Here's an excellent and succinct article that covers the current automotive supply chain issues.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...-high-79844142

 

Perhaps we may see a move away from rampant consumerism, at least in the western world.

 

Perhaps, but I very much doubt it.

 

An odd comment considering Porsche ownership could be the poster child for unnecessary consumerism.

 

Semiconductor plants are highly automated, this is not a labor intensive assembly process. I am still not fully buying all this, I think the auto makers like selling cars at full MSRP and prefer to have the prior system, that saw millions of cars in inventory at all times, replaced with something else. And this is a good excuse for it. It's not going to be 2023 either, why would it be? Breakthrough cases of the vaccinated are zooming, endless booster shots now on the table, this thing is never going to end.

 

As someone who works in this industry on the semiconductor side, this is real and manufacturing chips is not that simple. It doesn’t matter if you “buy” it or not. There is a shortage, and even the biggest players in tech looking for allocation for high margin chips cannot even get allocation for production. Would highly recommend diving a bit deeper into how this process works, what the market looks like, and what lead times look.

 

tongue in cheek….

 

This would not be “Murica” without a conspiracy theory…

 

The reason why auto manufacturers have a chip shortage has a LOT more to do with them canceling orders than anything else. They canceled. They lost their place in line. Then take away most of the chip factory work force due to Covid. And now you have a very very tight semiconductor market that can't keep up with all this new demand. New demanding being anything that helps with working from home. Such as millions of new computers, networking equipment, video conferencing. The work from home technology market sling shot to the moon once covid hit. And the auto guys had to get back in line at the VERY end.

If we had REAL semiconductor shortages. We would be short on iphones. We are not short on iphones. We are not short of most anything else that uses semiconductors like cell phones, laptops, video conferencing hardware, etc. But the auto industry is?

The auto industry did them to themselves IMO.

 

Actually, we will be short on iPhones soon. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/27/appl...-shortage.html

 

it is real. Supplies are getting tighter for iPhones. This was the official statement on Apple’s earnings call this quarter. Difference is that the market can endure higher supply costs for an iPhone than a random 18 way seat, so iPhones get effected last because they can afford the most ADM. Automobiles have lots of small extremely low margin chips in them.

 

Yes the delays are shortages are real. But when it comes to the AUTO guys. They shot themselves in the foot. New demand for the worlds network overhaul - laptops, home pc's, any anything related to helping the world work from home got in line and placed order after order, after order. So yes, it is getting to the point to where things are going to get worse. But the auto guys jumped ship first. The article Blue linked mentions this as well.

"The roots of the computer chip shortage bedeviling auto and other industries stem from the eruption of the pandemic early last year. U.S. automakers had to shut factories for eight weeks to help stop the virus from spreading. Some parts companies canceled orders for semiconductors. At the same time, with tens of millions of people hunkered down at home, demand for laptops, tablets and gaming consoles skyrocketed."

BTW. I sell semiconductors for a living.

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/merce...163000881.html

Daimler AG’s chief executive officer cautioned that the global semiconductor shortage may not entirely go away next year and could take until 2023 to be resolved.

 

I don’t think anybody here is disputing that Auto companies shot themselves in the foot? We are pointing out that your iPhone example isn’t a good one given publicly available information. As someone who works on semiconductor supply chain for a living (not the sales side), who has access to very non-public information, there is more to the general semiconductor shortage story for everyone other than only Auto is suffering because they are idiots. The supply chain whiplash is in full effect and it will hurt a bit more for consumer electronics before it gets better.

 

Yeah it’s automated but the run time for a chip order is months long so you can just order some chips and expect them to show up tomorrow. Automakers scaled back a lot of their orders when covid hit and then when demand returned they decided to increase orders but others were already in line. Semiconductor capacity was also pretty evenly matched to demand so the zero production during the couple months of shutdowns will take a year or two for the lost production to be restored with the small amount of excess capacity that exists.