business is slowly crawling up. Had they made a huge cash
| investment early last year they would have been out of
| business by now.
|
| In the electronics manufacturing business you have at
| least three tiers of manufacturers.
|
| One is the super small shop that just sends everything
| out to contract manufacturers, along with parts they
| purchase themselves.
|
| The next is the small-to-medium shop that graduated to
| having the CM provide parts. In other words, you design
| your product and fully trust your contract manufacturer
| to handle the supply chain. CM's will work with
| distributors to stock components and build boards. There
| is no way CM's are going to stock components clients
| don't need just to be sure they have a supply for a
| year's worth of boards. The only components CM's might
| stock in large quantities are parts others are using that
| are low cost. A simple example of this might be
| resistors.
|
| The next level is a case where a manufacturer has enters
| into a contract with the distributor and the CM to have
| "bonded" inventory. They commit to buying a certain
| quantity of product --no matter what-- and, in exchange,
| the distributor and CM will inventory enough product to
| meet the demands of that contract. For example, you might
| commit to manufacturing 10K LED bulbs per month and need
| to ensure a supply of, say, half a million LEDs. You sign
| a contract and this happens. The advantage of this
| approach is that you are billed as product is delivered
| rather than for the entire half million LEDs you bonded.
| Of course, you are buying 10K bulbs per month. It's a
| machine, once it is set in motion you have to meet your
| obligation.
|
| The next level might be manufacturers that do their own
| in-house assembly. I've lived in all of the above
| categories. The in-house assembly case can give you a lot
| of control and even lower your COGS, but you are now
| paying for everything pretty much upfront.
|
| Once you start adding other component classes
| (mechanical, optical, etc.) things get even more
| complicated.
|
| Each of these models has a financial formula associated
| with it. I have no idea where CCSI (the dog washing
| machine guys sit). My guess is it isn't a high volume
| business. I would further guess they make boards in
| batches of 100 or so (I could be wrong). When you don't
| know a pandemic is coming and the world is going to come
| to a halt, buying enough to make 100 boards a month is
| the right decision. If someone suggested they should buy
| enough to make boards for the entire year it would not
| sound like good advise unless the cost basis of those
| boards was such that it materially affected profitability
| in a significant way.
|
| Business has become so competitive and fast that everyone
| pretty much ends-up adopting a JIT (Just in Time)
| manufacturing methodology. Anything else is suicide.
|
| Here's another take: Do I invest money parking components
| in a warehouse for a year --just in case-- or do I put it
| into marketing, R&D and new product development? I think
| I can say that, under normal circumstances, it would be
| irresponsible (as learned the hard way) to park it in the
| warehouse. No crystal balls.
|
| As someone else in this thread mentioned, I too wish
| there were more documented stories of business failures.
| That's where the real lessons for all of us lie.
| [deleted]
| salawat wrote:
| Thank you for sharing that. One of the biggest laments I've
| run into trying to help someone get businesses bootstrapped
| is some of the very lessons you just shared.
|
| That sharing is so damn rare, and I think a lot of people
| end up in a really bad place because we don't do a great
| job at teaching the failure states of business.
|
| So again, thank you. Life willing, you sound like someone
| I'd be thrilled to do business with.
| robomartin wrote:
| > One of the biggest laments I've run into trying to help
| someone get businesses bootstrapped is some of the very
| lessons you just shared.
|
| This is one of those things that makes hardware
| businesses so darn hard and something software-only
| startup folks just don't understand. The marginal cost
| difference and phasing of money you need to support, say
| 10K SaaS clients vs. shipping 10K non-trivial hardware
| products can be massive.
|
| In my case the company was 100% bootstrapped. In
| retrospect I should have gone for investment as soon as
| we started to take flight. Frankly, I was too busy
| gasping for air (money) and absolutely overloaded with
| work to even consider it. Any investor type I spoke to
| was going to suck time and resources I simply did not
| have. So we kept going. Had it not been for the 2008
| economic downturn we would have had an amazing exit.
|
| > That sharing is so damn rare
|
| Frankly, the experience was at the limit of darkness for
| me and sharing was nearly impossible for years. In
| December of 2009 I wrote a friend an email where, among
| other things, I said "I now understand, in no uncertain
| terms, why people jump off buildings or walk in front of
| trains during hard times". He was knocking on my front
| door within 15 minutes, after breaking the sound barrier
| driving from his office to mine.
|
| No, I wasn't thinkin of ending my life. Not even close.
| It's just that the darkness I was facing at that moment
| in time produced a clarity of understanding I had never
| had before. I felt that I had full understanding of how
| someone could make that kind of a decisions. I was simply
| communicating the revelation I had. I can see how bad it
| must have sounded.
| immmmmm wrote:
| thanks for the very interesting story. i never went beyond
| the prototyping stage for the products i designed. i always
| thought that small scale production would be an easy next
| step. i understand how wrong i could have been thinking it
| was "easy".
| JPKab wrote:
| Extremely well said. my gut reaction to the comment you
| were replying to was similar to yours which was this person
| clearly has no clue about smaller batch manufacturing.
|
| It kind of ties into Steve Jobs comments on consultants
| versus people who have to live with the consequences of
| their decisions.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Thanks for the detailed comment, and trying to pass
| knowledge and experience onto the community. It's these
| comments that I come here for
| baybal2 wrote:
| > I get that this is a potential big problem, but I had to
| stop reading when the dog washing company blamed needing to
| respin a new board on a chip being out of stock due to this.
|
| What you are suggesting is quite impractical, unless you are
| a really big business with cash, which can simply direct
| order components.
|
| Small businesses, even in Shenzhen, a place inundated with
| supply chain abundance, always have to either keep running
| from one small wholesaler, to another searching for
| components, or pay n-times the price working with somebody
| like Arrow.
|
| In my experience, you can't safeguard yourself against such
| things as a small company no matter what.
|
| I worked in, and around OEM electronics since 2007, and
| things like having to redesign a product 4 times a year to
| accommodate a supply chain disruption were happening even in
| the best years. Nothing special with the current disruption
| besides the scale.
|
| This is also the reason why Asian electronics makers have
| such short product lifetimes. It's usually easier just to
| sunset a product, and make an improved, and better version
| with newer components, than to fight against the always
| evolving supply chain. And I not talking about small
| companies, ASUS, Acer, MSI, and such all practice this.
|
| I know few people running the Chuwi brand. What they do as a
| small maker is that the moment the get a good consignment of
| chipsets, and other parts, they spin a laptop model solely
| for that batch alone.
|
| Then, they live off it until they get another good parts
| purchase, when they usually sell their component leftovers,
| or do few final runs if they can find people wanting to buy
| them for rebadging.
|
| The entirety of small volume laptop industry spins around
| chipsets, and screens -- hardest things to find for a small
| company.
|
| I want you people to take a looks on a big difference in how
| companies in the West, and here handle the crisis: Western
| brands wail, cry, and wait for component supplies to resume,
| while Asian brands just keep releasing new products with
| parts coming into their hands, and making great cash from
| this shortage.
| neltnerb wrote:
| I agree and have experienced that too. Even without
| obsoleted parts, stuff will be impossible to find all the
| sudden, particularly specialty components. Heck, I've had
| vendors who simply had fabs that caught fire... but I
| always have a laundry list of substitutes that are pin
| compatible when humanly possible, which is for almost all
| the parts on the board. For the ones that aren't possible,
| that's a much smaller BOM to buy ahead of time if you
| absolutely have to keep the PCB design the same.
|
| The caveat is that because MCUs are not standardized you
| frequently get screwed over so my replacement part list is
| a collection of versions of the part with different amounts
| of memory that are designed to be pin-compatible. Sometimes
| that isn't enough, and often companies aren't big enough to
| negotiate a guaranteed supply. But if you're not big enough
| to negotiate a guaranteed supply you just have to deal with
| buying enough of the parts to keep you in business long
| enough to create a new revision before you literally run
| out of stuff to sell...
|
| I sympathize with the other comment berating me at length
| for being flippant about this, and am genuinely sorry for
| being flippant especially in light of their experience with
| the opposite issue (buying stuff and getting screwed by
| customers canceling orders). But I was talking about a dog
| washing startup. A dog washing startup vocally complaining
| to the news about needing to respin one board because of a
| supply chain interruption.
|
| Yes, there is FCC and other testing you have to do if you
| significantly modify a board, so I'm not sitting here
| oblivious to the challenges involved in a respin. My
| response was to them being a poster child for the people
| suffering from this issue. Those of you who cannot find
| _any_ component that will do the job have my absolute
| sympathy and I apologize for not being more verbose.
| jbgreer wrote:
| Even if you did order enough to produce a run, there is no
| guarantee you'll get the full quantity or any at all. Suffice
| it to say I know this first hand. Had a vendor come back and
| say, "Sorry, we know we promised your order by June, but it
| isn't going to happen." Thankfully getting a break on a new
| part, but respin and recertification cost and time are also
| causing heartburn.
| dapids wrote:
| Sounds like a contracting problem to me.
| ndiddy wrote:
| Chips don't suddenly get obsoleted though, they get put in
| "not recommended for new designs" for at least a year or two
| beforehand, and when the chip maker plans to phase the chip
| out they typically give a "last time buy" notice at least a
| month or two before it gets discontinued.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Apologies, I truly intended "out of stock" rather than
| "obsoleted" and agree 100% that there is a big difference.
| varjag wrote:
| The normal courtesy for LTB is a year, often 18 months.
| teclordphrack2 wrote:
| And if you have a contract to buy a certain amount from a
| supplier then they will hold that much stock in their own
| inventory to cover your contract.
| nostromo wrote:
| This is largely a result of just-in-time manufacturing.
|
| Companies hate holding on to inventory. Most companies now
| don't hold on to any extra stock needed to manufacture their
| products.
|
| This is great for your finances in normal times. But don't
| complain when there is a shortage and you literally have zero
| slack for delays and your factory sits idle -- that's the
| well-known drawback.
| lobocinza wrote:
| The result of cutting too many "wastes".
| avs733 wrote:
| I agree but with a caveat, it's largely a result of BAD
| just-in-time manufacturing. Zero inventory production
| systems (ZIPS) are what people often mean when they talk
| about JIT, they are different. Toyota, one of the
| originators and leaders of JIT/lean has not had this
| problem...because they don't blindly ZIPS [0].
|
| Not holding inventory is great for a lot of reasons, but it
| is a calculated risk...Toyota learned from experience that
| if they want to do it, they need to understand risk all the
| way up their supply chain. They largely aren't having this
| problem. They de-risked certain things because they really
| treat TPS and everything associated with it as a philosophy
| not a set of heuristics that should just be implemented
| blindly. Manufacturing something is all tradeoffs...there
| is (almost) nothing with a universal upside. Sure I want to
| hold less inventory, but JIT is actually about
| manufacturing time, not inventory. If I have NO inventory
| and NO ability to get inventory my manufacturing time goes
| up while I wait with my thumb in the fertilizer pipe.
|
| I've worked with a couple of manufacturing plants (and
| consultants...) that treat 'JIT' inventory management as
| something that can simply be pushed off to vendors and then
| the upside of less inventory enjoyed. They have specs and
| forms and certification and paperwork...but nobody looks at
| it. Those are the companies struggling now. They outsourced
| without fully understanding the risk of the outsourcing.
| Usually this doesn't bite the world, it bites one or two
| companies that relied on a certain part (someone misses an
| EOL notice) or a certain vendor (who goes bust because the
| owner's grandson ran the thing into the ground). It's like
| my students who make choices in the first week of the
| semester that seem minor...and then are frustrated when it
| effects their grade at the end of the semester (sorry, too
| much grading this week)
|
| [0] https://www.autoblog.com/2021/03/09/toyota-how-it-
| avoided-se...
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| No, this is the result of people like Neill Ferguson
| forecasting that COVID would be multiple times worse than
| it turned out to be, and Governments and the media
| believing him.
|
| For example this report from March 2020 was highly
| influential and predicted 2.2 million deaths in the US in
| an 'unmitigated epidemic' scenario:
|
| https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-
| college/medicine/s...
|
| When in reality the official COVID death count in the USA
| was 580,000. And meanwhile the best public health response
| seems to have been... to do nothing, given that Sweden has
| a lower COVID death toll per capita than countries which
| did lockdown and use masks, and is overall merely #27 in
| the world for COVID deaths per capita:
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-
| deat...
|
| With deaths there in 2020 being only 6% higher than 2018
| (and deaths in 2019 were 4% lower than 2018, suggesting
| mortality displacement explains much of that increase):
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-
| of-...
|
| These sort of mega-flus come and go once a decade (look at
| 2009 Swine Flu, 1993 Flu, 1988 Flu, 1976 Flu, the Asian
| flus of the 50s and 60s - all basically forgotten):
|
| https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-
| monthly-...
|
| But there were political factors in 2020 (a major re-
| election year in the USA) which drove the completely
| unusual and unjustified lockdown response. Its unfair to
| blame JIT manufacturing.
| [deleted]
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _For example this report from March 2020 was highly
| influential and predicted 2.2 million deaths in the US in
| an 'unmitigated epidemic' scenario:_
|
| You just said yourself that the 2.2 million was the "do
| nothing" scenario, and as we've seen in India it could've
| easily been that. You also just said said we did many
| things -- "unusual and unjustified" things, in your
| opinion -- therefore _mitigating_ that worst-case
| projection. I personally lost the point you were trying
| in these self-contradictions, but I am curious where you
| were going.
| bluGill wrote:
| Chips shouldn't go obsolete so fast. Your local auto parts
| store has in stock parts for cars made 50 years ago. That
| include aftermarket parts made in the past few years.
|
| You cannot support right to repair if you support the idea
| that chips go obsolete.
| baybal2 wrote:
| It's actually a "feature." Automakers like to have easily
| sun-settable, hard to replace parts to quickly remove old
| cars off the market.
|
| Now, they want to do it even quicker.
|
| DRMed autoparts are a new craze. A tsunami of them is
| coming in 2021+ cars.
|
| They all now want to do the the John Deere trick. They gave
| the industry a very bad example to follow.
| bluGill wrote:
| As an employee of John Deere I can assure you that is
| false. We are proud that machines made in the 1950s are
| still in regular use, and we make a ton of money
| providing replacement parts for machines that old. We
| have also spent large amount of dollars over the last
| decade replacing electronics that have gone obsolete, not
| to mention buying and storing spare parts so we can
| continue to replace those old electronics for customers.
