[HN Gopher] Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German pla...
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Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022
Author : t23
Score : 344 points
Date : 2021-09-30 17:26 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| spoonjim wrote:
| Wouldn't carmakers instead buy capacity from people making USB
| chargers etc? I would think the cost of downtime would have them
| paying any price.
| simfree wrote:
| It takes 1 to 2 quarters for silicon to be manufactured, we are
| seeing the results of decisions that were finalized in early
| 2021 with regard to what is available today to buy.
| hristov wrote:
| Auto chips are usually a higher grade than consumer. They have
| to be able to handle wide ranges of temperature and moisture
| and also handle vibration. There is usually an extensive
| testing process until a chip gets qualified for auto
| production. This is especially true for chips used in the
| drivetrain and/or safety systems.
|
| There are some cases where a foundry is already qualified for
| an auto grade chip and they make a consumer chip in addition to
| it on the same equipment. They can stop making the consumer
| chip and devote 100% of their capacity to the auto grade chip.
|
| If that is a possibility, I am sure it is already happening.
| But a lot of foundries that make consumer chips simply aren't
| qualified to make auto grade chips, so they cannot move
| production.
| persedes wrote:
| Idk about recent years,but opel has already been looking at
| closing sites in Germany, Bochum I believe was the most recent
| one. This smells like an excuse to do so eventually (Whether
| justified or not)
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| Edit: Too many downvotes for my view that this Opel case is yet
| another symptom of the wrong handling of the panedmic by any
| governments, leading to inflation and supply chain disruptions.
|
| If opinions are downvoted then I do not need to participate.
| imtringued wrote:
| Remember the 70s oil crisis? People stopped working because
| there wasn't enough energy to keep businesses and therefore
| jobs open. If there aren't enough semiconductors then those car
| factories won't stay open no matter what you do.
|
| Also regarding laying off people. Germany kept unemployment
| below 4% during the entire pandemic because of its more
| flexible labor market mechanism known as Kurzarbeit that allows
| people to work less during economic crises. The rigid labor
| market in the USA encourages employers to lay off entire people
| rather which tends to fuel recessions, make them worse and
| delay recovery. Just think about how inefficient it is to lay
| people off, pay them to do nothing, do massive state
| intervention through a rent moratorium and then hire them
| again. The unemployed still need housing and food. The idea
| that there is something more productive than producing food for
| them is laughable.
|
| >This would have been "mean" in the short-term, but good for
| the entire society in the mid- and long-term.
|
| I don't get it. Paying people unemployment benefits is the long
| term strategy. We give people food stamps because if they
| starve to death they won't be able to work at all. Even if they
| stay on welfare their children will have a better shot at life.
| Abandoning them is the height of short term thinking.
| Arainach wrote:
| >It would have been better to lay off people; many have money
| saved to survive a few months; others could have lend some
| money (and pay it back when employed again). This would have
| been "mean" in the short-term, but good for the entire society
| in the mid- and long-term.
|
| This is completely wrong and trivial to research:
| https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-savings-acc...
|
| Most Americans couldn't handle a $400 emergency. 56% have $5000
| or less in savings.
|
| These people have no one to borrow money from. This is one of
| the most insidious forms of privilege: It's much easier to
| "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" when you have a rich
| parent or uncle to loan you O(10000) to start a business or to
| give you food and shelter when you're down, but the VAST
| majority of people have no such resources.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| These aren't Americans, though. These are Germans.
|
| I don't know if the same statistics apply to Germans, but you
| at least need a different source to cite.
| imtringued wrote:
| The fun part about recessions is that demand for savings is
| going up and since the most popular savings vehicle is money
| it means demand for borrowers and debt is going up. The
| people who end up unemployed have absolutely zero capacity to
| borrow even though they are the ones who need it the most.
|
| Thanks to our moral frameworks we interpret strategies like
| Keynesian fiscal stimulus as some sort of bad drug that the
| economy is addicted to and should quit. There is a huge
| double standard here. People want money and they don't want
| anyone to go into debt. It's the height of hypocrisy. People
| demand debt and they vilify it at the same time.
|
| An amoral interpretation of Keynesian stimulus is that it
| effectively makes the debt market available to the
| unemployed. The unemployed are in debt in regards to the
| government which issues treasury bonds and the government is
| in debt in regards to the savers. In other words, it is
| decreasing market rigidity and decreasing overall market
| distortions.
|
| The reason why Keynesian stimulus is a bad idea has nothing
| to do with morals. Rather, the problem is that using the
| government to bypass market rigidities shows a deep
| underlying problem in the labor market that nobody wants to
| address.
|
| There are people who work more than they demand work and
| there are people who work less than they demand work. In a
| perfectly flexible market this should be impossible and you
| know what, it's impossible in a barter economy. People
| wouldn't work to pile up money that they don't intend to
| spend the same way a farmer wouldn't produce and pile up
| potatoes that they won't sell to the economy.
| lovich wrote:
| Replying to your edit.
|
| I didn't downvote you for your original response but holy hell
| the entitlement at
|
| > If opinions are downvoted then I do not need to participate.
|
| If you are incapable of accepting that people may disagree with
| your opinion, then yes you do not need to participate, but I
| don't know how you're gonna get through life if you pull out of
| any situation where there is disagreement
| neogodless wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never
| does any good, and it makes boring reading.
|
| However many downvotes you may have gotten initially, most of
| them are now for this reason.
|
| To the original comment, what exactly was the role of
| government handling in the automotive industries mishandling of
| their chip supply chain? How did these automotive industry
| missteps lead to inflation?
| winkeltripel wrote:
| You won't get downvoted just for having right-wing ideals, but
| you can't just assert controversial beliefs without backing,
| like "There shouldn't be a social safety net". The
| counterargument is simple: "I desire a high quality of life in
| my country, and that correlates with a social safety net. Most
| countries with high quality of life have excellent social
| programs: universal healthcare, universal youth education,
| robust unemployment [1]".
|
| [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/quality-of-
| life-r...
| oblio wrote:
| First of all, your original comment was this:
|
| > I try to simplify the root cause like this:
|
| > - people kept getting money while not working
|
| > - those people did not work, hence, no goods were produced
|
| > Same amount of money without the goods in the market.
| Inflation and good shortages. I believe that those government
| helicopter money was a huge mistake. It would have been better
| to lay off people; many have money saved to survive a few
| months; others could have lend some money (and pay it back when
| employed again). This would have been "mean" in the short-term,
| but good for the entire society in the mid- and long-term.
|
| Secondly, you're wrong. The shortage has nothing to do with
| "government helicopter money". It has to do with changing
| spending habits due to the pandemic plus companies
| anticipating, wrongly, where those changing habits will lead.
| And that's topped off by the fact that the electronics supply
| chain is not agile, so once you change your mind, you can't
| really go back quickly.
|
| Your opinion is downvoted because you're wrong.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| I think you are wrong.
| oblio wrote:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58230388
| folli wrote:
| Any proof that there's a significant inflation ongoing?
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| CPI in Germany
| puzzlingcaptcha wrote:
| Well, since January the US CPI rose by 4.4% and there are
| still 4 months to go (September data is released in two
| weeks). The Fed target is ~2%.
|
| That's before you get into whether the official number is
| underestimated (e.g homeowner's equivalent rent, which is a
| quarter of the CPI basket). Is it significant? Maybe, maybe
| not.
| oblio wrote:
| Inflation is growing everywhere. You can't have a crisis and
| then dump that much money without inflation happening.
|
| Besides CPI, the main inflation is actually asset inflation.
| Look at the huge stock, real estate, etc. price booms since
| 2020.
| lovich wrote:
| The people not producing goods weren't doing so out of laziness
| or some bureaucratic snafu. They weren't producing goods
| because there was a pandemic and getting physically near others
| was dangerous.
|
| If you think those furloughed workers shouldn't have gotten any
| money sue it would be "good" for the long term system, then
| might I suggest as a modest proposal that you simply toss them
| into a meat grinder? Very simple and removes the people
| spending too much money from the economy
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| They used to be big back in the day when hot hatches ruled and we
| had Golf vs Astra (Vauxhall for the UK) but then we got
| crossovers and mini-SUV and GM had their own problems to invest
| in the brand.
|
| Nowadays they make rebadged Peugeot/Citroen cars.
| mprev wrote:
| I'm no fan but it's reductive to call them rebadged Peugeots.
| Like just about any car you buy, including a Rolls Royce, they
| are built using a shared platform. In this case, it's one of
| the Stellantis platforms.
| gsnedders wrote:
| Rolls Royce has actually been moving _away_ from shared
| platforms; only the Wraith and Dawn (both in their final year
| of production) are on a shared platform.
|
| Certainly there's still shared components with BMW, but
| they've gone back to being more bespoke.
| zz865 wrote:
| Opel used to be owned by GM since 1931.
|
| From Wikipedia: "In the 1990s, Opel was considered to be GM's
| cash cow, with profit margins similar to that of Toyota. Opel's
| profit helped to offset GM's losses in North America and to
| fund GM's expansion into Asia"
|
| The GM bankruptcy contributed to Opel downfall.
|
| It makes PSA cars because PSA bought them in 2017.
| dpe82 wrote:
| Are you suggesting the plant closure is due more to waning
| popularity of their cars rather than availability of parts?
| rsynnott wrote:
| Stellantis, the controlling company, is more or less an
| aggregation of all those car brands which makes you go "wait,
| _they're_ still in business?!", so, I mean, it's kind of
| plausible.
| MrRiddle wrote:
| Unpopularity probably affects their negotiating abilities.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Unpopular doesn't mean bad sales numbers.
