The article mentions that carmakers and the like stockpiled a bunch of chips during the Covid shortages, so there is reduced demand from them now while they work through their stockpiles.
They've been claiming microchip shortage for the last two years. Didn't sound like a stockpile. Ford and Tesla both had production slowdowns or product regressions specifically due to difficulties getting certain chips, and surely others. What's your source?
This article seems pretty questionable because they combined very different situations together. There's no doubt that car companies have big backlogs from shortages of parts needed for final assembly of vehicles, in large part needing semiconductors. Tesla has mentioned this, rivian is another but legacy auto also sees this. But the article conflates possible oversupply in different market segments like cloud, GPUs seem to be in oversupply too says Nvidia even though that won't help car makers. It's just a terrible article.
I don't understand how that can be true. I put a deposit on a new Hyundai last month and Hyundai Canada is telling me it won't even be built until February 2023, specifically citing chip shortages.
If you're buying one of Hyundai's new EVs, those have been so well received I wouldn't be surprised if there were delays on them independent of any chip shortage.
In the Mid Atlantic region you have to pay 20% over MSRP to buy an ordinary Toyota Corolla off the lot right now, it's not limited to new technology or high demand units.
This is hard to believe given that Ford is still selling new trucks with missing features because they don't have chips for them.
The reporter here could still be mixing categories. Ford has thinky computer chips for their infotainment systems, but not enough dumb chips that control the heated seats.
>The reporter here could still be mixing categories. Ford has thinky computer chips for their infotainment systems, but not enough dumb chips that control the heated seats.
Automotive EE. It’s nearly entirely this.
No one that sees how vehicles are made would ever follow the recipe if they were concerned about a chip shortage.
Driver seats, with 8 modules in them. That’s at least 8 micros, at least 8 switching power supplies, at least 8 bootloaders, applications, verifications, 8 different (ish) suppliers, etc. The reality is most of those are more than 8.
There is a movement going on right now that next gen goes back to larger computers like Tesla does. Which is how Tesla was able to say they were so nimble during shortage. They aren’t; they just had a lot less to do.
Current system is bad. But don’t worry, we’ll screw up the next one too!
So is it a fair simplification that a Tesla really just has everything running through a giant tablet as a cost cutting measure? Wouldn't that affect vehicle longevity? I have 10 year old tablets that can barely boot up any more, but 20 year old power windows that still work perfectly.
I was also hearing that one of the responses to this might be more base models with manual features (cranks, push buttons, etc). Any truth to that?
I think some Audis also still have a "Semiconductor Shortage package", which deletes blind spot/cross traffic alerts, rear collision detection, adaptive cruise control, integrated tolls and wireless charging.
This is partially true. More complex MCUs like STM32F7 and STM32H7 were stockpiled by military as they can be used in missiles and drones. They are still basically unobtanium unless you pay 10-100x to scalpers.