| Our bottom line would look a lot better if we didn't have
| to redesign perfectly good electronics all the time.
|
| I can't go into more detail than that.
| crote wrote:
| I'm very loosely involved in the highly customized keyboard
| business, think runs of a couple hundred units.
|
| One vendor is having trouble finding _any_ chip to design
| for. The software stack supports a couple of dozen STM32 chip
| series, but none of them are even remotely available. I 've
| seen a lead time of over 11 months. Before COVID, pretty much
| every single chip was in stock almost all of the time.
|
| Respinning a board isn't too difficult, but good luck doing
| that if there's no chip to respin it _for_.
| structural wrote:
| Yep, we're hearing 52week lead times on pretty much all
| microcontrollers at the moment, with more esoteric parts
| being... somewhat more than that.
|
| A year ago you could buy 10k+ units of most common parts --
| in stock -- from each of the major distributors.
| neltnerb wrote:
| I don't doubt it, in the article the dog washing company
| specifically said that their design firm already had a
| solution that just required new PCBs.
|
| That is not sympathetic, that's very normal.
|
| What you're describing is sympathetic and hard to deal
| with. Their example was _lucky_ about it and still ended up
| somehow quoted in the story.
| exmadscientist wrote:
| STM32 isn't the only Cortex-M microcontroller series in the
| world, you know. They're popular because they're pretty
| decent, low cost, have good dev boards and offer a wide
| variety of parts.
|
| However, their software sucks (okay, so do all of the other
| options...), their peripherals are not as good as some of
| the other options (in particular I'm thinking of peripheral
| clock trees when I say this, among other things), and their
| availability is the _worst_.
|
| Seriously, unless you're big enough that ST management
| actually knows your name, expect to have sudden
| availability issues with the STM32. This has been true for
| the last decade. It will remain true. (Many of these
| availability problems start at ST's wafer fab, so they're
| not shared by the other vendors.) I always advise clients
| who care about such things to consider other vendors.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > They're popular because they're pretty decent, low
| cost, have good dev boards and offer a wide variety of
| parts.
|
| Now find a single person who can program bare hardware on
| a short notice on above Arduino level.
|
| The current chip shortage has claimed 6 of our firmware
| devs, all hired by companies ready to spend just any
| money for anybody "who can replace that ____ing
| STM|NXP|Renesas thing"
|
| People downstream in the industry greatly overestimated
| their knowledge of the industry.
|
| Lots of tech companies around who had zero prior
| knowledge of embedded development, now jumping on it, and
| breaking their teeth.
|
| I haven't heard more fabulous questions like "Are there
| other microcontrollers than Intel, and AMD in the world?"
| this year than any time before.
| stemthirtywat wrote:
| I wonder if that sort of library compatibility might be the
| reason for the shortages in those particular part lines?
|
| It looks easy to find STM32L0x2 chips in stock. Those are
| not supported by the QMK firmware, but they are very
| similar in terms of peripherals and features to the
| supported (and hard-to-find) STM32F0x2 lines. The main
| differences are a lower minimum operating voltage and more
| power management options, IIRC.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Respinning a board isn't too difficult, but good luck
| doing that if there's no chip to respin it for.
|
| Some people hoard toilet paper, some people hoard baby
| formula, some people hoard Shanghai apartments, some people
| hoard microchips...
|
| Got burned with same STM32s recently. A purchaser been
| shopping parts, and ordered a given model of MCU by muscle
| memory. The price has moved one zero overnight, and we ran
| for quite a sum.
| freeopinion wrote:
| Some people fail to stock toilet people, some people fail
| to stock chip fabs.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| I've always wondered what it would be like to suddenly lose the
| ability to build higher technology like computer chips. Obviously
| this is just a shortage and not the same as manufacturing just
| vanishing, but the effects will be interesting to observe.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| There's an OS for that :
|
| http://collapseos.org/
| rightbyte wrote:
| Many products like water boilers, ovens or toasters can be
| built more robust without digital chips. I would argue we would
| see a overall quality improvement from having a bad chip
| shortage.
| huseyinkeles wrote:
| Genuine question: how is the lack of digital chips going to
| make a toaster more robust?
| HelloNurse wrote:
| Not internet connected, no unsafe touch screen, no chance
| of software glitches or reprogramming... the list is long.
| A humble analog toaster is normal, a digital toaster is a
| step backwards.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Yeah. What I need from a toaster is that it _makes
| toast_. I don 't need it to order the bread from Amazon
| Home Delivery. I even more don't need it to open the
| house door when the delivery arrives. Just make my toast.
| And when you're not doing that, just sit there and be a
| paperweight. That's all I need.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| As an easy answer: the fewer parts there are, usually the
| less there is to potentially break down.
|
| A more classic style of toaster can be as simple as a
| heating element that's triggered by some kind of mechanical
| timer you set contained within some kind of container.
| There's much less that can possibly break down with age and
| burn out. There's no internal sensors, multiple buttons and
| electronics that can burn out, maybe some sort of WiFi
| component that might mess up, and more that can go wrong.
|
| Additionally with fewer parts, the manufacturing quality
| can hypothetically (but not always) be better. It seems
| easier to get the manufacturing right on a machine with 10
| separate components versus say 60.
| [deleted]
| jpm_sd wrote:
| LOL nobody remembers how to design analog control systems
| anymore
| ta988 wrote:
| And they are not always more robust. Calibration, noise
| sensitivity...
| rightbyte wrote:
| I mean the systems I name dropped are thermostats or
| timers.
| tomxor wrote:
| I would be careful to conflate internet connected trash with
| enough ARM cores and LoC to make your brain melt with the
| likes of a well placed humble microcontroller.. the
| mechanical or analogue components they replaced were usually
| far more temperamental, bulky, expensive and bad at their
| job. There are exceptional environments like in nuclear
| power, but for most purposes integrated electronics have
| improved reliability when done well.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye well I agree. As sibling comment pointed out I rather
| have a chip then a motor driven timer switch with fancy
| grooves.
|
| My point is that simple systems like coffee cookers don't
| benefit much from having microcontrollers and you introduce
| alot of complexity.
|
| My 3yo Mocca Master just have a timing relay and a switch
| for the aux. heater.
|
| If they added a IC to have eg. a 'smart heater' or what
| ever the complexity and risk for making design errors would
| explode. With two switches you can enumerate the states of
| the system. With code you can't just look at the coffee
| machine and figure out exactly how it works while reviewing
| the design for production.
|
| No code, no bugs.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I don't know, I wouldn't automatically assume that an
| arbitrary timing relay is more reliable than an arbitrary
| 8-bit chip. And it's pretty easy to debug ten lines of
| code.
| tomxor wrote:
| If it's added complexity for no fundamental improvement
| to the device then I'd agree it's bad. I find that
| avoiding buying devices with "smart" in the name
| eliminates most such designs... i'm starting to worry
| about the availability of dumb cars in the future though
| (consider that dumb cars are packed full of
| microelectronics and sensors that do a fantastic job of
| managing the engine, they work more independently,
| simply, almost mechanically compared to the "smart"
| bits).
| cfn wrote:
| Anyone who ever tried to fix a broken washing machine
| mechanical timer/programmer agrees with you. I did try and
| failed miserably, those things were a nightmare to fix and
| broke quite easily.
| betamaxthetape wrote:
| I'd agree that mechanical mechanisms may break more
| easily than microprocessor equivalents, but I'm not sure
| about the argument that they are more difficult to
| repair.
|
| With microprocessor-driven systems, the solutions seems
| to be to replace the entire PCB, which is often
| completely custom to the manufacturer or even the
| specific model of machine. Trying to source a reasonably
| priced replacement is often difficult, and there's no
| easy way to diagnose and repair a broken PCB.
| salawat wrote:
| Done so, still prefer analog up until things get so small
| or fragile they can't hold up anymore. As long as the
| part is still manufactured, you're good.
|
| PCB's? Forget it. E-waste central.
| batty_alex wrote:
| No need to wonder, it's not the first time something like this
| has happened: https://tedium.co/2016/11/24/1988-ram-shortage-
| history/ https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/19/2960606/qualcomm-
| snapdrag...
| golemiprague wrote:
| At the end of the bronze age there was a shortage of tin to
| create the bronze (with copper). This caused the beginning of
| the iron age as people were looking for alternatives to bronze
| and once tin was back in the market it was not valuable
| anymore. The whole process was coincided with falling of
| civilisations, disruption of trade and general reorganisation
| of world powers, so expect some of that.
| baybal2 wrote:
| The industry has largely forgotten how to make stuff without
| chips.
|
| That's why I am telling people that a global chip shortage, if
| something happens to Taiwan, would bring the industry not back
| into fifties, but into the iron age.
|
| The further the tech ladder you go, the harder you fall if
| somebody takes out your engineering bay.
| noahtallen wrote:
| I don't think that would happen. Firstly, the US government
| and army (like it or not) has an interest in not falling
| behind technologically. Additionally, Intel has most of its
| fabs in the US already. Samsung and TSMC are currently
| building fabs in the US too. Finally, the US still has a
| strong tech culture. So I think it would not take long with
| an increased demand (and higher salaries) for computer
| engineers to attract a lot of good talent.
|
| I mean, I agree it wouldn't be good. But back to the 50s? Or
| even the "Iron Age"? That seems awfully pessimistic.
|
| Like, I get that Intel is not doing great, but it's only like
| a handful of years bad, not decades bad
| baybal2 wrote:
| No Intel fab will run more than a few weeks without
| consumables coming from Asia. A giant lot of semi supplies
| are single vendor globally, and much of them are in Taiwan.
|
| It's likely that no fab in the West past the I-line era
| will be able to resume, and continue production with local
| supplies, even with immediate nation-state level effort to
| recreate the supply chain.
| shrimpx wrote:
| > if something happens to Taiwan
|
| TSMC is building a megafactory in Phoenix AZ which should
| help distribute that risk. It will take several years to
| complete however.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| So what happens when Moore's Other Law(tm), the one that says
| that the size/cost of the manufacturing facility doubles every
| few years, continues on?
|
| The endgame is single sourcing from one giant company and place
| (or nearly so) that no one else can compete with but is
| inherently brittle.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| And when there are few suppliers, they have an incentive to
| dial back supply to manufacture demand. When the market is not
| in equilibrium, they are making the most profit.
|
| https://open.lib.umn.edu/principleseconomics/chapter/10-2-th...
| xyst wrote:
| This is what happens when the entire world relies on a few
| countries for manufacturing of computer chips. All manufactured
| goods should be produced and consumed in the same country. In
| theory, if the manufacturing is efficiently distributed the
| supply chain should be immune to the effects of a pandemic or
| even country specific issues.
|
| I am still baffled that an electronic device produced in some
| province of China and shipped thousands of miles away (and
| incurring tariffs) is cheaper than keeping the manufacturing in
| the same country and shipping at a much shorter distance and not
| incur any import fees/taxes.
| cerved wrote:
| are you an 18th century economist?
| dboreham wrote:
| 16th c. surely.
| x0x0 wrote:
| China is massively subsidizing local manufacturing, in at least
| two ways: currency stabilization and lack of / lack of
| enforcement of environmental protections.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Consolidated production has benefits like economies of scale
| and world peace, but at the cost of redundancy and national
| security. Chip production isn't actually _that_ bad; Micron is
| in the US, Intel is in the US, China, Israel, Ireland, TSMC is
| in China and Taiwan.
|
| What we're seeing here has nothing to do with consolidation of
| manufacturing; it's entirely JIT logistics. Decentralization
| doesn't solve that; surplus capacity and/or inventory solve
| that.
| ferros wrote:
| > Production of low-margin processors, such as those used to
| weigh clothes in a washing machine or toast bread in a smart
| toaster, has also been hit. While most retailers are still able
| to get their hands on these products at the moment, they may face
| issues in the months ahead.
|
| I understand why the new advanced chips could face shortages, but
| why are there shortages for these basic chips. Can't they be made
| anywhere, and more easily?
| varispeed wrote:
| It is a new Bitcoin for Chinese businessmen and they buy up all
| stocks and stockpile. If you go on Chinese sites, you can buy
| any chips you want even thousands of them. Of course you'll pay
| 10x the price and have a high chance getting a counterfeit
| product.
| ajross wrote:
| > why are there shortages for these basic chips? Can't they be
| made anywhere, and more easily?
|
| Not really. Semiconductor fabs are built around "tools" from
| manufacturers like AMAT and Nikon. Those tool vendors make most
| of their money from selling new tools for fancy new processes,
| not supporting 20-year-old stuff. Eventually stuff breaks, and
| fabs have to offline these older processes.
|
| The way this works in the _tech_ industry is that "chips" are
| actually software, so if your old manufacturer isn't keeping up
| you resynthesize your VHDL or Verilog for a new fab, rev your
| board design or whatever, and keep going.
|
| But other industries aren't so agile. They have older designs
| without design teams to support them, or even chip designs that
| they retain only as masks and not HDL. Those parts don't port
| cleanly to newer high-volume logic.
| gostsamo wrote:
| Actually, ASML provides lifetime support for their machines.
| I don't know for the rest.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| But lifetime support doesn't help if the parts for your
| machine aren't available anymore. If your 20 year old
| machine breaks and there aren't parts available to fix it,
| you might get offered an equivalent replacement. If your
| old chip masks are incompatible with the replacement
| machine, you're not immediately able to make what you need.
| So for some companies, having lifetime support might not
| help with the manufacturing slowdown when an old machine
| breaks.
| rhodozelia wrote:
| The parts were made by humans once, they can be made by
| humans again. The only question is is it worth it
| salawat wrote:
| Underrated comment. Though the "worth it" bit is the
| trick.
|
| In my estimation these older parts that "just werk"
| should be getting inherited and iterated on as a public
| good.
|
| The idea that means of production should phase into
| public trust tends to get everyone in a tizzy though. I'd
| like to see a public "foundry of last resort" that
| focuses on being able to make _anything_.
| gostsamo wrote:
| I can't vouch for the parts, but they supported machines
| from the eighties. This is not some cheap consumer
| product that has half-lifetime of 13 months.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Most 20-30 years old machines on the market are Japanese,
| ASML wasn't that dominant in the long tail market up until
| DUV era.
|
| And Japanese almost as a rule have whack a good leasing,
| and service business, including replacement parts for close
| to 30 years old equipment.
| blueblisters wrote:
| It's not just about supporting new processes. Many
| tool/machine vendors are backlogged by years because they
| simply don't have the capacity to make more than a few of
| those machines every year. Even if someone wanted to invest
| in new manufacturing, they would likely have to wait a few
| years to start production.