|
| If you listen to the white collar internet you'd think that
| nobody buys Nissan and FCA (I'm sorry, _Stellantis_ ) but
| that couldn't be further from reality.
| Macha wrote:
| Opel annual sales in 2019 was 800k, half their peak of
| 1.6 million in 1999 and there sales graph is basically a
| steady continuous drop in that period:
| https://carsalesbase.com/europe-opel-vauxhall/
|
| The people who historically would have bought Opels or
| Vauxhalls (thanks to high numbers of UK imports, you used
| to see both here) now tend to buy Toyotas and Kias mostly
| today, at least in my country.
| fy20 wrote:
| Opel is owned by one of the biggest car manufacturers in
| the world now, so it's more likely they are diverting parts
| to their more popular brands.
| MrRiddle wrote:
| Probably, same principle though.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| Opel Manta .. they made even movies about two movies about it
| :-)
| overhero wrote:
| opel rekord is the real deal, man.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Lotus Carlton.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Cheesy German movies from the 80's.
| chrismeller wrote:
| Heh. I was thinking the same thing: "yeah, so what if they do?"
|
| Horrible shame, that lack of Opels.
| baybal2 wrote:
| The aspect of the problem not talked about is that a lot of
| automotive chips are really, really old.
|
| And they are old, because of many certification requirements set
| partially by the industry, and a few odd governments.
|
| In reality, most of them are both less reliable, and harder to
| work with in comparison to open market parts.
|
| The only two things I seen chips with micron scale nodes used in
| my life were: air conditioner boards, and car parts.
| xondono wrote:
| It's true that the auto market tends to be behind the times,
| but regulation is not the cause. That is much more of an issue
| in airplanes and aerospace in general.
|
| Cars still use micron level chips because:
|
| - They still do the job.
|
| - They have enough volume to keep those fabs open.
|
| - Since they end up becoming the only buyer (monopsony), they
| get cheap rates.
|
| So they pretty much run those fabs to the ground.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Cars are a _really_ noisy electrical environment. Can you
| replace that micron-scale chip with a 7 nm chip and have it
| function reliably for two decades in that environment?
|
| I mean, worst case, when you let go of the starter motor, it
| creates a huge back EMF. Imagine your chip finding its +5 input
| suddenly 12 volts _below_ ground for a significant fraction of
| a second. (Now, it shouldn 't be that bad any more. That was
| back in the bad old days, when chips were just starting to be
| added to cars. Shielding should be a mostly-solved problem
| these days. But is it solved well enough for your 7 nm chip, or
| just well enough for the micron-scale chips? It's something you
| have to _really carefully_ look at before you move to smaller
| processes.)
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Cars are a really noisy electrical environment. Can you
| replace that micron-scale chip with a 7 nm chip and have it
| function reliably for two decades in that environment?
|
| For as long as you talk about digital side, you can. Your
| smartphone is a way more noisy electrical environment than
| your car.
| xnyan wrote:
| >Your smartphone is a way more noisy electrical environment
| than your car.
|
| Cellphones are are certainly tricky, but in a different way
| than cars. In my experience with EMF measurement and EMI
| compliance at Underwriters Labs, cars are uniquely
| challenging due to the relatively strong EMF generation
| from the huge number of motors, solenoids, coils other
| magnetic bits banging around and interacting with each
| other in hard-to-predict ways.
| baybal2 wrote:
| High voltage CMOS is certainly needed there of course,
| but you don't put you logic chip on the same die as a
| motor inverter.
| Noted wrote:
| I don't think smartphones are expected to work on the same
| timescale that a car should.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Misunderstandings about noise in digital systems and
| environmental conditions in smartphones vs cars aside
| (well, no: your phone isn't operating at 100C or vibrating
| in anything like the way a car does), your smartphone
| doesn't run reliably (relative to automotive reliability
| requirements) for a day.
|
| When a failure can kill someone, you have to take it much
| more seriously than when a failure slightly inconveniences
| a user while they restart the app.
| throwaway9870 wrote:
| First, there is no such thing as digital. It is just an
| abstraction to facilitate our understanding and design of
| circuits. Any number of issues can cause that abstraction
| to fail, even deep within a modern chip, let alone at the
| board level. On-chip cross talk, RC drop, and ground bounce
| are simple analog issues that have to be contended with on
| digital designs. Every chip has a power supply and the
| smaller geometry chips have less tolerance to supply
| spikes. Same with I/O including voltage range tolerances
| and ESD protection. All that gets harder in smaller
| geometries. Also factor in circuit lifetimes (including
| digital). Due to a variety of mechanisms, small geometry
| chips just are not as reliable and some of these mechanisms
| are very hard to accelerate so qualification is a
| nightmare.
|
| A smart phone is not a "way more noisy" environment than a
| car. It has different issues, and frankly a far more
| constrained and predictable environment. A load dump event
| in a car can take the 12V supply over 100V. I have never
| heard of that in cell phone. Long wiring harnesses are a
| nightmare and require careful design. It is hard to compare
| a cell phone and car without a clear definition of "noisy",
| but as someone who has designed systems similar to both, I
| think the car is a harder set of problems. Just not as
| constrained noise sources or components.
| caeril wrote:
| What I'll never understand is why carmakers don't take advantage
| of this situation and address a market that's been literally
| BEGGING for decades for a new product:
|
| A simple, basic car, with the ONLY electronic control being for:
|
| - Valve timing - Fuel injection - Oxygen and throttle - Emissions
|
| There's a market for budget and privacy oriented customers that
| all carmakers seem to have ignored for two decades now. Give us a
| simple car with no GPS navigation, ass warmers, tire pressure
| sensors, telemetry, backup cameras, USB chargers, proximity
| detectors, traction control, keyless entry, remote climate
| control, etc.
|
| But instead of addressing this market, these carmakers have
| decided to throw up their hands and shut down production or pile
| up unfinished inventory waiting on chips. It makes precisely zero
| sense.
|
| I understand the re-engineering is a cost. But when you're simply
| removing existing features, this should be a fairly negligible
| one.
|
| edit: I wasn't aware any of these luxury features were mandated
| by governments. Apologies, and disregard.
| chefkoch wrote:
| >A simple, basic car, with the ONLY electronic control being
| for:
|
| - Valve timing - Fuel injection - Oxygen and throttle -
| Emissions
|
| You still need electronics for
|
| - ABS - ESP - Airbags (- Diagnostics)
|
| Because these are mandated.
|
| Buy a cheap Dacia and there won't be much else except electric
| windows.
| paganel wrote:
| I found that one can live without ESP.
|
| > Buy a cheap Dacia and there won't be much else except
| electric windows.
|
| As mandated by EU law the latest Dacia models already have
| most of those, they do have back up cameras, for example.
| NathanielK wrote:
| > I found that one can live without ESP.
|
| True, but on average ESP is highly effective. Cars with ESP
| are correlated with 40-50% less running off the road or
| roll over crashes.[0] Carrie Underwood may sing about Jesus
| Taking the Wheel[1], but she really has GM Stabilitrak to
| thank.
|
| [0] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublica
| tion/... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lydBPm2KRaU
| windowsrookie wrote:
| In the United States backup cameras, tire pressure monitors,
| and electronic stability control are required by law.
|
| So out of your list that leaves..
|
| GPS (already optional on most cars) Ass warmers (already
| optional on most cars) Telemetry (this could be removed from
| models that have it, not all cars sold today have telemetry)
| USB chargers (really don't think USB chargers are causing a
| production shortage at this moment) Proximity Sensors (already
| optional on budget cars) Keyless entry (could be removed, I
| doubt many people would buy a new car without keyless entry
| tho) Remote climate control (already optional on budget cars)
| mrweasel wrote:
| I tried to buy a car without AC, but as it turns out that's
| almost impossible. They had never imported that model without
| AC and the waiting time was pretty long, because they where
| not really built in large numbers.
|
| The models without AC mostly exist so they can produce ads
| saying "available from less than X"
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| What's the point of buying a car without A/C? You might
| save $1000 now, but you'll lose several thousand at trade-
| in time because no one else will want your car.
| ok123456 wrote:
| No parasitic power losses and it's one less system that
| needs to be maintained.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| For driving indoors.
| thriftwy wrote:
| What's the point of keyless entry? Mine comes with key, and
| yhe auxiliary immobilizer which will not let it drive without
| radio tag or typing in PIN.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Ease of use. I would love if I could just leave key in my
| pocket and not worry about opening doors or putting it in
| ignition. I could even connect it to my keychain.
| [deleted]
| thriftwy wrote:
| I wonder if nobody did ssh+nfc keys yet. At least I could
| trust it.
| Ekaros wrote:
| SSH+NFC sound like horrible protocol choice for such
| token.
|
| Not that I would be against option to periodically rekey
| the whole system. Generate new pair of private keys and
| have the car and key swap them with my approval.
| thriftwy wrote:
| You don't need to ever rekey an SSH private-public key
| pair. Still, a single hands-free token can be taken by
| force or stolen.
| Ekaros wrote:
| So can car key... I don't really have a car and probably
| never will were I truly worried that it was essentially
| single factor authentication.
| thriftwy wrote:
| But the car key + separate wireless immobilizer token is
| 2FA and it makes me somewhat confident.
|
| WRT keyless entry, I actually have figured it out.
| Central wireless lock is cool. It's keyless start that
| I'm opposed to.
| Ekaros wrote:
| And how often you keep those separate and operate the
| car? Can you even safely store one in safe place and
| still use the car? Or is there more factors. Which then
| increases the potential failure cases. And I prefer
| really not to involve anything like pin codes,
| fingerprints, facial recognition needed for me to drive
| my own car.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Fingerprints and facial recognition is circus, but
| physical token is a real thing, and I do keep it separate
| from my car keys
| quacked wrote:
| I disagree with most of the people responding to you; I think
| if Toyota re-released the 2000 Tacoma with minor updates to the
| stereo system and a webcam on the back they'd do a billion in
| sales.