|
| Secondly, some legacy manufacturers of semiconductor parts
| lost money on their capacity-building investments during the
| dot-com burst. The semiconductor industry is brutal and there
| is a genuine fear that overcapacity will make it hard to deal
| with any bust that happens after this boom.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, it seems like in the modern
| economy you have a situation where for many companies, most
| spending decisions are made long term, on the principle of
| what promises profits long term, regardless of immediate
| factor and with the perspective not overcompensating.
|
| This has all sorts of bizarre consequences. In the middle
| of the PPE shortage - hospitals prevented their employees
| from buying PPEs themselves but would still only buy PPEs
| at the lowest price with a long term contract. And you had
| the Texas company that loudly proclaimed they couldn't sell
| their PPEs but they also only sold by long term contract.
| And this was all with people dying.
|
| It's easy to see how manufacturer isn't going to be adding
| capacity for a puny short-term shortage.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| > Eventually stuff breaks, and fabs have to offline these
| older processes.
|
| Absolutely not. You just made this up.
| ajross wrote:
| The first is a statement of the third law of
| thermodynamics. The second clause is just obviously true.
| Go call up Fujitsu and try to order more of a chip they
| made for you in 1.5um in 1988.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Yes of course the equipment breaks down but older
| equipment is easy to repair. It is very rare for a fab to
| be decommissioned and the equipment scrapped - in fact I
| have never heard of this happening to any production
| facility with 6" or larger wafers. That equipment will go
| to de-bottlenecking at some other fab and net production
| capacity for the node will _increase_.
|
| Obviously many very old chips are out of production but
| not because the equipment broke down and was never
| repaired.
| ajross wrote:
| The corrollary to your point then is that all these fabs
| have immense idle capacity of exiting installed tools
| which they aren't using but retain simply because nothing
| ever "broke down"? Obviously that's ridiculous.
|
| You're interpreting me pedantically while actually
| agreeing with my point, I think. Old processes don't have
| the capacity they used to[1]. If you don't like "stuff
| breaks" then how about "eventually the ROI on the
| equipment goes negative relative to the business so the
| line is idled and the fab real estate repurposed to make
| more profitable modern stuff." OK?
|
| [1] Which, again, is just a "duh" kind of point and I
| can't believe we're arguing about it.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| No, old processes have very nearly the same capacity the
| used to, some even more. Several foundries are adding 8"
| capacity right now.
| [deleted]
| jamiek88 wrote:
| My understanding is there is a substrate shortage as well as a
| foundry slot shortage.
| jpm_sd wrote:
| This is correct. The industry is currently constrained on
| everything from water to wafers, in addition to fab time
| slots. Everyone is panic buying too, so shortages are getting
| amplified.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| ... and while there is lots of "real" demand we also get
| the cryptocrazies exerting additional pressure not just on
| the finest and best silicon available, but now even on
| HDD/SSDs. Prices have already risen 50+ % in the last few
| weeks.
|
| F--- t---- m-----.
| im3w1l wrote:
| I'm a bit out of the loop. What is the cause of this? Since
| they are hitting multiple constraints at once I guess it's
| a demand spike?
| smaryjerry wrote:
| Not who you responded to but newly released consoles are
| tons of chips, having to stay home meant more people
| buyer gaming PCs as well, everyone who started working
| from home required tons of new hardware while their
| desktops at work go unused, and money flowed from
| governments like water so everyone has money to buy all
| these things at once. Then on the supply side you had
| basically everyone stop working for at least a couple
| months some longer not only out of restrictions on the
| ability to work but restrictions that make a lot of
| processes much less efficient plus fear of going to work
| on top, then you had no one willing to return to many
| jobs because unemployment benefits have lasted for over a
| year (rather than normally a few months) and unemployment
| pays higher than your typical minimum wage job anyways
| with even the current the extra $300 per week, which was
| an extra $600 per week for a long time as well. This also
| means people that used to spend their time on higher wage
| and producing jobs end up spending a lot of their time
| doing things they would normally delegate off because no
| one wants to work those jobs. If you look at chips they
| are just one of many industries all with shortages for
| similar reasons, chips are just the worst shortage of
| all, mainly from all the work from home needs. In 2020
| last year my computers power supply died.. there wasn't
| one available with 100 miles. I drove to every store
| within about 20 miles to try to get back online same day.
| Even online Newegg and Amazon were all sold out, I had to
| spend about triple normal to by a power supply that was
| way too much for what I needed and pay extra for shipping
| it quickly. Not the same as chips but it was a similar
| need and far fewer people are needing power supplies
| versus chips.
| pitaj wrote:
| Also assembly houses are way backed up
| monocasa wrote:
| And even then, process nodes aren't fungible. Taping out a
| design for a totally new (to you) node is probably at least a
| year of time. And for what? Will the chip shortage be over
| then anyway?
| simias wrote:
| I don't know but maybe one of the factors is that given how
| cheap microntrollers have become it's not uncommon to use an
| "overpowered" integrated chip just for ease of development.
| Suppose that you have to drive some LEDs on a washing machine,
| do you bother developing some optimized bespoke circuitry with
| discrete components or do you just slap a ~2$ 100+MHz 32bit
| Cortex controller that will let you implement all the logic in
| C and just reflash if you find an issue?
| makapuf wrote:
| You can also put a 16MHz 8bit which can cost you a few dozens
| of cents max (Outside of shortage)
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| You gotta take a second and respect how powerful these
| chips are that usually costs a few pennies each.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| And not need a 32-bit bus, so it saves on board cost, too.
| krapht wrote:
| Eh, no, that's not how it works in high-volume manufacturing.
| There are 70 million washing machines sold per year. Suppose
| your large conglomerate employer sells 0.7% of that total, or
| 700,000 units. It doesn't take much of a per-unit savings to
| pay for the salary of a FTE to optimize the design.
| simias wrote:
| Maybe, you have to see if the cost of having independent
| components (dev time, prototyping etc...) is worth the few
| cents saved on the BoM.
|
| Then you have to consider that IC designs are usually
| easier to reuse since they're more flexible, if you can
| have a single design with different firmwares for your
| entire line of products vs custom hardware for every
| design. Even if you sell 700k units/year you probably have
| a few models in your inventory, each selling for a fraction
| of that.
|
| Beyond that it's pretty common for modern appliances to
| come with so-called "smart" features that require more
| processing and more IO capabilities. It's not rare for
| modern coffee makers to come with a color screen instead of
| the good old 7 segment displays.
|
| So really the equation is not that simple, especially for
| higher end models that will have a more expensive BoM
| overall and a lower number of units sold.
| dehrmann wrote:
| It doesn't matter for this, but it's definitely the case in
| the hobbyist segment. Look at how many people use Raspberry
| Pis for things better suited to a microcontroller.
| speed_spread wrote:
| It's true that RPi are often overpowered but I'd contend
| that Linux is the platform being targeted more than the RPi
| itself. Development is much easier if you can assume a full
| fledged OS is running.
| judge2020 wrote:
| With the amount of horrible infotainment systems in the wild
| i honestly doubt they're using overpowered chips. I'm sure
| any consumer grade APU (ie. CPU with an iGPU) from the past 5
| years would do better than the chips currently in cars.
| delecti wrote:
| Don't underestimate the ability of lazy, incompetent, or
| (most likely) rushed developers to fill the headspace given
| to them by overpowered hardware.
| danielmeskin wrote:
| How much of that is the APU? I'd imagine the bottleneck
| would lie with manufacturers using the cheapest panels and
| digitizers they can.
| kube-system wrote:
| I think the panels and digitizer used in automotive
| applications are pretty specialized and relatively
| expensive. They have environmental requirements that far
| surpass that of typical consumer products.
| simias wrote:
| I've worked in that industry. The problem with infotainment
| systems (be it in planes or in cars) is that they're
| usually designed years before the planes/cars enter
| production, they have very strong constraints in terms of
| price and component choice (you need automotive-certified
| parts, not smartphone parts, and they need to last a long
| time even if they have to go through Arizona summers) so
| they're already outdated by the time the car comes out.
|
| These systems are also usually integrated with other
| systems to provide additional functionality using largely
| custom code that somewhat prevents quick iteration and code
| reuse, especially since the people writing the code are
| largely not in-house but various contractors (that's where
| a company like Tesla has the upper hand since I suppose
| that they control the software stack a lot more than the
| average).
|
| Beyond that these systems suffer heavily from design-by-
| committee and worse yet, committees whose core competence
| really isn't computer UI.
| alexc05 wrote:
| It makes me wonder if it would be possible to build a chip-
| manufacturing plant for any reasonable amount of money to
| produce these chips that don't need to be 7nm GPU
| powerhouses, but like the old clunker chips that can't get
| attention from the big guys.
|
| Almost like starting a "generics" business in pharma
| medication but for older chipsets.
|
| I'm sure there's a great trade to be had in producing the
| lower end stuff.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > It makes me wonder if it would be possible to build a
| chip-manufacturing plant for any reasonable amount of money
| to produce these chips that don't need to be 7nm GPU
| powerhouses, but like the old clunker chips that can't get
| attention from the big guys.
|
| > Almost like starting a "generics" business in pharma
| medication but for older chipsets.
|
| There is actually a great interest in this business, but
| mainly from Chinese. World's biggest 200mm fab is in
| Shanghai. A decision to build a brand new 200mm fab
| would've never flew in the West.
|
| Chinese 3rd-4th-n-th tier fabs been vacuuming the market
| for old equipment for last 5 years.
|
| > I'm sure there's a great trade to be had in producing the
| lower end stuff.
|
| At this very moment, production on 150mm-200mm wafers is
| actually few times more profitable than on the latest
| process because everybody is now ready to pay absolutely
| ridiculous premiums.
| lunixicityee wrote:
| You could dip your toe in by getting a design produced, if
| you're interested in the process.
|
| Google and efabless accept submissions every few months for
| designs that use a free 130nm process development kit:
|
| https://efabless.com/open_shuttle_program
|
| 130nm is plenty ancient; it's the same feature size as a
| >10-year-old STM32F1, I think. And I hear that those MPW
| runs are starting to accept ~$10K for a guaranteed spot
| with a closed-source design.
|
| So you'd probably be looking at charging 6 figures per
| wafer. I don't have good insight into startup costs, but I
| would guess high 8-low 10 figures. Running costs would not
| be negligible either.
|
| Is that possible? I haven't crunched the numbers and I
| don't have enough information or context to do so
| accurately. But my gut says that it might depend on how
| many billionaires you're on good terms with.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Is that possible? I haven't crunched the numbers and I
| don't have enough information or context to do so
| accurately. But my gut says that it might depend on how
| many billionaires you're on good terms with.
|
| 130nm is quite ancient, but there are digital parts from
| early nineties still on the market. They are way bigger
| than 130nm.
|
| Right now I have an ongoing project with a company making
| aircons. Their kit supplier uses a really, really
| ancient, and rare Hitachi MCU made on 600nm, and they are
| paying few dollars for it -- more than some modern ARM
| SoCs.
|
| They really want to change their kit supplier, or compel
| the chip supplier to cut cost, but the kit supplier
| itself can't migrate from Hitachi MCU because they don't
| have firmware sources as they themselves only copypasted
| the firmware as a binary for decades..
| pbourke wrote:
| > but the kit supplier itself can't migrate from Hitachi
| MCU because they don't have firmware sources as they
| themselves only copypasted the firmware as a binary for
| decades..
|
| That's seems like a rather existential problem. If I'm
| understanding correctly, the kit supplier makes the
| control board and the manufacturer does final assembly?
| baybal2 wrote:
| Yes, and the Chinese kit supplier seemingly got the tech
| from a Japanese aircon maker somewhere in nineties, and
| then copied the board verbatim ever since.
| pbourke wrote:
| I wonder if you could run the firmware in emulation on a
| more recent CPU.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I don't think one can even fund assembler docs for a chip
| so old, rare, and obscure as first SH-1,2,3 families.
| pbourke wrote:
| I don't know anything about these, but found it
| interesting that people have ported Linux to these chips
| as they've come off patent:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperH#J_Core
| CoolGuySteve wrote:
| I suspect the ultimate outcome of RISC-V is that it will be
| the commodity CPU the same way any fab can make DRAM.
| reportingsjr wrote:
| Most of the chips in these shortages are being produced on
| either older process nodes, or on slightly specialized
| nodes. The typical micro that's been hit by this is using
| anywhere from a 28nm to 180nm node.
|
| The trouble is, this is a temporary shortage, so it makes
| no sense to spend serious cash (you're talking hundreds of
| millions) to make a new fab when the demand won't be there
| in a year or two.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > The trouble is, this is a temporary shortage
|
| It isn't. Designs on 200mm were in dire shortage for half
| a decade, and Chinese foundries were making very decent
| money on decades old chips.
|
| For the last 3-4 years, 200mm-180nm had a 12 month+
| backlog across the whole market.
| pharke wrote:
| I wonder if there's a good business in the mix of these
| ideas. If a lot of manufacturers actually are using over
| powered chips because they are a) more available and b)
| easier to program with newer tooling then one might be
| able to find a niche making cheaper/simpler/older style
| chips if they also provided modern tooling making it
| easier to program them for simple tasks like weighing
| things, blinking lights, playing little tunes, reading a
| sensor, etc. I've heard good things about PlatformIO so
| leveraging that ecosystem could be a win as far as
| avoiding creating your own IDE. Producing great
| documentation for the products would also go a long way
| towards gaining adoption.
| baybal2 wrote:
| No the challenge is exactly the opposite.
|
| Tons of chips still made at >130nm, and 200mm equipment
| for simple reasons that companies don't make much money,
| or not having much volume in this stuff.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| > The trouble is, this is a temporary shortage, so it
| makes no sense to spend serious cash (you're talking
| hundreds of millions) to make a new fab when the demand
| won't be there in a year or two.
|
| While true, one could say it's a bet on inflation to
| borrow dollars now for productive assets.
| maltalex wrote:
| I think that's exactly what some of the old fabs are doing.
|
| When a new process node comes out not all fabs are
| immediately upgraded. Fabs with older tech simply start
| producing simpler chips while the new ones pump out cutting
| edge ones.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| The problem with your idea is that you are competing
| against obsolete high-end fabs, which have already paid
| back all their capital costs long ago. In a normal market,
| it's pretty much impossible for you to match them in price
| if you still need to pay yours.