| elorant wrote:
| So what about airbags? Or ABS? Those are basic safety features
| that cannot work without electronics.
| javanscala wrote:
| I believe backup cameras and TPMS systems are now mandatory for
| US cars, so some of the complexity is mandated at least for
| "production" vehicles.
| mymythisisthis wrote:
| I think that keyless systems came after few incidents of
| people's key chains being too heavy and accidentally turning
| the car off when hitting a bump on the highway.
|
| Since most cars keys already, from the late 90s, had chips in
| them, to prevent theft. It was the next step to remove the
| superfluous metal part.
| foobarian wrote:
| I love keyless entry. I can approach the car with two hands
| full of bags and still manage to open a door or trunk without
| having to free up a hand just so I can rummage through
| pockets to find the keys.
| bserge wrote:
| I want something (exactly) like a Ford Escort 1988 model with
| the 1.6 diesel (Ford LT "Dagenham") engine.
|
| That thing would work long after a massive solar flare _and_
| nuclear apocalypse... If it wasn 't rusted to shit.
|
| So yeah, better alloy/treatment for the frame :D
| JudasGoat wrote:
| I personally wish that the infotainment part of the vehicle was
| a interface cable where the customer could freely choose the
| platform and also have an upgrade path in the future. Making
| cars more like cell phones means they will assume the lifetime
| of a cell phone.
| paxys wrote:
| Almost everything you have mentioned are expensive add-ons. Any
| budget base model car today comes only with stuff mandated by
| law and little else.
| pickle-wizard wrote:
| Good news, you can buy this car today. It is called the
| Mitsubishi Mirage. Hardly anyone buys it because it is an
| absolutely dreadful car to drive.
| outside1234 wrote:
| You probably want ABS as well - and then everyone else will
| want their favorite feature - and pretty soon we'll be where we
| are.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Every time I hear about self-driving, I just think how bad
| every media system UI and functionality of BT, etc. in cars
| have ever been. I know it's probably different teams and much
| stricter standards for self-driving but all I ever think when
| using my Mazda's media center is 'fast chance I trust this team
| with self driving'. As far as media centers go, just make apple
| carplay / android auto standard...
| k8sToGo wrote:
| You are welcome to buy the most basic Dacia at any time
| mlavin wrote:
| Buy an old Dodge W250 with a 12-valve Cummins 6BT, and enjoy
| mechanical fuel injection and 160 hp. No emissions control, no
| timing chain or belt, no overhead cams, no aluminum block or
| heads, ABS is optional, no airbags.
| hristov wrote:
| First of all this "simple" car may end up being more expensive.
| Doing a lot of the things the old mechanical way requires a lot
| of labor and labor is expensive nowadays. Having to use turning
| wires and vacuum tubes for instrument clusters, and a bunch of
| pull wires for controls... Not only would that be expensive it
| would require skills and equipment long lost today. Oh and the
| wind shield wipers -- it is possible to power wind shield
| wipers mechanically but those were some very complex rube
| goldberg type mechanisms.
|
| Furthermore, this "simple" car will not last very long. People
| have forgotten that nowadays, but in the old times of "simple"
| mechanical cars, cars used to break down much more often and
| require much more skilled maintenance.
|
| Most people would not know how to use it. Do you think people
| will be able to handle an unassisted wheel? You know, actually
| use their muscles to turn the wheel when parking? How about
| unassisted brakes? You get into a dangerous situation, you slam
| on the brakes and then it turns out that you have to use your
| muscles to actually apply sufficient force. How about even
| getting into the car without a radio key fob. I very much doubt
| the majority of people will even know how to lock or unlock
| their rear doors without a central lock/unlock key. They will
| probably just leave their car unlocked.
|
| But most importantly, it wouldn't sell. Cars nowadays sell
| based on electronic features. You can see that from the
| commercials. Even fairly advanced features like navigation and
| parking sensors are considered a must have now.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| So true. Computing is very cheap nowadays. It is also very
| reliable.
|
| If you watch Sandy Munro's videos, he mentions often how his
| visits with Chinese car manufacturers go, when they discuss
| architecture options. Customers hold up a cell phone and ask
| "How can we make it more like this?". The cell phone got rid
| of separate components a long time ago. Everything's on one
| PCB, plus the display. And many things that used to be on the
| PCB but consisted of many chips, are now integrated to a
| single chip. The car consisting of a lot of OEM boxes
| connected with wires seems so outdated.
|
| And each box having a separate computer makes it in essence
| stranded. Instead, if the control is centralized, then it's
| possible to take the complexity to software and keep managing
| it much better, features are easier to develop and can be
| sent to existing cars over the air etc.
| teeray wrote:
| > cars used to break down much more often and require much
| more skilled maintenance.
|
| Yeah, but "skilled maintenance " was an easy skill. There
| could only be a handful of things wrong if it didn't start:
| e.g. no spark, no fuel. In the case of no spark, you check
| the plug, see if it's dirty, change it if so; check the
| distributor, maybe the points are bad; check the coil or
| condenser... yeah there were things to check, but you could
| actually fix it once you learned about it. And yes, you could
| do this on the side of the road--there were "tool rolls" you
| could have for such purposes.
|
| Now, you get a check engine light and the code reader says,
| in so many words: "bring to dealer and pay up"
| abraae wrote:
| When I was a lad I had an illegal ancient motor scooter
| that didn't start. One of the dads told me:
|
| "If it's got compression, and it's got fuel, and it's got a
| spark, then it's got to go".
|
| He was right.
| tibbon wrote:
| One of my motorcycles is from 1973. Nary a tube or chip on
| it. I think it's got a turn blinker that's kinda a flip-flop,
| but I think it's just charging and discharging capacitors.
| It's lasted way longer than most modern disposable vehicles.
|
| I don't know if most of these things actually require digital
| features.
| brewdad wrote:
| You say "one of" your motorcycles, so I take it you aren't
| riding this bike everyday, putting 12-15,000 miles a year
| on it and needing it to be reliable every time you go to
| work or run an errand.
|
| Apples to oranges comparison.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| But how many parts of it are original? In other words is it
| the ship of Theseus? Does it pass e-check or is it exempt?
|
| Regardless I do appreciate the simplicity of long past
| inventions.
| [deleted]
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| That maybe true, but my anecdotal evidence is the opposite.
|
| > cars used to break down much more often and require much
| more skilled maintenance.
|
| My '78 John Deere 4640 (not a car I give you that) if it
| breaks down, I can fix it. If I cannot I can order the part.
| If I cannot, I can have the part made within a week.
|
| None of that is possible with a 2021 6145M. If it breaks, I
| have to sit and wait for JD to bless me with their part.
|
| I have _less problems_ with non-electronic equipment than
| with the electronics enhanced ones.
|
| I venture it is very much the same with personal cars.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Anecdotes are always a mistake in these situations. You
| might have better luck with your _tractor_ , which isn't a
| car, but the average age of cars on America's roads has
| been rising for decades. Your experience is, frankly, an
| outlier.
|
| Also, comparing tractors with cars is an extremely dubious
| proposition; these are different vehicles with different
| engineering constraints, uses, and consumer expectations.
| How many OEMs for cars still make parts for the 1978
| vehicles? Hell, what percentage of Americans have the
| space, knowledge, and interest to build up a garage to
| service their own vehicles?
| newsclues wrote:
| Just wait until the new generation of cars with
| touchscreens everywhere instead of buttons and knobs for
| control are old.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Do you have any actual data to back up the idea that
| touch screen interfaces are inherently short lived?
| vkou wrote:
| > My '78 John Deere 4640 (not a car I give you that) if it
| breaks down, I can fix it.
|
| That's great, but _I_ don 't own a garage, and if my car
| breaks, it goes to the mechanic. The mechanic needs to eat,
| and pay the mortgage on _her_ garage, so she will charge
| $XYZW for repairs.
|
| For all the maintenance and repair work I and my father
| have had done on our cars, 'Some microchip somewhere
| crapped out' has never made the list. All the failures have
| been purely mechanical. Your 70s car proposal solves a
| problem that few people have, and introduces a lot of new
| ones.
| markb139 wrote:
| Indeed. We have an aging Audi that has adaptive cruise
| control. Recently the radar unit failed. To get it replaced
| at a dealer will cost about half of what the car is worth.
| sigstoat wrote:
| what, on an aging audi, _doesn't_ cost half the value of
| the vehicle to fix?
|
| i've heard the same complaint about basically every part
| of an audi except the tires.
| gmac wrote:
| Audi seems to be the brand for people who want a VW, but
| want to pay extra for it. It's like the mirror image of
| Skoda or SEAT (VAG's more 'budget' brands).
| nradov wrote:
| This is why it's foolish to purchase a German luxury car,
| either new or used. The electronics aren't designed to
| last any longer than the warranty. If you really want to
| drive one then lease, don't buy.
| kenniskrag wrote:
| tire pressure sensor, gps and e-call is needed by law.
| paganel wrote:
| Maybe we should amend/change those laws back.
| cedilla wrote:
| Perhaps we shouldn't.
|
| The EU estimates that half the fatalities on the road will
| be prevented with these systems. That's 10.000 lives each
| year. If that's true, increasing the cost marginally is
| more than worth it (and it really is marginally, budget
| cars have not noticably increased in price).