|
| Still, GloFo basically made this their plan, when they
| pivoted from the very highest-end chipmaking into FD-SOI,
| which is less performant but cheaper to design for.
| jleahy wrote:
| There's still a limit to the production capacity available,
| these are still incredibly complex manufacturing processes,
| just not cutting edge.
|
| Personally my take away from that was "what is a smart toaster
| and why would anyone need that".
| stadium wrote:
| Could recycled smartphones be used as a source for chips?
| undeadcomment wrote:
| No...
| jfoutz wrote:
| I think a lot of folks underestimate how fabulously complicated
| it is to fab a chip. Yes, you can diy it in your garage, here's a
| wonderful implementation. http://sam.zeloof.xyz/first-ic/
|
| But take a look at the specialized tools they used. Heck, think
| about proper handling of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofluoric_acid and this is just
| a simple amp. imagine trying to make something with lots of
| gates?
|
| Making a single chip is _hard_. And that's just for a one off.
| doing that at scale requires an amazing amount of process
| control. And that diy chip is, according to the author "5um (1975
| tech. level)"
|
| Anyway, yes, you could make a chip in your garage, but it'd take
| a lot of time to ramp up, and you'd only have 1.
| newsclues wrote:
| We are also dealing with a global logistics network that may
| rival microchips in complexity.
|
| Food, and fuel for the humans and planes, trains, trucks, ships
| and bicycles that are essential to get things places to keep
| the global economy functioning.
| bob1029 wrote:
| I worked in a semiconductor facility as a systems engineer
| for a few years. I would have a hard time believing that
| global logistics management is fundamentally more complex
| than what happens in just one of the factories responsible
| for producing a modern HPC chip.
|
| The material handling systems are a sight to behold. Most may
| not be aware, but automation rates of 95% and beyond are
| feasible in these facilities. Many times, a lot can be moved
| through the entire manufacturing process without a single
| human touching or even looking at it. The amount of code and
| engineering around the material handling system is a mind
| boggling expanse of complexity. When million dollar product
| is flying around at 30+mph overhead on robots, you tend to
| take your time and do it right.
|
| Add on top of this the same time domain concerns you have in
| global logistics, but with far more acute consequences. It's
| probably ~OK if a cargo ship is 15 minutes late to port. If
| lots miss a special process timeout by the same duration, you
| are potentially looking at millions of dollars in scrap.
| These intervals can be as short as 30 minutes. Imagine trying
| to schedule high priority lots through special tools,
| intermixing with unrelated (but also urgent) manufacturing
| nodes, while also allowing for preventative and break-fix
| maintenance on these same tools.
|
| By far, the most complex parts of these semiconductor
| manufacturing operations are the business rules for the
| overall manufacturing environment, followed closely by the IT
| infrastructure required to tie together tens of thousands of
| hyper-complex technology systems. You better believe this is
| the one time it 100% makes sense to use pub/sub messaging.
|
| Oh and don't forget about all the HF acid, ultrapure water,
| EUV lasers, hyper-scale cleanrooms, exotic power distribution
| systems, et. al.
| amelius wrote:
| If making a chip is so hard, then why do the FAANG companies
| own this world, not e.g. TSMC or Samsung?
| baybal2 wrote:
| TSMC, and Samsung are both very glad at FAANG trying to "own
| the world" -- more business for them!
|
| I don't see Morris Chang running to open an advertising shop,
| webhosting company, or mine bitcoins, thought the later was
| much speculated.
| hans-moleman wrote:
| I think this year has proven that TSMC does have a very
| dominant position in the industry.
| pstrateman wrote:
| I think your comment is being misunderstood because of the
| ambiguity of "this world".
| jfoutz wrote:
| I'm not quite sure I follow. I guess the same reason AMF
| isn't really much of a thing anymore? I don't think making a
| pinsetter would be a big deal now with ready access to parts
| and tools, but I'd imagine it was quite a feat in the 40's.
|
| I think I need more description around "owning the world".
| Sure, those leisure focused companies are pocketing big
| dollars, good for them! But they don't really do much,
| they're only meaningful given the backdrop of the larger
| economy.
| booleanbetrayal wrote:
| What new fab facilities are currently being spun up in the US?
| And if the answer is "few," then why?
| gizmodo59 wrote:
| Building a fab takes lot of time. Plus you need to hire the
| right talent in the same region. And by the time you can do it
| may be we will be past this supply issue. (Or may be that's why
| we don't do it now? Not sure)
| jfoster wrote:
| Why is there a shortage rather than a price hike, similar to what
| would happen with fuel? Long term contracts?
| logicchains wrote:
| There are sophisticated financial markets for trading fuel, but
| not for chips. In such a market, firms are incentivised to buy
| when they anticipate demand will rise (or supply will fall),
| which increases the price. Then after the price has risen (the
| demand has materialised), they sell. This distributes the
| consumption of the underlying resource more evenly across time,
| making shortages less likely.
| laurowyn wrote:
| Well no, not really.
|
| Fuel (or really, oil) is a single commodity that everybody is
| after. If the price is low, and you're anticipating a
| shortage in the near future, you can buy now and sell later
| for a higher price. That's as simple as a market can get. buy
| low, sell high, whilst gambling on future price rises.
|
| However, ICs are not a single commodity - you can't take
| whatever the foundry is putting out and slam it in place of
| whatever you actually needed. Each circuit is specific to its
| application. Sure, you could take a similar chip and rework
| your product to use the new chip instead of the old, but that
| isn't how a foundry works. They sell capacity.
|
| Each company that wants their chips made will (or should)
| have done their forecasting for demand in the short-medium
| term. The problem is that those term limits have lapsed at a
| time when manufacturing is in a crunch. So now everybody
| needs new chips made, and nobody has the capacity to make
| them all.
|
| Those that can rework their products to use similar chips
| that are already available should be doing so to maintain
| business. Those that can't do that, or are unwilling to do
| that, are paying through the nose to pay off other foundry
| customers to take their slots. meanwhile, there aren't enough
| chips to continue product manufacturing, so that's on hold
| until the new chips come out of the foundry and then
| everything can resume.
|
| Prices will rise to cover the lull in production. And then
| businesses will see that people are willing to pay that
| amount, and so prices will not go back down.
|
| If that isn't a more complicated financial market than oil,
| then I have no idea what is.
| yetihehe wrote:
| Beause you have only several types of fuel, but you have many
| thousands types of chips and electronic elements and market
| for each single element type is not that high. Plus if you
| store a chip too long, it's no longer useful for automated
| assembly.
| f00zz wrote:
| I think there were DRAM futures contracts at some point,
| but looks like the idea never panned out (probably for the
| reasons you mentioned)
| fcantournet wrote:
| Because real markets are inefficient. Think of it like a
| highway : why is there a traffic jam on this highway ? Because
| there was a slowdown somewhere 20 miles up the line and there
| is massive inertia in the system.
|
| A slowdown somewhere has ripple effects and the inertia of
| those systems, in the case of semi-conductor manufacturing it
| takes a long time to increase production capabilities, and the
| theoretical elasticity of price/volume doesn't hold when you
| cannot increase volume magically in a week.
| ajross wrote:
| There is a price hike. But paying 2x more for silicon inside
| e.g. a car that retails for $40k isn't going to be felt by the
| consumer as a change to the demand curve, it's going to look
| like "car shortage". So the car manufacturers have to explain
| that it's due to silicon manufacturing capacity, so now it's a
| "chip shortage".
| stingraycharles wrote:
| Well if I take a look at the GPU market the prices have nearly
| doubled over the past 6 months and there still isn't any
| supply.
|
| In other words, the price hiked to a point where people will
| otherwise say "I'll just wait longer", and this is what's
| happening.
| cortesoft wrote:
| That is always what happens when prices go up. The whole
| point is to reduce the number of buyers who want the product
| at that price so that there is enough supply to fill the
| remaining demand. That is how a supply and demand curve
| works.
| mort96 wrote:
| But you still have a shortage, right? People still want
| microchips. In ideal conditions, the price will stabilize
| at the level where every chip gets sold, but nobody who
| wants to pay that price has to wait in line for too long.
| But if you reach that point, you still have a whole lot of
| buyers who still want a microchip, but who are unable to
| pay for them at those elevated prices - i.e a shortage.
|
| With fuel, you can reduce your car usage for a while and
| when prices get back down you can just go back to your old
| level of fuel consumption. But with microchips, a reduction
| in "consumption" results in pent-up demand; people who have
| been waiting a while to buy a new GPU still want to buy
| that GPU when the prices go down.
| cortesoft wrote:
| The idea is that if you need it bad enough, you can find
| one at the higher price. If prices didn't go up, you
| wouldn't be able to find one at any price.
|
| Some of the people who would want a chip at $x don't want
| it at $x*2, and will just never buy one unless the price
| drops. If the price never drops because supply is never
| increased, then they will simply never purchase it.
| mort96 wrote:
| To me that just sounds like an indefinite microchip
| shortage.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Well, a lot of people would buy yachts if they were only
| $1000.... since the price will never get there, they will
| never get their yacht that they want.
|
| Does that mean there is a yacht shortage?
|
| If chip costs stay high, that just means that is how
| expensive chips are.
| mort96 wrote:
| So what's your definition of a shortage then? We're in a
| situation where a lot of people who want microchips
| aren't able to buy them because the suppliers aren't able
| to produce enough of them. What is the difference between
| that and a shortage?
|
| If we don't produce enough food for everyone to eat, we
| would be in a similar situation: the price would rise
| until only the people with the most money could afford
| food. We would call that a food shortage. Replace food
| with microchips and that's still a shortage, right?
| (Albeit a less dire one.)
|
| Or do you follow an ideology where there is no such thing
| as a shortage, there is only the almighty supply and
| demand curve?
|
| EDIT: To respond to the yacht thing: It's my
| understanding that the price of yacths aren't elevated
| because we're unable to produce enough of them. It is my
| understanding that yachts are expensive A) because
| producing them genuinely requires a lot of resources and
| B) because they're luxury goods which are priced
| according to their target market. If loads and loads of
| people suddenly started demanding yachts at their current
| price, and yacht factories weren't able to keep up with
| the demand, and the price of a yacht went up
| significantly due to supply constraints, I would
| certainly call that a "yacht shortage".
| cortesoft wrote:
| You can see the definition of a shortage here:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortage
|
| The tl;dr is that a shortage is when there are people who
| are willing to pay more than the market price for an item
| but something is preventing the market from raising
| prices.. either because of laws against price gouging,
| price caps, or because manufacturers have some other
| incentive not to raise prices.
| mort96 wrote:
| So to be clear: You wouldn't consider my food shortage
| example to be a "shortage", as long as nothing is
| preventing the market from raising prices to meet the
| demand?
|
| Because if that's the case, then that's okay. We're not
| actually disagreeing on anything substantial, we're just
| using different definitions of the word "shortage". It
| seems like this is perfectly summed up by this paragraph
| from the wikipedia page you linked:
|
| > In common use, the term "shortage" may refer to a
| situation where most people are unable to find a desired
| good at an affordable price, especially where supply
| problems have increased the price. "Market clearing"
| happens when all buyers and sellers willing to transact
| at the prevailing price are able to find partners. There
| are almost always willing buyers at a lower-than-market-
| clearing price; the narrower technical definition doesn't
| consider failure to serve this demand as a "shortage",
| even if it would be described that way in a social or
| political context (which the simple model of supply and
| demand does not attempt to encompass).
|
| It would seem like calling the chip shortage a "shortage"
| is completely within the common usage of that term.
| cortesoft wrote:
| It is within the common usage of the term, yes, but not
| the technical usage.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| What I meant to say is that, even with these inflated
| prices, everything is sold out: even if I want to pay $2500
| for that 3090 GPU, I cannot get it.
| cortesoft wrote:
| You can get them for around $3000 on auction sites.
| chapium wrote:
| I think the assumption there is that these are running as
| efficient markets, but the reality likely is that these are
| negotiated contracts that have not caught up with supply and
| demand.
| dahart wrote:
| Maybe we have both? A price hike won't necessarily fix a
| shortage, right? (Price hikes didn't exactly fix n95 mask
| demand, for example.)
|
| The video in the article explains that the auto industry
| stepped out of the queue by cancelling all their orders. Now
| demand is high and they want to cut back in line. So this story
| about auto makers is taking advantage of a loose and slightly
| misleading use of the word "shortage". It implies there's only
| a supply-side shortage, when in fact car makers dropped demand
| before and are now spiking demand.
|
| Plus a chip fab can take months, and I have no idea what the
| lead time on ordering one is, but it's probably not zero,
| right? Especially with other customers in the queue. The
| process of ordering fuel is somewhat different and doesn't need
| to serialize the buyers.
| Tenoke wrote:
| >Price hikes didn't exactly fix n95 mask demand
|
| I'm not sure about n95s specifically but generally we saw
| mask prices hike, and then production increased quickly
| enough that there were masks for the majority of the
| population within a couple of months.
| [deleted]
| cerved wrote:
| I suspect it's because fuel is a much more elastic product.
|
| While you can't just throw up a new pump, you have lots of
| producers can increase their existing output.
|
| Fuel doesn't change. The hydrocarbons pumped out 100 years ago
| still work fine. So it can be stored.
|
| It's also a simple commodity. Basically everything runs on
| either gas, petrol or diesel. Not whatever ridiculous amount of
| chip variations.
|
| But I'm not an economist so this is just a guess
| ajb wrote:
| Total production is inelastic in the short to medium term, as
| it increases in units of a whole fabrication plant. Increasing
| price can only get your chip order in at the expense of someone
| else's order.
| honkycat wrote:
| I've eyeing a gaming PC for a while. I game, do music production,
| amd also do i die game dev. If I buy an all in one I'll pay a
| $500 premium but I'll be able to actually acquire all the
| components.
|
| Hackernews, please tell me: should I pull the trigger before it's
| too late, or hold off for the panic to subside?
| f6v wrote:
| I'd join the secret laptop club if I was in the us
| https://youtu.be/cFyka8Vp62Y
| seltzered_ wrote:
| Regarding cars:
|
| "Some carmakers are now leaving out high-end features as a result
| of the chip shortage, according to a Bloomberg report on
| Thursday.
|
| Nissan is reportedly leaving navigation systems out of cars that
| would normally have them, while Ram Trucks has stopped equipping
| its 1500 pickups with a standard "intelligent" rearview mirror
| that monitors for blind spots"
|
| I have an unpopular opinion, especially when we start to look at
| the increase of safety features and increase in pedestrian
| injuries, that we may be better off going back to smaller trucks
| designed for good visibility and less reliance on features.
| (bias: I drive a 16 year old wagon, and feel panicked around
| bicycling with what feels like more trucks in the US)
|
| ---
|
| "Hertz said it is "supplementing" its fleet "by purchasing low-
| mileage, preowned vehicles" from auctions and dealerships."
|
| I find it wild that just a year ago Hertz filed for bankruptcy
| [0] and was selling vehicles by end of year [1].
|
| [0]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/business/hertz-
| bankruptcy/ind...
|
| [1]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/hertz-must-
| offload...
| gumby wrote:
| > Nissan is reportedly leaving navigation systems out of cars
| that would normally have them
|
| Wonder if this will begin a trend. The car navigation system is
| pretty worthless these days except if you find yourself
| unexpectedly out of phone range (I still carry paper maps, but
| these days many phone navigation apps allow you to pre-download
| your route so you don't have to worry about being out of
| coverage).
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Awesome. I won't consider any vehicle with a touchscreen for
| controls. Everybody already has phone navigation, so why
| duplicate it with a craptastically different UX?
|
| And then half the cars can't sync your phone without a dozen
| menu selections.
| gumby wrote:
| And cans update the maps, except in a rare, cumbersome and
| expensive manner.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Yeah, in spite of Google's best efforts to the contrary you
| can still download maps for offline use.
| easton wrote:
| In all of the recent cars I've been in, the navigation system
| wasn't present but the screen was for CarPlay/Android Auto. I
| wonder if the screen is not there at all in these cars or
| just the GPS parts of the head unit.
| immmmmm wrote:
| i might have an even more unpopular opinion: we might have too
| many cars.. in switzerland, we have 6.3 mio cars for 8.4 mio
| ppl, almost none of my friends have one, i just don't
| understand how it's even possible. but what's shocks me the
| most is their size, every swiss city is packed with huge +100k
| vehicles, i know we're rich, but WTF honestly: when one knows
| one third of the time they're used to do -1km trips. i know i
| know i have free work schedule, no children, and the best (and
| most expensive) public transportation system and can afford to
| commute without one... yet, soon more (huge) cars than ppl in
| my country.. i'm not a big patriot, i know how my country can
| be evil (we call that "neutrality" lol), yet i'm shocked again
| yamellasmallela wrote:
| Driving would be pretty damn safe if every single car stopped
| being an enormous truck or SUV. 99% of the population does not
| need one. American roads are just so damn unsafe
| clairity wrote:
| the only recent-ish safety feature i've found genuinely useful
| is the backup camera, which does aid low-ground reverse
| visibility. all the rest can go in the trash bin, especially
| lane-keeping warnings and auto-braking, which tend to reduce
| driver alertness and increase distractedness, the overwhelming
| principal cause of collisions and death (not speed or
| intoxication, as are commonly assumed).
| epistasis wrote:
| Yeah, the size of these trucks has completely put me off ever
| wanting one. I miss the small ones from a few decades ago...
| great for surfing, hauling the ver occasional bit of stuff,
| just as useful as the ugly beasts of today but far cheaper and
| more maneuverable and safer.
|
| I think we need to start requiring commercial drivers licenses
| on some of these beasts.
|
| They are intentionally designed to be difficult to see out of,
| difficult to see around. And the high point of contact on a
| human body means that they are deadly. Definitely should not be
| allowed on a residential street without an explicit commercial
| purpose, IMHO.
| fy20 wrote:
| > I think we need to start requiring commercial drivers
| licenses on some of these beasts.
|
| In the EU the maximum authorized mass (US: GVWR) you can
| drive with a standard car license is 3500kg or 7700lbs. That
| means for some models of the F150 you do need a commercial
| license.
| minhazm wrote:
| There are no F150 models in the US that weight 7700 lbs or
| even close to it. The heaviest one is 5517 lbs.
|
| https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20Americ
| a...
| heftig wrote:
| It's not dry vehicle weight that counts. GCWR must not be
| above 3500 kg for the basic car driver's license.
|
| PS: Actually, the limits for the basic German driver's
| license (B) are: Max GVWR of 3500 kg. With trailer, if
| GTWR not above 750 kg, no GCWR restriction, otherwise max
| GCWR of 3500 kg.
|
| There's an extended license (BE) for max GTWR of 3500 kg
| and no GCWR restriction. (Max GVWR still 3500 kg.)
|
| https://www.adac.de/verkehr/rund-um-den-
| fuehrerschein/klasse... (German text).
| saalweachter wrote:
| The _curb weight_ of the F150 tops out at ~5000 pounds,
| the _GVWR_ [which is what it is when full of people and
| stuff] tops out at ~7000 pounds.
|
| The F250 line tops out at a curb weight of ~7500 lbs with
| a GVWR of an even 10,000.
| wcunning wrote:
| And the GCWR can top 15000 pounds (my personal spec,
| though I had to custom order to get that combination). My
| 2018 F150 can tow a little over 10000 pounds vs the 6000
| that my dad's 1995 F250 could tow. Things have definitely
| shifted a category or more. Similar comparisons for a
| current Ranger and an older F150. Basically, the older
| Ranger is an Escape with a hitch.
| speeder wrote:
| I am from Brazil, I've heard plenty of stories of people that
| bought imported Ford trucks and then are confused when their
| trucks get impounded because they drove without a license,
| not realizing that trucks here require a different license
| unless they are literally car-sized.
|
| Example: Fiat Fiorino: https://www.hojeemdia.com.br/polopoly_
| fs/1.792949!/image/ima...
|
| It used same Chassis as Fiat Uno
| https://quatrorodas.abril.com.br/wp-
| content/uploads/2019/08/...
|
| So it was obviously a car, with the rear-part modified to
| carry cargo.
|
| Meanwhile the 1980s F150: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/89/50/8a/
| 89508a513b5076ef6413543f2...
|
| It is obvious that thing is NOT a car, when you learned to
| drive in a UNO you can't expect a F150 to drive the same!
| mkoubaa wrote:
| The needless bloat of pickups is what got me more interested
| in minivans
| dokem wrote:
| Do pick up trucks cause more accidents? Is there data that
| supports this?
| infogulch wrote:
| Or are modern pickup-pedestrian accidents more deadly than
| other classes of cars?
| dehrmann wrote:
| This will be a weird number because I rarely see pickups
| in urban centers with lots of pedestrians, but I see them
| all the time in rural places.
| post_break wrote:
| Come to texas. Everyone has a truck, including me. But I
| bought the smallest one i could with a diesel to get
| 30mpg+ and its still the size of a 2009 F150.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| They are actually useful vehicles in rural places.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| This thread is filled with ignorant city boys who have
| never done any useful farm work.
|
| I cannot imagine how excrutiating it would be for my wife
| to have to pay a bunch of stupid taxes and follow a bunch
| of fascist new laws in order to grow her 100sq ft garden
| every year which, even so small, STILL requires
| truckloads of compost and mulch since we are just in the
| process of building our soil. And that's just for the
| gardens. I don't have any idea how many times we've
| hauled in cow, pig, and goat panels. I propose that the
| assholes proposing taxes and limits on trucks find a way
| to bring us these goods.
| epistasis wrote:
| Lol, one would have to be an "ignorant city boy" to
| believe your claims here, don't BS us.
|
| We are talking about the poorly designed showboats that
| do nothing to improve hauling capacity or utility. In my
| experience, I'd vastly prefer a lower bed for any of the
| tasks you mention. The extended crew cabs, stubby beds,
| and jacked to hell trucks are for aesthetics, not hauling
| mulch.
|
| Plus you don't even seem to realize the distinction, just
| emotionally (and perhaps intentionally?) misunderstand
| what is under discussion.
| [deleted]
| istjohn wrote:
| I don't disagree, but there would be a political shitstorm if
| you tried to take away their trucks.
| anotha1 wrote:
| True. In Florida, 1/3 of trucks are raised so there
| occupants have to literally climb in. These are commonly
| adorn with "Trump" and "Don't tread on me" bumper stickers
| and even massive flags (because you know, big truck means
| big flag...)
|
| I once drove one to move something (the cab/bed being five
| feet off the ground wasn't as helpful as you'd think \s).
| The experience was somewhat surreal, like driving in an air
| traffic control tower. Much different than a u-haul (my
| only other trucking experience).
|
| Edit: oh yeah, they do this to go "mudding" (drinking and
| driving in a giant muddy mess with guns, so much fun!).
| TecoAndJix wrote:
| Mudding doesn't mean drinking and driving with guns. It
| means tearing up the wet muddy ground with your vehicle.
| Spinning your tires, getting stuck, getting unstuck -
| just goofing off off-road. I personally don't see the
| appeal of it but have friends that enjoy it. They don't
| drink and drive (with or without guns).
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Trucks are vehicles. How can they be political? I know
| plenty of people from all kinds of backgrounds owning a
| truck.
| benjohnson wrote:
| The same reasons usually apply to large BMW and Mercedes
| SUVs. The correct people own those so they don't attract
| the same Attention.
| epistasis wrote:
| Up until this year I would have agreed with you, but
| grills this year have gotten completely out of control.
| The lack of visibility and the height of the impact zone
| has really changed on some trucks.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| "Rolling coal" (modifying a diesel engine to run rich and
| increase soot in the exhaust, a.k.a. incompletely
| combusted fuel) has become a statement in many places of
| the U.S. that you are opposed to the EPA, clean air
| rules, regulation, and in general the perceived nanny
| state.
|
| My friend is a Tesla owner in Georgia and has been
| deliberately blasted by these guys at stoplights a few
| times. They tried, anyway--hard to do this to a car with
| superior acceleration and a HEPA cabin filter.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal
| salawat wrote:
| I don't understand it myself. I'm fascinated by the
| energy extraction from a properly calibrated diesel
| engine. They get more efficient the more air you pump in.
|
| Ruining that for the sake of pissing people off seems a
| travesty against the machine.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| Ah yes, we have tons of these folks in AZ, frequently
| they're the same people with the "Don't tread on me"
| stickers and flags that seem to think "don't tread on me"
| means "But I can tread on you."
| ipqk wrote:
| You don't have to "take away" the trucks, but just make
| them more impractical:
|
| - sales tax on cars/trucks is by weight and exponentially
| increases the heavier the vehicle gets
|
| - increase taxes on gasoline
|
| - require a special license to operate a vehicle over XXXX
| lbs.
|
| - rewrite laws or encourage DAs to prosecute drivers that
| injure other people in cars or pedestrians even if it's
| unintentional
|
| - illegal to have passengers in the truck bed (some states
| still allow this).
|
| These are just off the top of my head.
| salawat wrote:
| Do you really think what you're suggesting doesn't map to
| "taking away" to the people involved?
|
| News flash: People aren't stupid, and you're not that
| smart. NFA tax stamps aren't still a thing because people
| don't see the tax loopholes as a ban or infringement on
| the 2nd Amendment. They absolutely do. They've just
| grudgingly accepted there may be some positive utility to
| it. What you're talkong about is nothing but velvet
| gloved taking by policy.
|
| And other posters are right. It'd be a shitstorm.
| nerdponx wrote:
| People will wail and cry and scream about their freedom
| being taken from them...
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Do a Carbon Dividend and other people will scream when
| taking away the gas tax means taking away the dividend.
|
| We need to stop these cowardly politics appeasing
| automobile users. This is how.
| liaukovv wrote:
| Because it is in fact taking away their freedom
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| The public roadways have never been especially free, not
| as in beer nor as in speech. It's a pretty unfortunate
| choice of setting for expressing individualism. Many have
| put some of their identity into how or what they drive
| anyway, of course.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You can take away the CAFE rules that can be gamed by
| making trucks bigger than necessary.
| newsclues wrote:
| Not doing things for fear of political shitstorms is a
| large part of why everything is so broken these days.
|
| Terrible leadership!
| novok wrote:
| I don't do certain unpopular things at work because I
| know it will be a political shitstorm, and even if I try
| to, everyone else will not cooperate and I could possibly
| lose my job or not get promoted. That is why. They
| usually cannot even do it if they wanted to.
|
| If your voters will vote you out because you do unpopular
| things, that's democracy at work.
| salawat wrote:
| Politics is about figuring out what to expend community
| energy on that'll actually A) Work And B ) Not have to be
| undone the next time the winds change.
|
| Terrible leadership I can agree with wholeheartedly
| though.
| nradov wrote:
| Smaller trucks are available for those who want them. Most
| buyers prefer larger trucks.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Can you give an example? Modern "compact" pickups like the
| Tacoma are significantly larger than something from 20 years
| ago like an S10.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Cars are getting larger in general, not just trucks.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Most "cars" in the US are classified as trucks so that fuel
| economy regulations can be gamed. It's all been downhill
| ever since the PT Cruiser managed to get a truck
| designation.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Where are they? Look at these explicitly 'small trucks':
| https://www.motortrend.com/news/best-small-trucks/
|
| What am I supposed to search for, small small trucks? Trucks
| that are actually small? Looking for cheap trucks still
| delivers large vehicles, just with fewer features:
| https://www.motortrend.com/news/cheapest-pickup-trucks-
| frill...
|
| I even searched 'smallest trucks' and...guess what. The Honda
| Ridgeline seems like the most compact but they're all pretty
| chunky. https://www.web2carz.com/autos/buying-and-
| selling/8257/these...
|
| If you suggest used trucks, that just shores up the point
| that manufacturers keep building bigger trucks. Please show
| us these small trucks of which you speak, even if they're
| more expensive or whatever.
| xdrosenheim wrote:
| > What am I supposed to search for SUV?
| phonon wrote:
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36125131/2022-hyundai-
| san...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgaElsORHSQ
| salawat wrote:
| You won't find small car footprint trucks anymore because
| of CAFE standards. The small size pickup is infeasible to
| get to happen while still getting "truck" performamce
| characteristics at that size. At least as far as I
| understand, that and safety requirements are the main
| driver of truck size increases over time.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| The Toyota Tacoma is now the size of older F150s, there
| aren't many or really any good options for buying a small
| truck currently.
| Snoozle wrote:
| Can you give examples of model years and decisions to back
| up your claim? Last I checked this (common) misconception
| is patently false.
| 9000 wrote:
| > Can you give examples of model years and decisions to
| back up your claim?
|
| Actually, I think the burden of proof is on the GP who
| made the original claim that there are plenty of small
| trucks for those who want them. Additionally, it's easier
| for them --or you-- to provide a single example of a
| common small truck than for the parent to provide a
| comprehensive breakdown of the sizes of all trucks over
| decades of model years. Plus, they have already pointed
| out the Tacoma, at least, as having grown.