| paganel wrote:
| > budget cars have not noticably increased in price
|
| Actually, they did. The new Dacia Logan starts at 8500
| euros, back in 2009 you could buy an entry-level one at
| about 5500-6000 euros, which would be around 6400-7000
| euros in today's money. At those entry level prices those
| extra 1500-2000 euros do count.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| They probably estimated from behind a desk to justify
| some activity, not by research. Over 90% of the
| fatalities on the road in my country, that has the
| highest numbers in EU, come from excessive speed and
| ignoring road laws, something no current safety systems
| can change. Even airbags are completely useless in a
| front collision at 150km/h.
| JTbane wrote:
| Those systems are good for idiot-proofing. You don't want
| some idiot with underinflated tires running off the
| highway. In the same way, you don't want them to back over
| your kid in a parking lot.
| paxys wrote:
| And rear view cameras
| _moof wrote:
| And I'm not sure what kinds of pressure sensors cars use, but
| I can tell you the ones I need have been impossible to source
| for months.
| emidln wrote:
| TPMS works by calculating the RPM of the wheel and knowing
| the tire size and vehicle speed. Most TPMS setups don't
| know the actual pressure, they infer it.
| tschwimmer wrote:
| This is true of cheaper cars, like my Honda. German cars
| like Audis and Porsches have direct TPMS that can
| actually tell you the exact tire pressure.
| matli wrote:
| Most Audis have indirect systems, but they have direct
| TPMS as an optional extra. At least that's the case on
| the European market, unsure about the US market. Some
| premium Audis also have loose wheel detection, which is
| based on a similar technology as the indirect TPMS.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| Both types of systems exist, but from what I've seen the
| indirect TPMS systems you're describing are becoming less
| popular. I'm somewhat familiar with Mazdas anyhow and
| that's the way it's going with them.
|
| For 2017 the Mazda6 used an indirect system: https://www.
| mazdausa.com/static/manuals/2017/mazda6/contents...
|
| For 2020 it's a direct system with in-tire sensors: https
| ://www.mazdausa.com/static/manuals/2020/mazda6/contents..
| .
| _moof wrote:
| Oh, interesting. Well, my car at least has sensors--
| either that or I paid way too much for valve stems. :)
| clintonb wrote:
| Is the _market_ begging, or a few folks on the internet? The
| only folks I know that complain about technology in cars are a
| couple posters on internet forums.
| caeril wrote:
| Sure, lots of internet people who don't want to be tracked
| (license plate readers notwithstanding).
|
| But also _plenty_ of IRL people complaining about how, for
| example, they miss their $10k pickup with no power anything
| that worked great for anytime they needed to haul material X
| from location M to N, but now you need to drop a _minimum_ of
| $50k for a vehicle you might use once per weekend to haul
| gravel, insulation, cement, lumber, furniture, etc.
|
| Trucks are a particularly big market for this idea. It's a
| vehicle you use when you're _already_ dirty and sweaty from
| work /projects and don't care about comfort, and serves a
| primary purpose: moving heavy and/or large items.
|
| But the big carmakers have opted to cater to the market that
| doesn't actually use trucks for their actual purpose, but
| rather the market that buys trucks as commuter vehicles.
| jdmichal wrote:
| Ignoring everything else, that new truck is much larger.
| Compact trucks have not really existed in the US market for
| a decade at least.
|
| An old Ford Ranger was 175-200 inches long depending on
| year and model. The new one is 200-210 inches.
|
| Sort this list by class and you'll see a total of two
| compact trucks in the US market. Both are debuting either
| this year or the next: Ford Maverick (200") and Hyundai
| Santa Cruz (195").
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pickup_trucks
| beamatronic wrote:
| I would love a stripped down 1990's-era Toyota truck
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/news/42523/84-mile-1993-toyota-
| pick...
|
| But not for 50k
| yardie wrote:
| You can still get a stripped down, plain white F-150 for
| under $27k through fleet sales. But buyers don't want that.
| They want the 4-door people hauler that happens to have a
| pick-up bed and leather seats.
|
| They'll imagine the $10k from memories but forget the vinyl
| seats, no AC, and manual windows. But they won't buy that
| one n
| pickle-wizard wrote:
| They are also thinking of that $10K in todays dollars.
| Adjusted for inflation, that $10K truck that could could
| buy back in the mid-80s costs the same as a new one
| today. You just get a heck of a lot more features.
| clintonb wrote:
| That statement makes no sense. The folks complaining can
| still buy those old pickups if they want. All that has
| happened is they are now older. No one is forcing them to
| buy a new truck that they use sporadically.
| quacked wrote:
| I've investigated about 20 of those old pickups; they're
| crap, because they've been run into the ground. I want a
| new old pickup.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That will not happen unless new legislation is passed:
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-19/bigger
| -pi...
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Assuming those memories are from the 70s, $10k then are
| worth about $50k today. Never mind the fact you're also
| buying a much, much better vehicle in most aspects.
| blfr wrote:
| Yeah, I don't like how overcomplicated many products are
| becoming but even then wouldn't buy a car without at least AC
| and Bluetooth.
| tristan957 wrote:
| You could easily pick up an after market bluetooth-enabled
| product. A/C is definitely important however.
| wiz21c wrote:
| interestingly, I go the opposite direction. I try to buy
| cars without AC (environmental reasons), without
| electronics (expensive to fix when they fail 'cos the
| constructor takes a huge premium on these), with the least
| possible automation ('cos I think these are overpriced)...
|
| Basically, the more sophisticated a car is, the higher the
| risk of failure and thus price to fix the failures. Now, I
| buy inexpensive cars. Maybe if I go for expensive brands,
| the risk is less.
| foobarian wrote:
| My must-have now is the backup camera with steering
| integration. I can hook up a trailer like a god now.
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| Actually new vehicles are legally required to have backup
| cameras. At least if they are sold in the US [1]. I would
| love to see a simple, back to the basics vehicle but
| there is so much regulation and safety requirements that
| it is unlikely for any basic vehicle to be sold in the
| US.
|
| [1]: https://abcnews.go.com/US/cars-us-now-required-
| backup-camera...
| moffkalast wrote:
| "Where is your god now?"
|
| "Right behind you."
| panax wrote:
| I won't buy a car if it has bluetooth or cellular
| connectivity, but that is getting harder to find. I want
| that shit air-gapped. Someday I might have to just rip out
| the media head and telematics unit after buying it if I
| can't find one anymore.
| _moof wrote:
| I'd describe myself as having above-average privacy
| anxiety but I have to ask, what's the threat model here?
| I'm way more concerned about ALPRs than I am about
| Bluetooth or a data connection.
| kayone wrote:
| most things you mention are mandated by the government, you
| can't sell a car in any western market without tire pressure
| monitoring, stability control, back up camera etc.
|
| the manufacturers have no choice, it would be like suggesting
| they sell cars without seatbelts.
| mrweasel wrote:
| I hate tire pressure sensors, they are amazingly flaky and
| makes you uneasy about driving. That and the stupid alarms in
| my car that informs me that the temperature is below 4
| degrees, it disturbs my driving.
| megablast wrote:
| You should be uneasy about driving.
|
| For most people, it's the most dangerous thing you will do
| today. If you are going to kill someone, it's with your
| car.
| mrweasel wrote:
| But I don't need flaky sensors alert me of no existing
| problem. That just makes everything worse.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| False positives are annoying, but not knowing about a
| true positive is fatal.
| ladyattis wrote:
| I have a 2016 Hyundai Accent. Unless the law is very new my
| car has no backup camera or much else. I'm sure there's an
| emergency tire pressure sensor but that's about it. Not much
| to my car.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| You're pretty much right before the cut-off. The rule/law
| in the US kicked in in mid-2018.
| ohmaigad wrote:
| Back up cameras are not mandatory until May 2022 in the EU.
| paganel wrote:
| We're already only a few months away from 2022, most (if
| not all) carmakers present on the EU market have included
| back-up cameras in their vehicles. I know that my brother's
| Dacia Logan built in 2019 already had one.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Backup cameras have been an optional extra for a long
| time sure, but I don't think I'm aware of any car that
| actually comes standard with one. Well, maybe a Mercedes-
| Benz S-Class. I do have a backup camera in my 10-year-old
| Benz, but I imagine that the original owner paid a four-
| digit amount of euros for it back in the day.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Cars designed at least three years before they are shipped
| - so May 2022 might as well be tomorrow in car time.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| That sounds like the Dacia and Tata approaches, although they
| sell addon packs as well.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Dacia's addon packages are pretty tame since you need to get
| an addon package for an FM radio or for height-adjustable
| seats.
| [deleted]
| bb123 wrote:
| I think Dacia addresses this market pretty well already.
| However many of the things you've listed (cameras, TPMS,
| telemetry) are mandated by law in most regions.
| carlmr wrote:
| Tire pressure sensors, ABS, ESP, airbags, etc. are compulsory
| in new cars in most countries.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > tire pressure sensors ... luxury features
|
| These are to keep people alive! They aren't luxuries unless you
| think living is a luxury!
| liamwire wrote:
| I think you're vastly a) underestimating the time it takes to
| bring a new product line all the way into production in the
| auto industry, and b) overestimating the true demand for such a
| product, Hacker News and adjacent crowds notwithstanding -
| peoples broadly have come to expect those simple features at
| practically every price point, as evidenced by the ubiquity of
| said features in the market.
| throwawayjava wrote:
| B in particular. Products like the Yaris compete on price
| alone.
| Ekaros wrote:
| And Yaris is already premium affordable car. Koreans are
| slightly below it and then cheap ones are India or specific
| models.