|
| > Last I checked this (common) misconception is patently
| false.
|
| This is merely an assertion with no more evidence than
| the parent. To flip your question: Can you provide
| examples of small truck models to back up your claim?
| Snoozle wrote:
| No, I'm not the one claiming a modern Tacoma is as big as
| an old F150. Why is the burden on me to prove information
| presented as fact with no supporting evidence?
| miked85 wrote:
| What small trucks even exist anymore? There used to be
| lots of options, but I can't think of a single one in the
| last decade at least.
| undeadcomment wrote:
| Curb weight of base Tacoma has increased almost 2000
| pounds (2700lb to 4400lb) from 1990 to 2021. Length
| increased >3ft (174" to 212"). The 1990 Tacoma was
| shorter and lighter than a "modern" sedan.
|
| But you really should learn how to use the internet, it's
| rad.
| Snoozle wrote:
| Okay wise guy: A 1990 f150 crew cab is 74" high, 232.2"
| long, and 79" wide. A 2021 Tacoma crew cab is 212" long,
| 71" high, and 74" wide.
|
| This proves false the the assertion that a modern Tacoma
| is bigger than an old F150, but glad I could get
| downvoted by people with no mental rigor.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| And it's so hard to find a 2 door. A giant 4 door with a
| HUGE cab, but a tiny bed?! What's the point of that over an
| SUV.
|
| I'm buying a car for first time in a decade. I used to want
| to dirtbag out of a tacoma and have been looking for one
| but it's hard. Even a 13 year old one seems big - and also
| crazy expensive ;)
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The old Ranger was the last small truck in North America.
| A clean, low miles 2011 would still have some good life
| left in it.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| The hertz bankruptcy was just weird. My understanding of it:
| They have massive loans with their cars as collateral, when the
| pandemic started, used cars went down in value so their
| creditors margin-called them. Hertz didn't have the money and
| couldn't come to an agreement so filed for bankruptcy. Used
| cars returned to more normal values so hertz isn't really
| insolvent anymore so will probably get to survive bankruptcy.
| dahfizz wrote:
| I definitely agree that car size inflation is a real problem.
| Cars are too big and getting bigger every year.
|
| That said, "good visibility" is not a replacement for safety
| tech. The sensors and cameras in a car are always going to be
| better at spotting danger than a human for things like blind
| spot monitoring and backup cameras.
|
| You sound a bit like the teachers that would drill mental math
| because "you won't always have a calculator in your pocket".
| It's good to be able to do mental math, and it's good to be an
| alert driver, but let's not ignore the massive capabilities
| that technology allows.
| tomrod wrote:
| > Cars are too big and getting bigger every year.
|
| /me waves from my tiny Corolla, slightly larger than my 2002
| Prius, which a Camry has shrunk in size to meet relative to
| the 2009 model.
| leetrout wrote:
| Yep. I noticed that as well when I bought my 2018 Corolla.
|
| The size comparison to a 2003ish Camry is very similar.
|
| 2003 Camry:
|
| 189'' L x 71'' W x 58'' H
|
| 2018 Corolla:
|
| 183'' L x 70'' W x 57'' H
| californical wrote:
| I disagree about the safety tech.
|
| There are some situations where it's great, but those
| features make the driver feel a false sense of security. Let
| the people feel like they're entirely responsible so they're
| more careful.
|
| For example, widening the roads in the suburbs used to seem
| like a great idea - more space, less accidents, right? But
| that's untrue. Narrower streets with trees blocking
| visibility on the sides are actually safer because the driver
| is forced to be more aware [1] [2].
|
| Another good example is road markings and street/stop signs.
| Surely, having street signs and lane markings is safer right?
| Well, this is early on, but at least on city streets, it
| appears that's not true either. [3] [4]
|
| Now, to your point, it does appear that automatic car safety
| systems do make cars safer right now [5]. But those types of
| things are pretty new, so I wonder how long it'll be until
| they have the same fate as those other safety innovations of
| the past. Where taking them away will make driving safer
| because people feel personally responsible, so they drive
| slower.
|
| [1] https://www.thecalifornian.com/story/news/2015/06/14/stud
| ies...
|
| [2] https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/narrow-streets-are-
| safest
|
| [3] https://gizmodo.com/this-street-has-no-lanes-signals-or-
| sign...
|
| [4] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/world/europe/a-path-
| to-ro...
|
| [5] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/vehicle-
| safety-...
| BeetleB wrote:
| > The sensors and cameras in a car are always going to be
| better at spotting danger than a human for things like blind
| spot monitoring and backup cameras.
|
| Any data to back this up? Note that there is a difference
| between "always better" and "generally better". The former
| needs only one counterexample.
|
| My car has on several occasions failed to detect that there
| is a car in front of me, and would have happily crashed into
| it. About once a year, it also suddenly applies the brake
| _hard_ thinking there is a car in front of me when there isn
| 't. That is quite dangerous - were there a car behind me it
| would have rear ended me.
| FredPret wrote:
| I run into this in Factorio all the time
| nthj wrote:
| It's fascinating: because Factorio is deterministic, I always
| build out one massive, consolidated chip factory and distribute
| chips to other factories from there. But as we see here, in the
| real world, with droughts and pandemics, this is a risky
| strategy.
| swiley wrote:
| I love clicking on the power poles and watching the
| interference for segments of the network.
|
| It's awesome how quickly the noise emerges from the
| deterministic rules.
| skybrian wrote:
| Maybe Factorio needs some random disasters like SimCity or
| RimWorld?
| bombcar wrote:
| Biters effectively do this though it's technically entirely
| deterministic - and you can build a defense strong enough
| to make it not an issue, but that's quite involved.
|
| The most common "production" disasters are caused by an
| oversupply of one item, which stockpiled, and you go into
| under supply but don't notice until you're off doing
| something else (and that can cause critical self-defense
| mechanisms to shut down at bad times).
| HelloNurse wrote:
| The TV news version I've heard is that there is a car chip
| shortage because people in lockdown and working from home buy
| more computers.
|
| If journalists don't question this bullshit, there is little hope
| for the general public.
| Vaslo wrote:
| We will continue to have these issues as long as companies run
| risky levels of cash to make investors happy. Lower inventory
| means more capital for your business to invest elsewhere. But one
| catastrophe and all that onetime cash infusion is worthless.
| whatgoodisaroad wrote:
| A little afraid to ask what may be an obvious question, but what
| exactly does the shortage consist of? Computer chips aren't
| generally interchangeable and I assume they're mostly purpose-
| built. Is there a shortage of raw materials? Or is there a drop
| in fab capacity?
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| It's pretty straightforward. The demand for chips increased
| much faster than the manufacturers could increase capacity and
| meet demand.
|
| The COVID shift in working, socializing and learning from in-
| person to digital drove a huge demand spike for computers and
| telecommunications gear. The chip fabs hit capacity and it
| takes a long time to increase capacity. The equipment companies
| are running flat out to ship additional equipment, but so far,
| the fabs haven't gotten back to equilibrium.
| TedShiller wrote:
| Inflation. It's everywhere. It's not a shortage.
| elorant wrote:
| Is there any kind of organization where we can donate old and
| unused cpus? I have at least half a dozen chips in a drawer
| sitting and collecting dust. Some are even a decade old but I'm
| sure they're more than OK to run a toaster or a washing machine.
| Goz3rr wrote:
| It's basically not worth it to incorporate salvaged parts into
| mass production assembly lines, and even if it was those things
| don't use CPUs, they use tiny microcontrollers.
| enkid wrote:
| Is there enough overlap in architecture, packaging, etc., Where
| collection and distribution of unused chips really makes sense?
| d136o wrote:
| I recommend this read about the origins of the semiconductor
| industry in Silicon Valley: They Would Be Gods [1].
|
| Making a chip has been something that has been done completely
| methodically since their invention (I wonder if the less
| disciplined or less methodical and messy shops simply went out of
| business).
|
| Add decades of automation and scaling in every part of that
| process and we get to AMSL machines sold for hundreds of millions
| of dollars.
|
| Making software can feel so ad-hoc in comparison.
|
| I am also reminded of the Such Great Heights music video by
| Postal Service filmed in a clean room. [2]
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=71705
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/0wrsZog8qXg
| tpmx wrote:
| > Making a chip has been something that has been done
| completely methodically since their invention
|
| The yield improvement process seems like it has a lot common
| with e.g. baking and intuition.
| d136o wrote:
| Sure, at the invention/research step, after that's done it's
| all about sequencing the _exact_ series of steps (robots
| following the recipe) to get to the output.
| tpmx wrote:
| Software development is the invention/research phase;
| software distribution is the automated phase.
| thomasjudge wrote:
| "Electronic dog washing booth"?
| oblak wrote:
| So, even though Intel has been incredibly profitable for many
| years, they Gelsinger is asking for US and EU government support
| because... uh, uncertain times? That it?
|
| How much did they ask Isreal for this 600 million investment? [0]
|
| [0] https://www.israel21c.org/intel-announces-600-million-
| boost-...
|
| The EU should invest in AMD and build fabs without Intel if we
| are to be "independent"
| [deleted]
| baq wrote:
| starting a fab business from scratch to something like current
| 7-5nm nodes is a multi- _decade_ , likely high multiples of
| 10BEUR endeavor. while I agree having such capacity is a matter
| of EU security, paying Intel and TSMC to build their fabs on EU
| ground in ~2 years for less money is an attractive proposition
| and not mutually exclusive with the former to boot.
| jandrese wrote:
| It's not hard to see Intel struggling in the future as AMD has
| produced a better architecture and Apple is starting to compete
| in the space.
| liquidify wrote:
| Until Apple unlocks their chips (see never) from their own
| ecosystem and starts selling server chips and chips that
| other people can build systems with, they are not really
| 'competing' in the space.
| zeusk wrote:
| That's if the ecosystem doesn't revert to a MacOS majority
| over Windows
| devney wrote:
| For years I've been asking: Why does my toothbrush have to
| connect to bluetooth? Why does my refrigerator twitter? These
| were always useless mis-features and we can hope some of them can
| get pared down now with the shortage. Bring back old style dumb
| appliances!
| nnamtr wrote:
| I'm always very sceptical when electronics and chips are used
| as a solution to problems that nobody had. Reliability seems to
| suffer most of all. When I hear from my parents how long their
| products lasted back then ...
| bluedino wrote:
| Appicances with cheap membrane control panels are the worst.
| Mechanical dials lasted forever and when they broke you could
| at least still work them with some vise grips
| throwaway29303 wrote:
| I agree. Why does my toothbrush have to connect
| to bluetooth? Why does my refrigerator twitter?
|
| Analytics etc; to get "relevant" ads. That's all this IoT and
| data syphoning etc is mostly about.
|
| How often do you brush your teeth? What toothpaste do you use?
| Maybe your dentist needs to know that or, at least, someone
| from some (big) (tech) company doing data science about it for
| whatever reason (mostly to show you ads).
|
| Knowledge is power.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Sure. That's what's in it for some "them" out there
| somewhere. What's in it for me, the consumer who just wants
| to brush my teeth?
|
| (Crickets.)
|
| So don't hold your breath for this stuff to take off. Most
| people won't spend more money to buy something that will
| benefit someone else.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| There's a wide space between connected and dumb appliances. For
| instance my espresso coffeemaker is fairly dumb : I'm not even
| sure that it has a chip that turns the light green when the
| resistor is hot enough, it might be just some "dumb" sensor.
| (Still, because of this, it's not _completely_ dumb.)
|
| In comparison, my electric kettle is much smarter, and most
| likely requires a chip to make all the logic around the various
| buttons and the screen and the water temperature settings work.
| Still, it has zero connectivity.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| I have never owned a toothbrush that connects to bluetooth.
| Spend less if you find that spending more comes with features
| you don't want.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Connected devices are a good thing - i.e. I should be able to
| make the washing machine scriptable from my computer, but I bet
| these solutions are always crap because they are implemented in
| a hurry by engineers who don't understand either the hardware
| or software well enough to make it work, so you end up with
| quasi-useless boss-pleasers like we have now.
| techdragon wrote:
| I'd argue that on average the engineers working on these
| things understand things just barely well enough to implement
| these things in whatever hardware/software combination is
| selected.
|
| Any more understanding than that would be sub-optimal for
| shipping consumer products where cost optimisation is a
| primary concern as the salaries for more competent engineers
| would cost the company more.
|
| You can see this effect in action with the explosion of
| "smart home" devices after commoditised internals were made
| available by the likes of Tuya. Suddenly your company only
| needed junior engineers who could skin the whitebox turn-key
| solutions and product designers who could design a moulded
| plastic enclosure around a standard set of postage stamp
| sized circuit boards.
| slver wrote:
| So your default assumption is that a company whose entire
| division may be selling washing machines, doesn't give a
| damn about the programs that make those machines useful.
|
| Great.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Have you ever used Windows...
| azornathogron wrote:
| You're the first person I've ever seen who says they want a
| connected washing machine. I'm curious: what will your
| washing machine script do?
| mhh__ wrote:
| Not require me to have to go up and down the stairs about
| 5-10 times to see how it's getting on, and then switch to
| dry, then check on its progress, etc.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Does this machine both wash and dry clothes?
| sime2009 wrote:
| Why does it require so much babysitting?
| mhh__ wrote:
| The timer has a mind of its own (i.e. it displays an
| estimate of when it thinks it's going to be finished),
| and the option to automatically start drying after
| finishing the wash cycle is either not present or
| extremely well obfuscated (The model that shows up on
| Google definitely has the option on the rotary encoder,
| the one I have has no such option).
| kiddico wrote:
| Connected washing machines continue to make little sense to
| me. The only benefit I can think of is a notification when
| it's done. Otherwise all the interactions with it are done in
| person. (loading/unloading etc)
|
| What would you want to script?
| mhh__ wrote:
| My washing machine doesn't automatically starting draining
| or drying after finishing, so I have to go up and down the
| stairs, and it has a mind of its own as to when it
| finishes.
|
| An ESP-32 is about 2 quid last time I checked, I have many,
| and I would happily attach it to the machine if not for the
| fact that it doesn't belong to me.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I have a washing machine from year 2000, and it has that
| functionality built in. Are you sure you read the manual?
| mhh__ wrote:
| I don't think so. I can't work out how the washing
| machine isn't obviously just an example.
|
| Also, the thing that's more annoying is actually that the
| machine's alarm is extremely quiet and the timer very
| inconsistent (e.g. I made a Pizza oven that sends me an
| email, and it wasn't hard to do at all).
| PeterisP wrote:
| The common use case is to want to set the time so that it
| runs not right now but later - either because for noise
| reasons, or so that it finishes when you're back home to
| unload.
|
| Also, of course, there's the "internal scheduling" of
| various different activities that the machine is doing; you
| can do that mechanically but IMHO it's simpler now to do
| that with a cheap microcontroller.
| isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote:
| All washing machines I bought in the last decade had
| delayed start mechanism.