| usmannk wrote:
| I can't imagine anyone would want the car you described, for
| market-sized values of "anyone"
| asdff wrote:
| Anyone driving a car thats older than 15 years old is already
| driving the car that OP is describing.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Then OP can just buy a used car that has low mileage. Also,
| with many of the features they list, if they break, then
| they're just broken. It would have no effect on you if you
| aren't using those features already. A broken seat with a
| warmer is just a regular seat.
| LawnGnome wrote:
| Sure, but do they actually want that car, or is that just
| what they have and can afford?
| dropofwill wrote:
| I personally have no interest in any upgrades over my 20
| year old car. Maybe electric or no car at all if my
| living situation changed to support it. Obviously my hand
| will be forced soon enough as it slowly degrades.
| asdff wrote:
| I mean I drive that car because I don't see what I get
| out of a newer more costly model. I get my 35mpg and have
| my blutooth. Everything in the new car is exactly the
| same as everything in my old car.
| paxys wrote:
| And that car is worth $2000 on the market. No matter how
| many features they cut manufacturers aren't going to be
| able to sell a new car at that price.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > And that car is worth $2000 on the market.
|
| Yes, because the only reason a person would be willing to
| part with one at anywhere near that price was if was a
| lemon.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Mine's from 1997 so easily in that range.
| golemiprague wrote:
| No, he is driving similar car with a lot of milage on it,
| especially these days with the crazy used car prices. If
| Toyota have made a basic mid 2000 corolla with no fancy
| anything I would pay for it much more than $2000, might
| install some aftermarket gadgets though but that would cost
| no more than extra $1000. The question is what would be the
| sweet price point for such a car and is it feasible to
| manufacture it for that price.
| eMSF wrote:
| Is a typical new car buyer currently driving a 15-year-old
| car?
|
| You could say that's plausible. In a way it even makes
| sense, that people buy cars and then drive them for as long
| as they reasonably last. But if you had to, would you guess
| that this is how the market operates?
| asdff wrote:
| No, because in every product sector people have shown
| when given a choice and the means to make it, they'd
| rather buy a shiny new thing than mend an older one. We
| are addicted to the dopamine hit of consumption.
|
| They aren't buying a new car on all these new widgets
| that might be different between one today and one from
| yesteryear. I bet for the vast majority of people the
| primary technological wants of a car are cold AC and
| blutooth. Everything else, your TPMS, your brake alert
| system that beeps like a missile is locked on when you
| inch too close in traffic, no one stood up and asked for
| any of that stuff. The market just saddled it upon us and
| the higher per unit cost is passed right along to us with
| markup.
| ihalip wrote:
| The latest Dacia Sandero is selling better than all other
| models in its class for a few months now - even if it's
| basically a revamped last-gen Renault Clio with even lower
| quality interior and safety features. Some people prefer a
| basic, cheaper car.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Is that because it's literally impossible to buy other cars
| since they have a chip backlog though? Is it worth
| redesigning a car for a trend that will be gone next year?
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| No, it is because it is a lot cheaper and it can be
| bought by people that otherwise would not be able to buy
| a car at all. I know people who bought a Sandero for this
| reason and I was considering buying one one year ago,
| just before they announced an electric Dacia that I am
| still waiting for.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| This feels like the Microsoft Word problem - Word users only
| use N% of Microsoft Word, the rest is needless bloat wasted
| on them. The problem is that the N% of features is different
| for each user.
|
| Some people like blind spot monitoring, others are annoyed by
| it. Some people need to have satellite radio, others never
| use it. Some people won't buy a car without Apple CarPlay,
| others would never so much as buy an Apple product. And so
| on... but for your product to appeal to customers in general,
| you need all of the features.
| lallysingh wrote:
| AFAIK, backup cams and TPMS are required. As for privacy, how
| do any of those features affect anything?
|
| But they're not changing their lineups, product design and
| marketing are expensive and take a long time. I don't think
| shrine expects the shortage to last that long.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _AFAIK, backup cams and TPMS are required._
|
| Backup cameras are indeed mandated by law in the US for all
| new cars and have been since 2018.
| jordache wrote:
| You assert removing those "luxury" items results in a car that
| is immune to chip supply issues.
| pomian wrote:
| I like your idea. The only reason all those accessories are
| mandated, is because the car industry made it so, thus
| increasing the value (profit) of a standard car. We could just
| as easily 'mandate', a different class of vehicle. Call it a
| classic class, or something. For example, motorcycles don't
| have back up cameras, air bags, etc. Back to the consumer
| having a choice. Similar to right to repair.
| kayone wrote:
| > motorcycles don't have back up cameras, air bags, etc.
|
| why do you think that is?
| adolph wrote:
| Organ donation lobby no doubt.
| loeg wrote:
| Motorcycles don't have a reverse gear and airbags only help
| if you have seatbelts. Not sure what your point is.
| Motorcycles are radically more dangerous for riders than
| passenger cars are for drivers.
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| There are two practical issues with your suggestion.
|
| One is that neither one of us have any idea of the electronics
| BOM breakdown between the various parts of the car, and whether
| the effect of shortage would be mitigated in a meaningful way
| if the entertainment stuff was simplified. And you can't
| legally sell a new car in the US without back-up cameras and
| tire pressure monitoring.
|
| The second issue is that re-designing that part of the car
| takes more than a year (probably years, given that you need to
| collaborate with business and marketing to fit it in the
| existing lineup and e.g. not have it be associated with down-
| market products)
| octorian wrote:
| Especially since the chips experiencing horrible shortages
| are the cheap simple ones used for those dumb features no one
| even thinks about anymore.
| moooo99 wrote:
| I have a lot of thoughts about this comment, but here are my
| two cents.
|
| > There's a market for budget and privacy oriented customers
| that all carmakers seem to have ignored for two decades now.
| Give us a simple car with no GPS navigation, ass warmers, tire
| pressure sensors, telemetry, backup cameras, USB chargers,
| proximity detectors, traction control, keyless entry, remote
| climate control, etc.
|
| I feel like you're vastly overestimating the market size. Most
| non-tech people don't care about their privacy on their phone,
| their laptop or their TV. Most people don't even know that
| their car actually has the hardware to track them, why would
| they care about their privacy in their car?
|
| > I understand the re-engineering is a cost. But when you're
| simply removing existing features, this should be a fairly
| negligible one.
|
| I would not expect that to be fairly simple re-engineering.
| Many assistive technologies are mandatory in new vehicles (at
| least in some regions like the EU) such as automatic emergency
| calls, etc. Those are not standalone systems but they have many
| dependencies on sensors, etc. With the supply chains of
| traditional automakers, chances are the components necessary to
| integrate one mandatory system aren't even from the same
| supplier. This makes cherry picking features extremely hard if
| not impossible.
|
| > these carmakers have decided to throw up their hands and shut
| down production or pile up unfinished inventory waiting on
| chips. It makes precisely zero sense.
|
| I don't think it's coincidental that they decide to shut down a
| plant in Germany (besides the fact that Opel is originally
| German). In Germany we have something called "Kurzarbeitergeld"
| which is a support companies in trouble _can_ receive in
| certain situations to support their employees. Employees
| continue to work a fraction of the time (50% Kurzarbeit
| basically means you only work half of your weekly hours, 100%
| Kurarbeit means you don 't work at all for a certain period).
| The money the employees receive is largely paid for by the
| Government (the taxpayer).
|
| Usually Kurarbeit comes with a very strict set of rules, but
| thanks to covid those rules have been loosened a bit and
| especially carmakers (VW and BMW) take advantage of it (BMW for
| example sent many of their workers into Kurzarbeit but decided
| to pay billions of dividends to the Quandt family). So I
| suspect it was cheapest to shut down the Germany plant.
| throwawayjava wrote:
| By the time you finish the product design and manufacturing
| pipeline the chip shortage will be long over, and the market
| for a car without any modern amenities is not actually that
| big.
| Etheryte wrote:
| It might make zero sense as a buyer but as a manufacturer it
| makes a lot of sense. I would guesstimate that most of the
| margin is made on luxury and add-on features. A good example of
| this is rims: larger rims don't change anything for a daily
| driver, but you can add them as an option for a considerable
| premium. Same for many other add-ons and they're still bought
| very often. In addition to this, while there definitely is a
| certain subset of the market that would appreciate a product
| with considerably fewer features, my gut feeling is that it's
| the same in automobiles as in tech -- it's a very small part of
| the market.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| This is a surefire way to sell hundreds of cars. Yes, hundreds!
| cush wrote:
| Most of the tech results in absolutely critical safety
| features. Backup/blind spot cams, safer cruise control,
| breaking systems, etc etc. Nobody is begging for more dangerous
| cars.
| gklwand wrote:
| "Some 1,300 workers employed at the plant will be temporarily
| laid off, Opel said, with a separate plant in France picking up
| some of the production."
|
| Perhaps a very convenient chip shortage? Anyhow, why not build a
| car without electronics, gps, g4, microphones, voice control,
| tracking and screens. Because that is exactly what I want.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| > Perhaps a very convenient chip shortage?
|
| Absolutely not. Margins on new vehicles are the highest ever.
|
| > Anyhow, why not build a care without electronics... because
| that's exactly what I want
|
| You should just buy a low mileage used vehicle
| seszett wrote:
| > why not build a car without electronics, gps, g4,
| microphones, voice control, tracking and screens. Because that
| is exactly what I want.