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| Without the hardware to script moving wet clothes to a dryer,
| and possibly folding and sorting dry clothes, is there a
| point, other than to set an alarm to prevent a moldy
| forgotten wet load?
| mhh__ wrote:
| That would be a start (the alarm sounds like a chain
| smoking mouse)
| clownpenis_fart wrote:
| Aaaaah. Yesss. Finally my dream has come true and I can start
| laundry by pressing a button on my computer
|
| wait what do you mean I still need to physically walk to the
| washing machine to load it this is bullshit
| tolbish wrote:
| Why should you be able to connect to run a script on a
| washing machine? Don't you need physically be there anyway to
| move the clothes around?
|
| The only use case I can see is a notification when the cycle
| is done, but I think there are better ways to go about that
| than using an SoC.
| mhh__ wrote:
| My washing machine has maybe about 300 to 600 permutations
| of options, none of which do exactly what I want.
| slver wrote:
| OK, so I need to be able to script my clothes, then.
| slver wrote:
| The world isn't driven by "I should have all the nice things
| I can imagine". How are you gonna script the washing machine
| to take the underwear off your bottom and put it in the drum?
| You'll have to do that yourself. And when you do it, you
| might as well "script the washing machine" by pushing the
| buttons on it.
|
| I'm a programmer and honestly I can't wait for this IoT fad
| to die down a little. Sure, maybe it's cool to have LAN
| connected lightbulbs as a novelty product. But this kind of
| shit will never ever be the norm, simply because it makes no
| damn sense in terms of value proposition.
| mhh__ wrote:
| What? I want to make the washing machine starting drying
| after a specific amount of time after the wash stage has
| finished.
|
| And guess what mr programmer, they didn't bother letting me
| do that with the front panel...
| slver wrote:
| Most (all?) washing machines have a delayed start.
|
| Why would you want your clothes to sit wet, collecting
| mold, before the drying begins?
|
| See, part of being a good programmer is figuring out a
| solution using the tools you have. Which includes
| figuring out how existing machines address your issues
| without requesting they come with a fully programmable
| API and wi-fi, just so you can delay the drying cycle.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I get the best drying if the machine washes, drains for a
| bit, then starts drying after that.
|
| If I were to do this it would take 4 trips to the washing
| machine because they didn't think to make it tick over
| from even washing to drying.
| slver wrote:
| What we've learned here is you need to buy a new washing
| machine, or maybe before that, read carefully the manual
| of the one you have.
|
| Thinking you can dry your clothes better than the people
| who engineered the entire machine and wrote its programs
| is honestly cracking me up. Do you think the vendors were
| like "you know what, we don't need this washing machine
| to dry well".
|
| Even more, what kind of a marketing campaign would such a
| scriptable machine even have?
|
| "Our washing machine dries really poorly, but we hope
| every stay at home mom can script it to dry better, so we
| included a web server and a REST API with it".
|
| They'll go bankrupt, man.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Well they decided not to have any modes that
| automatically dry after washing _at all_ so I 'm going
| with yes.
|
| And thanks, I'll just spend this months rent on a new
| washing machine.
| slver wrote:
| Well if you want it to be scriptable, you might need to
| spend three month's rent on a new washing machine.
|
| And yeah, uhmm... most washing machines can run drying
| after washing. You just took your specific model's issue,
| and decided to generalize it to "must be scriptable".
| Which is really a giant leap to make. To recap:
|
| 1. Your specific model can't dry after washing.
|
| 2. Your specific model can't be scripted either.
|
| 3. Other models can dry after washing.
|
| 4. Other models have no scripting.
|
| Ergo whatever you do, you're buying a new washing
| machine. And your problem doesn't require scripting.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Why? If it didn't belong to my landlord I could've _made_
| it scriptable in a few hours with one of a litany of
| wifi-enabled chips I have on my desk.
|
| I'm a professional programming language implementer why
| can't I use those skills to do as I please?
| slver wrote:
| You're really dedicated to this scriptable washing
| machine project. You should talk to your landlord.
| mhh__ wrote:
| You're really dedicated to being needlessly
| argumentative.
|
| Wrt to your previous comment, of course I'm talking about
| my model of washing machine.
|
| I genuinely cannot fathom how it's hard to work out that
| my point is that if they'd stuck even the most basic
| interface on the back, which I bet the higher end ones
| already have for debugging just not exposed, I could make
| the machine do what I want. That's not the way the world
| is, but it would be better if it was.
|
| Luckily for you I'm able bodied by the way...
| slver wrote:
| In software you should be familiar that exposing a
| debugging interface can be a 10 minute job. Exposing a
| public service can be a 3 month job. And not just for
| developers, but also for documentation writers,
| marketing, legal, and so on.
|
| If you're an expert, then you can hack with the debug
| interface, many enthusiasts do things like that with
| their devices.
|
| And if you're not an expert, you don't want, you can't,
| and you'd never need to script your washing machine.
| lfowles wrote:
| Does it not have a spin cycle? After that runs on mine
| there's nothing left to drain.
|
| Edit: oh no apparently it's a questionably maintained
| communal laundry room unit, I'm so sorry
| katbyte wrote:
| I couldn't imagine not having smart lights, they are one of
| the few iot devices that make my life a lot more
| comfortable- def not a novelty
| dieortin wrote:
| What do you use them for that is really helpful? I'm
| considering getting some Hue lightbulbs, but it seems
| like a bit of a waste.
| mhh__ wrote:
| YMMV but having the light turn on when my alarm goes off
| genuinely wakes me up.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Color temp and dimming-without-buzz. And you can put the
| switch etc wherever you want, and change color temp and
| brightness automatically before bed.
| charrondev wrote:
| I've got hues through the whole house. Primary use cases
| are:
|
| - Being able to trigger dimming of the lights in the
| house as sunset approaches. - Being able close all the
| lights in the house in one go (such as when leaving). -
| dimming lights when I don't have dimmers wired in. -
| being able to adjust colour temperature of the lights
| (and full colours, I tend to use a mix of oranges, pinks,
| and purples). - turning off lamps that are not otherwise
| on the same circuit as the ceiling when I flick a switch.
|
| Things like dimming and controlling lights on the same
| circuit could be done with electrical work, but I'm
| renting. The bulbs come with me wherever I move. The
| electrical work doesn't. I already was bringing my own
| lightbulbs wherever I moved anyways (to save
| electricity).
| perardi wrote:
| There are still lots, and lots, and lots of dumb appliances.
|
| I think you'd have to go out of the way to buy a toothbrush
| with Bluetooth, and I see many a non-smart fridge in the best
| sellers at Home Depot. (https://www.homedepot.com/b/Appliances-
| Refrigerators-Side-by...)
|
| For all the hooplah about smart homes and Alexa and Thread and
| Merlin Mann screaming about HomeKit and blah blah blah...most
| people have dumb lightbulbs, dumb garage doors, and dumb
| fridges.
|
| The obvious exception is a smart TV, which are effectively
| mandatory now. And...after years of being a contrarian...guess
| what? I like my Roku-enabled TV. The apps are nice. I don't
| have to have an external box. It's fine. More than fine, even--
| I am kinda shocked at how good this Amazon-special TCL TV is.
| anonymousab wrote:
| > For all the hooplah about smart homes and Alexa and Thread
| and blah blah blah...most people have dumb lightbulbs, dumb
| garage doors, and dumb fridges.
|
| For now. The profits to be made on microtransactions and
| subscriptions from internet-requiring features are too
| gargantuan to pass up, to not become the new norm. And, of
| course, unblockable ads and tracking.
|
| A fun recent example is a motorcycle emergency vest that
| stops inflating when you stop paying the subscription. An
| outlier for now, but the average tomorrow; The slope is real
| and it's coated with vaseline.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| No, they'll only become the new norm _if the majority of
| people buy them_. And they cost more, because internet-
| enabled components aren 't free. And most people really
| don't see the value in an internet-connected light bulb.
| Does it emit more light? No? Then why would I pay more for
| it? So if they have to sell the higher-cost BOM for the
| same price (because people see no reason to pay more), then
| where are the gargantuan profits?
|
| So I really don't see internet-connected X taking over the
| market, no matter how much money companies could make if
| customers cooperated.
| robocat wrote:
| "This Motorcycle Airbag Vest Will Stop Working If You Miss
| a Payment"
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/93yyyd/this-motorcycle-
| airba...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27054629
| perardi wrote:
| Or BMW's attempt to sell subscriptions to CarPlay and
| heated seats.
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/news/34547/bmw-is-planning-to-
| sell-...
|
| But still...that's high-margin subscriptions on top of a
| high-margin product. I am, currently, skeptical we will end
| up with low-end Internet of Shit for everything, because
| running that subscription service requires a big up-front
| investment that's hard when you're selling, I don't know,
| toaster ovens.
| nitrogen wrote:
| There was recently a subscription dishwasher featured
| here. It turned out to be easy for the author to hack
| theirs, but it will get harder over time, just like ink
| cartridges.
| octorian wrote:
| In this day and age its easy to forget that even "dumb"
| appliances still use microcontrollers. Yes, even functions like
| monitoring temperature, turning a compressor on and off, and
| beeping if the door is left open for too long... are probably
| more easily and cheaply done with a low-end microcontroller
| than some sort of electromechanical contraption.
| smt88 wrote:
| Chips in cars are decades old and are useful for things like
| managing fuel injection, increasing fuel efficiency.
|
| "Dumb" cars have chips too.
| drzaiusapelord wrote:
| and for all we know, if cars were still made with carbs and
| solenoids and old fashion-y tech, that manufacturing might be
| impacted by a pandemic as well. I don't think there's
| anything fundamental about chips that are causing this delay.
| A lot of it has to with cancelling orders and manufacturers
| winding down and then restarting a major supply chain takes
| time, especially if demand shuts down fast and then starts up
| again faster than expected.
| ta988 wrote:
| One can also do the choice to not buy any of these. I have no
| trouble finding non IoT toothbrushes, fridges and so on.
| f6v wrote:
| Finding a dumb TV is a lot harder.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| One does not need to watch TV. I haven't watched any TV
| program for more than 20 years. I might purchase a radio in
| the near future though.
| postpawl wrote:
| If I go to "shop all" in the refrigerators section of Home
| Depot's site and look at the count next to the filter for
| "smart" features - Only 97 out of 798 refrigerators they sell
| have smart features.
| dralley wrote:
| That was, at one time, true for "smart TVs" as well.
| postpawl wrote:
| The first smart refrigerator came out in 2000. The first
| smart tv came out later in 2007-2008. I think smart
| appliances just aren't as popular as their dumb appliance
| counterparts. But yeah, maybe someday they will be.
| frenchy wrote:
| Yeah, though I would argue that smart kitchen appliances
| have a lot more going against them than smart tvs.
|
| - Historically, the TV has been used for playing media
| transmitted on radio waves, so an internet connected TV
| isn't a big surprise.
|
| - Television media formats seem to completely shift every
| decade or 2, so people are very used to buying something
| they'll throw away soon.
|
| - People usually take their televisions around with them
| when they move houses, but not appliances. Transfering
| "smart" things between owners is generally a pain and a
| security hazard.
| dopidopHN wrote:
| Not in the US, but back home I clearly remember moving
| countless fridges of friends to new apartment.
|
| But true that appliance seems to be attach to the houses
| here. And correct, smart things are private things
| because of the nature of their work.
|
| I have a fridge that my grand father used. And I'm not
| specially young. I love that fridge, simple and frugal in
| energy.
|
| I suspect the smart fridge and the like will come with
| incentive from large comglomerate that also sell food.
|
| The << two day delivery >> of the smart fridge. I guess a
| coupon.
|
| Oh well.
| mason55 wrote:
| Not sure exactly how old that fridge is but I think it's
| unlikely that it's anywhere close to as energy efficient
| as an equivalent fridge made today would be.
|
| Appliances have made huge strides in energy efficiency in
| the last 30 years.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Many people I know are asking for and seeking out smart
| tvs. It's not being pushed on them. I don't hear those
| people asking for smart fridges (but occasionally I hear
| them talk about integrated ice makers).
| perardi wrote:
| TVs are Netflix terminals.
|
| Why not get a TV with Netflix built in? At this point, it
| just makes sense to have apps on the TV.
| isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote:
| When the software is no longer supported you have an
| expensive security vulnerability hanging on your wall.
| baq wrote:
| this is true for all appliances with any sort of
| networking. an appletv, roku, chromecast or fire stick
| have the exact same concern.
| isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote:
| Yes, but the primary function of a TV is not causing the
| security vulnerability - the questionable additions are.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| For me it's like separation of concerns. Give me a TV
| with good picture/sound and a good selection of ports. If
| I want a smart TV I'll stick a Chromecast/Fire stick in
| it; if I want a metrics displayer I'll use a Raspberry
| Pi; or maybe I'll use it with a games console. I'd prefer
| not to pay for smart features If I'm not gonna use them.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| TVs are different as there is a large number of people who
| realize they don't need TVs anymore, they need
| gaming/computer monitors and can stream all the content
| they need. This increased substitutability with cheap, dumb
| monitors -- you no longer need a TV to watch TV -- means
| the pricing power of TV makers has fallen -- TV prices have
| plunged dramatically -- and they are desperately trying to
| find new business models and new value propositions, one of
| these is to subsidize the physical product and start
| monetizing attention.
|
| I don't think washing machine makers have this option, nor
| is the internet a threat to replace washing machines. Of
| course business majors keep graduating and they will get
| bright ideas like selling information about what you wash
| to third parties, and they will have dreams of subscription
| revenue, but until they can provide a compelling value
| proposition, these are not going to get widely adopted. TVs
| are declining in price at 20% a year. Users are getting
| great value in exchange for putting up with the ads.
| de6u99er wrote:
| Funny, because I am saying since many years that Europe needs
| it's own semiconductor production and Silicon Valley.
|
| But no, we must rely on our American friends who not only spy on
| us, but constantly rip us off, while themselves producing in
| Chine and Taiean.
| ineedasername wrote:
| My wife just needed to get a new car, and the salesman was
| complaining that just as demand was starting to increase the chip
| shortage means they're barely getting any new ones in stock.
|
| And of course the popular models are the ones that are selling
| out the fastest, meaning people are holding off on purchases
| because they can't get what they want. My wife's was one of maybe
| 8 in the entire state that had the features she wanted. Even that
| one we had to wait about a week because it was in transit from
| the factory to the dealership, and the other ones in the state
| were at dealerships a bit further away.
|
| I know car salesman don't get a whole lot of sympathy, but they
| still need to make a living and that industry got hit hard by
| Covid, and now is getting hit again.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Car sales have been through the roof this entire pandemic. Car
| sales people haven't had to listen to customers "negotiate" in
| over a year (because the answer is always to take the higher
| than MSRP offer or pound sand since 20 others will) . I
| couldn't get a single salesperson to budge even 500$ across no
| less than 10 Lexus dealerships on anything at all.
|
| Car sales people are doing the best they have ever done during
| the pandemic. They don't need your sympathy.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I don't know where you're getting this impression from, but
| sales figures do no support your opinion. Sales were down
| about 15% in 2020, [0] and that was with a normal first
| quarter and sales inching back up in the 4th quarter. For
| large parts of 2020 sales were down as much as 40%.
|
| Your experience with Lexus dealerships is not generalizable
| to the whole industry. The economic fallout of 2020 was not
| evenly distributed, and the only thing your personal
| experience tells me is that the audience for luxury cars may
| have had the better end of things last year.
|
| [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/wheels/news/2
| 020...
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a35695042/car-sales-
| tanked...
|
| https://www.autonews.com/dealers/dealer-profits-
| surge-48-rec...
|
| Doesn't matter if net car sales were down - dealerships of
| all kinds were hitting ALL TIME HIGHS for profits in 2020
| everywhere as a result of huge markups brought on by
| massive demand. So I stand corrected, dealer profits are
| up, not car sales - point is that car sales people are not
| in need of our sympathy at this moment.
| istjohn wrote:
| There's a dead sibling comment stating that car sales won't be
| a job in 20 years. I would speculate that sales and other
| careers that are high-touch and relationship focused are
| precisely the kind of jobs that will be most resistant to
| automation.
| daniellarusso wrote:
| Like travel agents, retail sales associates, or fastfood
| workers?
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I don't know, I've been rather pleased not to have to talk to
| a salesman when buying car insurance for example.
|
| If I was buying a new car the same would apply.
| musingsole wrote:
| Yeah, but car sales ain't it.
|
| Carvana and similar are such a better experience than dealing
| with a salesperson whose incentive and words you have to
| interrogate. I'd wager that salespeople will be needed only
| for high ticket price, high risk deals where trust is
| critical in getting the job done. Anything else that can be
| made transactional will be and the associated sales jobs will
| be lost.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Carvana etc are not full service though. You can't go test
| drive in advance. Also, dealerships are tightly linked to
| manufacturers, very similar to other franchises, and the
| incentives are in the manufacturers' favor for the existing
| model: there's relatively little profit, especially
| considering the overhead, in selling the car itself. The
| profit center is in servicing the cars at the dealership
| service center: The manufacturer has decent margins on
| parts and the dealership gets it's money on labor.
| Dealerships get a little extra in the points they take on
| financing, and higher margins selling used trade-in cars,
| but service is the key.
|
| That is an extremely tight linkage between manufacturer,
| sales, financing, and service that will be very difficult
| to break.
| pfranz wrote:
| I've never heard of Carvana, but test drives aren't
| something we should need dealerships for. Having 1 or 2
| cars of each is all you need. Technically a low-end model
| would be fine, but I can see them only offering the
| highest end model to upsell features. Then you do what
| brick-and-mortars have complained about for years and
| order exactly what you want online.
|
| Personally, I think renting a car for a medium term is
| way better than test driving. It's the Pepsi Challenge
| problem. If you can buy a new car, drop down a hundred or
| two to see how your commute works, how easy it is to park
| at home, etc.
|
| Sure, dealerships have a rats-nest relationship that
| would be hard to untangle. Looking at the history I don't
| think manufacturers care about them them and you can run
| a repair shop without it.
|
| > service is the key.
|
| I get what you mean about certain aspects, but I would
| not describe the process of buying a car in that way. If
| you walk in with cash in hand and pointing to a car it
| will take 4 hours and you will be coerced into paying for
| something you didn't want.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I'm not saying things _couldn 't_ work differently, only
| that the incentives don't align to make that very easy to
| accomplish. Tesla did it because they had the advantage
| of looking at the current status quo and saying "Yeah, no
| thanks, we'll retain control of whole process."
|
| _I get what you mean about certain aspects, but I would
| not describe the process of buying a car in that way._
|
| I don't know what you mean. I don't think I said much
| about the hassle of buying a car: I agree with you on
| that. When I say "service is the key" I mean mechanically
| servicing the car, not customer service.
|
| I also wouldn't contradict you on the test drive idea,
| but that's almost exactly how dealerships do it already.
| Unless you really insist on driving the exact car you're
| buying, they are going to direct you towards the demo car
| reserved for that purpose.
|
| Repair shops: Yes they can exist outside of dealerships,
| but manufacturers can't build their own service centers
| without bankrupting the dealerships, which is how they
| get sales in the first place. Dealerships do occasionally
| flip to another manufacturer if the local market for
| their cars is bad, and they would do that in a heart beat
| if the manufacturer opened its own independent service
| center nearby.
|
| I completely agree that better models for all of this
| could exist, but, as you said, the intertwining factors
| are a real rats nest. This is why I'm extremely skeptical
| when someone claims everything will be different in 20
| years. Breaking this rats nest requires some type of
| black swan event. By definition those are mostly
| unforeseeable, and I don't see anything right now to
| change things. Carvana and those like it focus on used
| cars, which have always been much more decoupled from the
| manufacturer/dealership relationship already.
|
| As a final side note, you can avoid the 4-hour dealership
| visit pretty easily these days: My wife just needed a new
| car, and we worked with their online sales person via
| email, casually going back & forth 2 or 3 times over the
| course of a discussing options and hammering out the
| details. Trade-in value was determined by giving them the
| VIN # and pictures of the car. When we went in to pick up
| the car, all we had to do was review the details. There
| was a little bit of wait for the insurance company to put
| the car on our policy (they can't do that until the
| transaction is official) and for the finance officer to
| be available, after which we reviewed the paper work,
| signed, and were done. The whole process took under an
| hour.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > Unless you really insist on driving the exact car
| you're buying
|
| I certainly do. I thought this was the norm?
| varispeed wrote:
| I change a car every few years and this year is the time. So
| while I have been looking at what can I get now, I found that
| my current car is worth more now than when I bought it used 3
| years ago. Crazy...
| giardini wrote:
| So keep it. Many posters here might be happy to buy your
| "old" car and drive it another 4-6 years. Do it yourself.
| varispeed wrote:
| I'll keep it definitely. At least for another year or two.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Or another 10 or 15.
|
| Three months ago, I took my car camping in the Mojave
| Desert. I go on mostly good roads, but I go places that
| there aren't many people. If my car had broken down, I
| could have been in some degree of trouble. But it's solid
| enough that I wasn't worried.
|
| This month my car is old enough to qualify for its own
| driver's license.
|
| 16 years old, but it's been bulletproof reliable for all 16
| years. The interior isn't thrashed. It still has as much
| power as ever, or at least as much power as I ever use.
| It's long since paid for. Why would I replace it?
| rantwasp wrote:
| I change cars every 10 years. Had the current car for 7 years
| so probably this chip shortage is not going to impact me.
| fukmbas wrote:
| Car salesman won't be a job in 20 years
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This idea would have been unforeseen a century ago when they were
| contemplating guano shortages:
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.atlasobscura.com/articles/w...
|
| It's fun to imagine a shortage 100 years from now that isn't even
| an iota of an idea yet.
| brink wrote:
| Let's hope we start making chips domestically after this.
| speed_spread wrote:
| I want an Organic & Fair Trade, Fully Open RISC-V Raspberry Pi
| 5
| neogodless wrote:
| What country are you in? I know I can eliminate Taiwan and the
| United States from the list, as they both have semiconductor
| fabs!
| fsflover wrote:
| So how much do USA-made mobile phones cost?
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Samsung has a fab in Austin, so many of their devices have
| USA-made chips.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| are we talking about assemble in the USA? any low labors
| cost country can assemble the phone. it doesn't have to be
| China. Foxconn already have a factory in India and Samsung
| in Vietnam.
|
| design can be done in the USA like Apple. component like
| corning gorilla glass is made in the USA. chips can be
| produce in the USA with Intel IDM 2.0 or TSMC in Taiwan.
|
| it will cost the same since you can outsource assembly
| fsflover wrote:
| > are we talking about assemble in the USA?
|
| No. Did you read the thread before asking?
|
| > they both have semiconductor fabs!
| baybal2 wrote:
| > component like corning gorilla glass is made in the USA
|
| Unfortunately, most GG in the world is made in China.
|
| > any low labors cost country can assemble the phone
|
| FYI, some parts of USA had already for a few years lower
| skilled labour costs than South China.
| dieortin wrote:
| They're talking about chips, which is the topic of the
| article. Not complete consumer electronics devices.
| neogodless wrote:
| The Librem costs a lot! BLU was more reasonably priced. Not
| sure if they're still putting out new products.
|
| https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5-usa/
|
| https://www.bluproducts.com/home/
|
| Also relevant (since most iPhone manufacturing is not done
| in the US.)
|
| https://fee.org/articles/a-made-in-america-iphone-would-
| cost...
|
| Of course, that's a different goal from "making chips in
| the USA", which is done today, including the best-selling
| personal computer chips.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| ?? exporting the toxic waste and slave labor has made the
| electronics revolution possible
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| Ban cryptocurrency exchanges and some of the wafer capacity
| currently being dedicated to mining will return to regular use
| (or we can just wait for the ETH2 merge, then ban the purchase of
| PoW cyrpto).
|
| Secondly get workers back to work by ending COVID-era
| unemployment payments and workplace restrictions.
| kova12 wrote:
| Also ban activists whos solution to everything is to ban stuff.
| Like war on drugs didn't teach them anything
| leesalminen wrote:
| Let's just ban the banning of things. It'll work out.
| mort96 wrote:
| That sounds really simplistic?
|
| There are some problems for which banning isn't a solution,
| but there are some problems for which banning is actually a
| viable solution. Should we "learn" from the war on drugs and
| reverse the ban on CFCs? Should we avoid banning toxic
| substances from food?
|
| You're gonna need a better argument than "activists who want
| to ban stuff should have learned from the war on drugs".
| You're gonna need to argue why banning cryptocurrencies is
| more like banning weed and not like banning CFCs.
| not_really wrote:
| Ban this, ban that. Surrre. No problem.
| kristofferR wrote:
| Does Bitcoin ASICs really "steal" wafer capacity from regular
| GPUs? Pretty different technology, I think?
| henvic wrote:
| I hate cryptocurrency, but trying to ban them is just dumb.
| It's not going to work. Ban where? How? What are the side-
| effects? What about people's liberty? Cryptocurrency is stupid
| and depletes natural resources, but trying to use the law to
| ban it is only going to make it stronger.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| The US Government bans a lot of things which are deleterious
| to society. Online gambling among them.
|
| The purpose is not to eliminate Cryptocurrencies, but to
| reduce the price of Bitcoin and other PoW coins such that
| mining (which is a misallocation of our civilization's energy
| and advanced manufactured goods) becomes significantly less
| rewarding.
|
| Ethereum at least has a Governing body which is moving it to
| PoS. Bitcoin does not. Government regulation is the only
| answer.
| anonyxyz wrote:
| Maybe if there was a little less regulation in the first
| place, things like bitcoin wouldn't have as much appeal as
| they do.
| speed_spread wrote:
| This is old rhetoric. Sidestepping the government no
| longer has anything to do with Bitcoin appeal. At this
| point, it's purely speculation and money laundering, all
| subversiveness potential has been evacuated for good.
| cocoafleck wrote:
| I realize many people don't care about credit cards
| spying on them, but I do value cryptocurrencies offering
| alternatives. From what I understand the Apple Credit
| Card was somewhat of a similar attempt (Goldman Sachs
| isn't allowed to sell the information). I'm not saying
| that the benefits outweigh the costs, but it does seem
| that they allow for more than money laundering, and
| speculation.
| laurowyn wrote:
| Taxing the hell out of it would work. What company would want
| to pay 90% of their cryptocurrency in taxes? and if you can't
| pay your taxes in cryptocurrency, and instead have to convert
| it to cash, that'll drive the price down pretty quick and
| make everybody scatter.
|
| edit: to head off the downvote brigade, I'm not advocating
| for this. Only pointing out that "banning" doesn't
| necessarily mean outlawing its use, but can also include
| making it unfavourable to use.
| ajross wrote:
| My understanding is that most of the "shortage" is in older
| processes where capacity is shrinking as fabs offline older
| tooling. Customers with parts that are stored as masks (e.g.
| engine controllers from the 1990's) or whose design teams have
| lost the expertise to resynthesize the HDL (again: think auto
| manufacturers) have very few options when capacity in these
| older processes starts disappearing.
|
| Crypto hardware is generally "just logic" which means that it's
| (1) fabbed on fairly modern processes and (2) generally quite
| portable to other processes just by recompiling your Verilog
| and wiring it to a different manufacturer's PCIe PHY or
| whatever.
| bshep wrote:
| I dont know much about this, but curious why you cant re-
| synthesize the HDL? Should the tools just be able to move it
| to the new process? ( Again my knowledge in this field is
| very limited so this may be a dumb question)
| neysofu wrote:
| I have a suggestion - how about we stop fucking with each
| other's civil liberties just because we don't like the current
| situation, and rather we come up with real solutions?
| swiley wrote:
| China banned it and something like 60% of the mining happens
| there. The whole thing was built to get around bans.
|
| Also crypto was thing that just pushed us over the edge, before
| that Apple was buying out (preventing any chips from being
| manufactured at) entire node sizes, there were serious issues
| with semiconductor manufacturing already.
| enkid wrote:
| Enforcing and banning something is very different, especially
| in China.
| miked85 wrote:
| This is a great time to sell a car you do not need. Prices have
| gone up significantly just since last month on sites like
| carvana, carmax, etc.
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