|
| That sounds like what Dacia does.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| There are already bills in the pipeline to require all cars to
| have GPS in the EU (speed limiters) and more privacy violating
| stuff. Governments want to know of every aspect of your life,
| so any privacy conscious device will not be viable.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Very few people would want this, certainly not enough to
| warrant a production line. The cars you want already exist,
| just buy a classic car from the 60's. None of the stuff you
| dislike and if done right a nice looking car. Gas is a bit more
| though.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Because even that car would have chips in it, unless if you're
| selling it illegally. You cannot make a gasoline engine that
| meets emissions regulations without sophisticated engine
| control unit (ECU) systems in it. That and there are a bunch of
| safety features that require it, like ABS and automatic
| braking. In the United States it is also illegal to sell a new
| car without a backup camera, which obviously requires a screen
| of some sorts near the driver.
|
| Beyond that, the reality is that these features you decry are
| very, very popular. Nobody will make a car exactly the way you
| want, because that's not where consumers are.
| kbaker wrote:
| One important part of the chip shortage is the massive amount of
| price gouging going on.
|
| Every IC is being bought up by new 3rd party distributors to
| scalp to desperate electronics manufacturers.
|
| Take a look at this chip we are just now crossing as an example,
| click on 'Non-authorized stocking distributors':
|
| https://octopart.com/tps2052bdgnr-texas+instruments-699312?r...
|
| Win Source has a bunch, but you will pay 6x the cost. We have
| been quoted even 100x the list price for some ICs on our boards.
|
| Luckily as a small company we are nimble and can mostly cross to
| similar components, and have been for months now, but a whole
| board assembly run can be stopped with a single component being
| impossible to find out of hundreds on the BOM.
|
| Having scalpers in the mix raising the price for all components
| worries me that the chip shortage might not end for many years,
| as they can self-fund by raising their prices to stock up on new
| supply. Not to mention the higher number of random failures as
| counterfeits easily find their way into the supply chain without
| 'authorized' distributors.
| coryrc wrote:
| What's the difference between scalpers and Digikey
| hypothetically raising their prices sixfold?
| leppr wrote:
| It's better that the producer gets the correct price for
| their items. That way they can invest in their infrastructure
| or bid up source materials, getting closer to being able to
| meet demand. On the other hand profits going to the scalpers
| doesn't contribute to fixing the problem.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Why do the scalpers get first dibs on the supply?
| beebeepka wrote:
| That's the right question. As Huang said a few years ago: the
| more you buy, the more you save
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| In concert ticket sales, scalpers get preferential
| treatment because:
|
| 1. nepotism: they know someone who works at or owns part of
| the venue, or the performer, or the performer's manager,
| etc
|
| 2. they reliably buy in bulk
|
| 3. corruption: they pay off someone on the inside.
|
| so which is it here?
| taffer wrote:
| > As Huang said a few years ago: the more you buy, the more
| you save
|
| This is what wholesalers do: they buy large quantities at
| low prices and then sell small quantities at high prices.
| jdasdf wrote:
| > One important part of the chip shortage is the massive amount
| of price gouging going on.
|
| There is no such thing as "price gouging".
|
| It just so happens that at this moment the price of things is
| higher than it usually is due to increased demand and reduced
| supply.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Price gouging is a real thing and "the price of things is
| higher than it usually is due to increased demand and reduced
| supply" is actually part of it's definition. I.e. price
| gouging isn't a replacement for the supply/demand model
| rather a description in certain extreme cases of said model,
| often regulated cases depending on the jurisdiction.
|
| Traditionally it referred to traditional survival items
| though, not just any item.
| taffer wrote:
| > Having scalpers in the mix raising the price for all
| components worries me that the chip shortage might not end for
| many years, as they can self-fund by raising their prices to
| stock up on new supply.
|
| How do the scalpers get the supply before someone else gets it?
| What do the scalpers do when IC manufacturers increase supply
| and electronics manufacturers decrease demand by switching to
| similar components? What if one of the scalpers panics, dumps
| its inventory, and causes a price drop?
|
| The whole situation could just as quickly turn into the
| opposite when production returns to normal.
| hutrdvnj wrote:
| Scalpers are not the problem as they seem, they are like market
| makers for stock exchanges. They buy low and sell high, always.
| The factory could tell you that they're currently out of stock
| for the next few months, but a scalper will never be out of
| stock, because their prices rises so high that only very few
| desperate companies would buy. The point is, it's better to
| have the option to buy something at a high price, than to have
| no option to buy at all.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| The way I see it, this makes sense in a hypothetical world of
| perfect theoretical models (you may recognize this world as
| being the one inhabited by frictionless, perfectly spherical
| cows). In this world, scalpers cause the market to price in
| "stickiness" - the more critical an item is to the buyer, the
| more they'll be willing to pay - so the supply ultimately
| gets allocated to the most desperate of buyers, for the price
| of "your entire margin", or possibly "literally all you
| have", if the buyer's survival depends on it.
|
| Maybe this makes sense in that theoretical world - where
| there's no inertia, no friction, no capital investment, no
| jobs and livelihoods tied to the outcome. But in reality,
| scalping seems to be the purest form of parasitism. In a
| crisis, scalpers' activities may kill perfectly fine
| companies (or people) who would've otherwise limped through
| the rough times and survived, upsetting an industry long-
| term, and it forces everyone to waste their money.
|
| And even if you think that this kind of market culling is
| fine, I'm not seeing why all that money should go to the
| first asshole who managed to secure a large loan in time to
| buy off the entire stock of some good.
| dahart wrote:
| This actually is the idea with truly "free market"
| thinking, no? The money wasted in a crisis, and the
| companies killed who would've otherwise limped through, is
| all assumed to be less waste and a better outcome than the
| alternative we get if we prevent scalpers and/or cap the
| prices. In this theoretical world, we waste more money when
| supply runs out too fast, and we get companies that are not
| as good at competing because they limped through.
|
| The big question economically is whether these assumptions
| are generally correct. We have evidence in both directions,
| enough that most people can comfortably stick to their
| opinions and learned assumptions and political tribes. But
| is there a way to demonstrate that the money wasted is
| greater with hoarding/scalping than without, and under what
| conditions?
| awakeasleep wrote:
| Actually the original 'free' in free markets meant free
| from economic rents
| ben_w wrote:
| Ah, that makes a lot more sense than the generalised
| freedom I'd assumed.
|
| I really should read Wealth of Nations...
| yholio wrote:
| Scalpers perform a social service by rationing demand and
| ensuring availability. They don't eat the whole consumer
| surplus, rather, they must compete amongst themselves and
| the price you pay is the amount that makes client N+1 walk
| away if total supply is N. Some of the buyers will find
| that close to their margin, but others, for which the
| product is essential in very valuable (thus socially
| useful) goods or services, will thank God they have found
| the supply.
|
| Think about hospitals paying 10 times more for antiseptic
| and performing surgeries, instead of someone drenching
| their driveway with that 10$ antiseptic while someone else
| dies without a needed surgery. By raising the price and
| pocketing $90, the scalper has prevented resource waste and
| supplied to the patient and hospital a service worth
| hundreds of thousands.
|
| If a scalper becomes a monopoly, they can extract a
| monopoly rent and really bleed everyone dry - but so can a
| producer in the same situation, so the problem is low
| competition not intermediaries.
| Retric wrote:
| They can only do that by holding onto to supply which makes
| shortages worse. The same thing happens with ticket scalping
| at concerts, the difference is it's more obvious that a sold
| out concert has empty seats vs supply sitting in a warehouse
| on the off chance it can be sold at 100x prices.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| this is false. the supply would be gone at those low
| prices. Now they can be had for those who want it badly
| enough.
| adamc wrote:
| "This is false" isn't much of an argument. If there is an
| argument, you should probably provide that instead...
| skybrian wrote:
| Empty seats mean someone screwed up but how can you tell
| that a group of empty seats is unused due to a scalper,
| versus some group of people who couldn't make it?
|
| When speculators don't screw up, one fewer part being sold
| now means one more part that can be bought later. Delaying
| sales of some parts makes the shortage worse earlier and
| better later. Keeping inventory is a service to people who
| didn't plan ahead.
|
| Sometimes people do screw up, buying things that are never
| used, so they lose money due to the waste. But you can't
| assume they're all screwups.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Scalpers hedge on the fragility of just-in-time - they milk
| the short-term thinkers for all they saved in the good times
| and are thus a healthy part of the market.
|
| Why do we praise people betting on actors being hurt by bad
| decisions like (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Burry)
| but condemn the same behavior on the smaller scale of
| physical products?
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Scalpers hurt anyone launching a hardware product who
| doesn't have the order quantity to buy direct-from-
| manufacturer.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I don't get how it hurts anyone to have to pay market
| rate. If your product doesn't work at market prices, then
| that's your problem - not scalpers.
| yxwvut wrote:
| This kind of perspective where any intervention-free
| (often equated with 'free market') outcome is ipso facto
| a socially good outcome is so frustrating because it
| transcends policy discussions into morality/dogma. Are
| you opposed to efforts to curtail rent seeking more
| broadly?
| m4rtink wrote:
| Would they not harm also reguar manufacturers who just want
| to make a stock of some part before starting a
| manufacturing run ?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Well, I guess it would be hard to scalp on of the closest
| managed inventory processes around. Thing is, only the last
| steps before FAL are real JIT, everything else is pretty
| much running on, more or less well amanged, inventory.
| Also, blaming the chip shortage exclusively on automotive
| and their mismanaged JIT is quite a theory, and an overly
| simplistic one.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Negative. Like scalping everywhere, they're middlemen who
| contribute nothing to society, and make it more difficult for
| people who do.
| thow-01187 wrote:
| They provide short-term, non-committal inventories and
| buffers to a supply chain that doesn't have them, since it
| runs on long-term contracts. In some ways, they're
| capitalizing on the failures of just-in-time inventory
| dogma
| milesvp wrote:
| So, you may be right about scalpers providing nothing to
| society. But you are absolutely wrong about middle men in
| general. At a super high level, they have to provide value
| else they would be short circuited. Very often this value
| is in knowledge, both product knowledge, customer
| knowledge, and market fit. A good middle man can tell you
| that the thing you think you want won't fit your needs as
| well as some other product (bonus points if the product
| isn't something they personally sell). You will also find a
| high correlation between the health of an economy, and the
| number of middlemen present. It's actually something that
| has concerned me in the US for several years, that too many
| companies have been squeezing out the middle. I think it's
| exacerbated the current supply chain issues.
| pishpash wrote:
| Middlemen are good if they unbundled and directly charged
| for their services and did not act as arbitrageurs
| simultaneously. Middlemen who withhold information or
| resist competition are rent seeking, which is a strictly
| negative utility for society.
| blevin wrote:
| Some have argued that scalpers, like other risk
| arbitrageurs, accelerate market price discovery. If you buy
| the argument that markets are net positive for society by
| relaying information about economic trade offs, scalpers
| aren't necessarily bad even if they are indeed annoying to
| market participants by lifting the ask. Of course there are
| extreme conditions where we also might decide that using
| money as the universal conveyance of value is a bad thing
| because it reveals how unequal outcomes in society have
| been... And the usual response is to shift to rationing
| rather than price to allocate scarce resources. But with
| rationing you get sidechannel markets and not necessarily
| efficient allocations.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| This argument feels wrong to me. If there is a market for
| the chip, it will find a market price. If there isn't
| there isn't. If the market is in an equilibrium and the
| chip manufacturer makes some money on their chips, and
| the chip buyers make some money on their products, the a
| scalper coming in and sucking up all the profit isn't
| doing anybody in the world any good except themselves.
| skybrian wrote:
| Equilibriums don't just happen by themselves. When there
| isn't an equilibrium, delaying sales by keeping inventory
| helps the people who didn't plan ahead.
|
| The ant planned ahead for the winter, the grasshopper
| didn't, and the scalper provides a service to the
| grasshopper, for a price.
| medvezhenok wrote:
| The scalpers don't suck up profit, since if there is a
| functioning market, you can't really scalp.
|
| Scalping exists when there is a discrepancy between a
| marked price and the market price of an item. If scalpers
| were not a thing, you would have shortages. With
| scalpers, you still have shortages, but you can acquire
| the good by paying a higher, market clearing price.
|
| That higher price either makes it so that rich people can
| get the thing (most don't like this), or that people who
| really need it can get it (i.e. lifesaving medication
| etc). So your view of scalpers might be influenced by the
| distribution of (1) and (2) going on.
| bluecalm wrote:
| Well, they provide value. They make it possible for
| people/entities who needs things the most to actually get
| them instead of those who happen to be first in line or in
| lucky position to get access to supply.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Correction: they make it possible for people/entities
| _who can afford to waste most money_ to get them instead
| of those first /lucky. But how is that a better outcome?
| And why should this involve people spending more money,
| and all the delta going to the person who was first in
| line or in lucky position to secure a loan and buy off
| all the supply?
| medvezhenok wrote:
| Scalpers allow people who are not price sensitive or have
| inelastic demand priority over people who are lucky /
| first.
|
| The ethics depends on the exact case study provided. If
| it's a rich person buying an xbox (not price sensitive) -
| that's one thing, and most people would not support it.
| If it's someone needing an IC for a heart monitor to stay
| alive (inelastic demand), most would say that providing
| them an IC over someone who wants to play the latest
| video game is a good service.
|
| Scalpers do both (1) and (2).
| medvezhenok wrote:
| > Well, they provide value. They make it possible for
| people/entities who needs things the most to actually get
| them instead of those who happen to be first in line or
| in lucky position to get access to supply.
|
| True - they also take on some risk of being stuck with
| inventory that they can't resell at a profit (if prices
| drop between when they buy and sell).
|
| Ethically scalping feels wrong, but I think ethics aside,
| scalping does provide a service to the market.
| 10000truths wrote:
| It depends on what is causing the lack of supply. If the
| bottleneck lies in factors beyond the control of consumers,
| i.e. discontinued production, or shortage of raw material,
| then I see no inherent issue with scalping. But if it's the
| scalpers themselves that cause an otherwise plentiful supply
| to become scarce, then they are the cause of the shortage,
| rather than the effect, and their behavior should be curbed.
| The problem is that the former situation can easily lead to
| the latter via a panic buying feedback loop, and it's not
| entirely clear where the distinction should be drawn.
| pishpash wrote:
| They could only do that by cornering the market, but if
| there are many competitive scalpers, then the price is
| right and that's just normal supply (at the source
| supplier, not the scalper) and demand.
| codazoda wrote:
| I think this would be against the law in the U.S. (although
| probably hard to prosecute). After looking through a few of
| these, however, it looks like most of them are in other
| countries, so different laws apply.
| chmod600 wrote:
| Against what law? Isn't speculation pretty normal in a lot of
| markets?
| ajmurmann wrote:
| There are laws against price gouging. I believe those only
| apply during emergencies.
|
| Personally, I believe it's manufacturers not asking for the
| price the market is willing to pay and scalpers taking
| advantage of that. Charging real prices also can prevent
| hording in certain emergencies.
| wallaBBB wrote:
| General electronics yes, but automotive ICs are not in free
| sales and can't be stocked by 3rd parties. Also giants like
| apple, amazon,... buy directly from the manufacturers with
| orders being made often a year in advance.
|
| This shortage is so big that the 3rd party scalpers are
| insignificant contributor to it.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| I hope a lot of car industry supply chain managers are losing
| their jobs now. Worst people ever. Hurt their suppliers, hurt
| their own company, out of sheet arrogance and ignorance.
|
| On the other hand, good for us, any ICE car or car in general
| that is not produced is good for the environment.
| carlmr wrote:
| It's not like the supply chain managers had much choice in
| this. For years they would have been fired for keeping too much
| stock around.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| True. Whoever made these choices then. Incompetent
| management. 100s of workers are losing their jobs because of
| them.
| carlmr wrote:
| Well these hundreds of workers wouldn't have had the job if
| they hadn't operated efficiently for the preceding 20
| years.
|
| It's a bet that has probably paid off, even including the
| current situation.
| megablast wrote:
| Finally some good news.
|
| Less cars is a global good thing.
| Unklejoe wrote:
| People will just keep driving their older cars which pollute
| even more.
| ok123456 wrote:
| There haven't been many breakthroughs in the past twenty
| years in regards to fuel efficiency. They're just gaming the
| numbers at this point by making the engines have higher and
| higher compression at the cost of making them less and less
| reliable.
|
| Maybe old cars being dramatically less fuel efficient was
| true in the 90s when an "old-car" was from the 70s.
| minhazm wrote:
| Tesla has done a decent job of mitigating some of the chip
| shortages since they are so vertically integrated. Though
| obviously Tesla produces way less cars than Toyota/Honda/VW. But
| other manufacturers simply can't do this even if they wanted to
| since they outsource most of this stuff.
|
| > "We were able to substitute alternative chips, and then write
| the firmware in a matter of weeks," Musk said. "It's not just a
| matter of swapping out a chip; you also have to rewrite the
| software."
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22595060/tesla-chip-short...
| blackguardx wrote:
| They also just completely dropped a feature - radar - because
| they couldn't get parts for it. I'm not sure other
| manufacturers would be able to do that either due to internal
| processes or being able to risk their reputation.
| speedgoose wrote:
| I'm expecting them to turn the radar off at some point on the
| cars with a radar, because in my own experience driving
| Tesla, the radar was good to trigger phantom breaking.
| [deleted]
| imeron wrote:
| Volvo dropped a security package too because of the chip
| shortage: "Volvo is contacting customers who have specified
| the Driver Awareness package to ask if they want to continue
| with their orders without the equipment, or wait until the
| kit becomes available once more."
|
| https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry-news-
| manufacturi...
| chrischen wrote:
| Tesla dropped radar because they are moving to vision only
| systems like how the Comma AI/OpenPilot works. Vision models
| are superior to radar since radar can't detect stopped
| obstacles.
| jsight wrote:
| From their comments about it being a setback, it doesn't
| sound like it was planned to happen so quickly.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| Indeed - not many manufacturers could get away with Tesla's
| strategy of charging money for features that are in Alpha
| state, to put it charitably (e.g. Autopilot).
| speedgoose wrote:
| Many manufacturers had no shame to charge for shitty
| features in alpha state like the "ping pong" line assist.
| mnholt wrote:
| Well they aren't going to "ping pong" themselves into a
| parked emergency vehicle.
| severino wrote:
| > and then write the firmware in a matter of weeks
|
| Well, it doesn't sound very reassuring to read that they just
| swapped out some chips here and there and then "hacked" the new
| firmware in a couple of weeks. It may be the chip for the FM
| radio or it could be part of the breaking system.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Don't worry, they've been hacking the self driving code for a
| few years now.
| aazaa wrote:
| > Stellantis has halted production at other plants, including in
| Europe and Canada, forecasting that it would make 1.4 million
| fewer vehicles this year due to the chip shortage.
|
| For perspective:
|
| > Combined sales of FCA and PSA totaled 6,206,000 units in 2020,
| down by 22% compared to 2019 figures. When the two companies
| announced their decision to merge, they became the world's 4th
| largest automaker by sales volume. It was only outsold by
| Volkswagen Group, Toyota and Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance.
| With 7,907,000 vehicles sold in 2019, FCA-PSA (which was not
| called Stellantis by then), was bigger than GM and Hyundai-Kia.
| One year later, these two outperformed Stellantis.
|
| https://fiatgroupworld.com/2021/02/14/stellantis-sold-6-2-mi...
|
| If I'm reading this right, pre-pandemic sales were ~8 million. So
| a cut 1.4 million due to chip shortages represents an 18% drop.
| But compared to 2020, the drop is 23%.
|
| That's disastrous hit for any company to withstand.
|
| I'm curious how much of this is actually due to chip supply vs.
| how much could be due to other factors, but blamed on chip
| supply.
| timmg wrote:
| > If I'm reading this right, pre-pandemic sales were ~8
| million. So a cut 1.4 million due to chip shortages represents
| an 18% drop. But compared to 2020, the drop is 23%.
|
| But it's a low margin industry. They can now charge _above_
| MSRP. If they aren 't stuck paying for parts (or labor) of the
| units they can't make, they might come out ahead. Fewer units,
| waaaay more profit per unit.
| whiteboardr wrote:
| @kliment summarized the why pretty well:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26931498
|
| Curious if this is true for all manufacturers.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| What an amazing comment; penetrating insight clearly
| communicated. Thanks for sharing.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| What would cause pretty much all STM32 microcontrollers to be
| not available and any amount that shows up disappears within
| minutes? Then you can buy pretty much any part from China
| without issue?
| baybal2 wrote:
| Chinese people stopped hoarding luxury apartments, and
| started hoarding microchips -- a popular explanation
| ladyattis wrote:
| I know that even SMD transistors got hit hard by the automaker
| component switch-a-roo. It's not too easy to find RF
| transistors even for signal amp work like I do for a hobby.
| It's just a disaster right now.
| da_chicken wrote:
| The "religious reasons" he's talking about are "zero inventory"
| or "JIT inventory" pioneered by Japanese auto makers in the 80s
| and 90s. By optimizing inventory management and understanding
| demand for your product, you can ensure you don't have excess
| inventory on-site (meaning you don't have money invested in
| product parts you can't sell and have to pay taxes on). It's
| the system that virtually every manufacturer (auto or
| otherwise) uses now.
|
| It's why major supply chain issues cause catastrophic
| manufacturing problems.
| j-bos wrote:
| My understanding is that JIT, as performed by Toyota, takes
| into account the differences in difficulty of sourcing
| different inventories. If this is true, one would expect that
| Toyota faced shortages later than other manufacturers. Does
| anyone have a source proving or disproving this?
| da_chicken wrote:
| It can take into account _predicted_ difficulties. The
| pandemic was difficult to predict, basically everyone
| predicted incorrectly, and chip supply is functionally
| inelastic over the short term.
| kenhwang wrote:
| Toyota got a foreshock of the chip shortage during the
| 2011 earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster. So they started
| stockpiling chips then; from their standard 3-month
| supply to 6-month supply.
|
| They figured that would've been enough to survive another
| incident of similar scale.
|
| So they had no problem with car inventory for a half a
| year longer than every other automaker, until their
| additional buffer of chips also ran out.
| lenzm wrote:
| You don't need to know what the pandemic is specifically
| to plan for a global market shock. Knowing that you have
| a critical component with a long inelastic supply chain
| is enough.
| SahAssar wrote:
| I'm guessing the problem is to decide what is a
| reasonable difficulty. Even if you plan for a global
| market shock, how long do you plan for that to continue?
| How many companies failing in your supply chain do you
| plan for?
| forbiddenlake wrote:
| Yes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28232469
| hef19898 wrote:
| Toyota was among the last to be hit. Also, JIT is not
| having zero inventory. It is about having the right amount
| of inventory.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Pedantic comment: is that not what lean is about? Or is
| "lean" and jit essentially the same thing?
| hef19898 wrote:
| JIT, as Kanban, is part of the Toyota Production System.
| It is also called Lean nowadays, or simply TPS. The basic
| principles go back to the US defence industry in WW2, on
| one hand, and some ingenious ideas from the old Toyota
| company manufacturing looms.
|
| I also see some of these ideas, tacted assembly lines for
| example, as far back the Venetian Arsenal cranking out
| Galleons and Galleasses in unprecedented numbers in the
| 16th (?) century.
| imeron wrote:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-07/how-
| toyot...
|
| It wasn't enough it seems.
| xondono wrote:
| What I don't see discussed is how JIT has become the
| "securitization" of manufacturing.
|
| Everyone had an incentive to do JIT, and it improved
| efficiency in each individual company, but it did so by
| inflating a systemic risk that could be easily triggered by a
| "black swan".
| wnissen wrote:
| The thing is that it also reduces the risk of certain
| systemic risks. Recessions (and even worse, deflation)
| happen when production is too high relative to demand, but
| no one has noticed. In the 80s if demand for cars dropped,
| everyone from the dealers to the manufacturers to the parts
| suppliers were left with a ton of excess production. In the
| best case, you merely transfer some production from the end
| of a boom to the beginning of the end of the bust, but in
| the worst case all that inventory just sits around and
| deflates.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And major manufacturing problems cause catastrophic supply
| issues some times. manufacturing is part of the supply chain,
| and it is simply impossible to protect against all
| eventualities. JIT is not to blame here.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Any carmaker whose cars can't sell will be happy to get their
| suppliers to not supply them with chips.
|
| Let's see how the main EV manufacturers will procure their chips
| in the coming months.
| slownews45 wrote:
| Man - the magnitude / impact of these chips shortages on autos in
| particular is crazy.
|
| Regardless of Opel popularity, in the US the F-150 was a best
| selling vehicle and massive cash cow and they had unfinished
| vehicles sitting out. These chips have GOT to be a relatively low
| margin / somewhat lower cost item (ie, feature size can be
| large). What a miss not to have more coverage for them.
| Gunax wrote:
| After a train crash destroyed a few dozen Ford trucks, they
| sent an engineer who was also handy to pry the chips out of the
| smashed trucks. They were hand delivered back to the factory.
|
| Normally this would be ridiculous--there are many other parts
| that were probably more valuable. But now we have people
| cracking open smashed vehicles like walnuts so they can extract
| a chip nominally worth a few dollars.
| asdff wrote:
| Auto makers should just buy back leased cars from dealerships
| and harvest the chips. These are cars after all, so the
| chipsets have probably been the same underpowered crapware for
| the last ten years.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Used car prices are so high, that would probably be pretty
| expensive.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Would this actually ever make any sense? Not counting
| totalled vehicles. There really isn't so much profit in new
| cars price that it pays for used car fully. Unless that used
| car is really heavily used. Which then leads to questions of
| how much lifetime left the parts have.
| asdff wrote:
| They could lobby and get another cash for clunkers sort of
| arrangement from the federal government to incentivize
| dealers turning over leases rather than having them on the
| lot, and having the cost of getting back these cars
| publicly subsidized by the government. The run for used car
| supply right now is entirely due to new car supply being so
| strained. Pushing that demand back to new cars rather than
| used cars puts the profits back into the automakers rather
| than dealerships, and guess who swings with more weight in
| Washington. Not Joe Shmoe Chevrolet from Anytown USA.
| Ekaros wrote:
| How long longest leases are really 7 years? Is there
| relevant usable parts left in those vehicles? On other
| hand with shorter leases like 2, 3 or 5 years the cars
| are still perfectly functional and scrapping them would
| be huge waste just from environmental point alone.
|
| Simplest thing might be just to pay some part of laid-off
| workers compensantion.
| to11mtm wrote:
| That doesn't work in practice; there's a legal difference
| between a part on a new vehicle that was DIT (Damaged In
| Transit) and one pulled out of a lease.
| asdff wrote:
| This is the auto industry we are talking about. If they
| want something that will help them be more competitive or
| float them in hard times they go to congress and get it.
| baybal2 wrote:
| 200mm tapeouts have briefly became more profitable than leading
| edge ones on the wave of panic buying.
|
| On my side, I lost a lot of firmware devs to poaching by
| companies migrating between microchip brands, and ready to pay
| just anything, to the point of me myself being tempted.
| redisman wrote:
| Heck, why not? It's a market economy and we are a commodity.
| Why resist your price going up?
| baybal2 wrote:
| It's an ultimate irony to see that 200mm fabs in the West
| were closed one after another for "low profitability" just
| to see them missing out on this money volcano
| Ekaros wrote:
| If those fabs where still around probably profitability
| would be even lower and there wouldn't be so massive
| profits. Irony is that we haven't been paying some more,
| to keep slack in supply.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Mind telling us whether you're hiring? And, mind pointing us
| to some contacts where your people are going?
| baybal2 wrote:
| Will you be ready to move to China? Working of physical
| products requires being there. We don't do much software
| only projects.
|
| We tried DHLing prototypes around before, it didn't work
| out. People still need tons of expensive tooling, go to
| other specialist companies with these prototypes, etc. Too
| much pingpong
| paxys wrote:
| One thing that's going to come out of this crisis is cars being
| repriced as not just engine + wheels + seats but rather a
| consumer tech gadget. I expect prices to keep climbing well after
| supply chain issues have been solved. Piling on subscription
| pricing is next (and is already happening in a lot of cases).
| neogodless wrote:
| I'm not following your chain of reasoning here.
|
| Prices were climbing _before_ the chip shortage, while
| "technology" (or specifically, features requiring computer
| chips) has increasingly been an important part of marketing
| strategy, differentiation and consumer focus in the automotive
| industry. (Anecdotally, I check reviews for how well they
| handle things like Android Auto/Apple CarPlay, and in-car
| software updates.)
|
| The pricing could reflect a lot of things, including inflation,
| growing consumer wealth (or credit), consumers prioritizing
| automotive due to a variety of reasons including
| marketing/image, increased time spent commuting, etc.
|
| What does this supply chain hiccup have to do with your
| hypothesis?
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