C82021

The Bowling Green shutdown is part of a real crisis impacting many brands:

15 U.S. senators urge White House action on auto chip shortage

BY Reuters
— 6:53 PM ET 02/02/2021Feb 2 (Reuters) - A group of 15 U.S. senators on Tuesday including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican John Cornyn urged the White House to work with Congress to address the global semiconductor shortage that is hampering auto manufacturing.

The senators, from key auto states like Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, in a letter to the White House warned the "shortage threatens our post-pandemic economic recovery."

Automakers around the world are shutting assembly lines due to problems in the delivery of semiconductors, which have been exacerbated in some cases by the former Trump administration's actions against key Chinese chip factories.

The shortage has impacted Volkswagen, Ford Motor Co, GM....

Greg00Coupe

Not affecting tesla? Wonder why not?

diehrd

Those China Chips come complete with a back door. I would be happy to wait for American Chips

the lark

Very true. Wait for American chips.

WalterSobchak

I figured it would be the Tranny issues..... Oh wait they aren't talking about the DCT....

pewter99

well when you close down the country **** happens....perhaps they haven't noticed a lot of stuff is on back order...they created this mess

RedLS6

American? - Which American chips are those? The chips used are largely fabbed (not designed) by TSMC (Taiwan) and a couple others, but they were designed up to two years ago by design houses in the U.S. and around the world. They're now in fab which is where the production issue is. They can't easily or quickly (or reliably) be redesigned for, say, an Intel fab, no guarantee they would even be workable in another process. Design/fab/test can be a multi-year process. TSMC may be able to increase production by a little and raise prices, but this takes time.

roadsterboy

I'll be impressed when a Senator can help get me my allocation.

vette2021HTC

Exactly what dreaded action will a Chinese chip take via its "back door" ? Turn off the car? Pop open the frunk lid? Cause the tranny to start skipping even gears? GM buys "cheap" import chips for a good reason.

Avanti

I'd take any chip that works correctly and reliably. I'll watch 'em hack my car in the movies.

MMD

Let's go back to the old days. The hell with chips and China. American autos never have chips (unless we're talking about potato chips) in them back in the day. We are currently in a low intensity war with China. The situation will not improve until major industrial manufacturing production returns in its's totality to the USA. It's in our nation's national security interest to make this happen. Until this is done the USA will never have control over it future. Who is responsible for this situation we are now faced???

Spamburger_Hamburger

Believe it or not, the US is the top semiconductor manufacturer in the world. However, Asia is the biggest consumer of them where the most actual components are built, processors, RAM, SSD, and many other components based on integrated circuits. There isn't a shortage as in a decline in production, as they are being bought up by other industries. When the auto industry slowed significantly at the beginning of the pandemic, and many plants shut down for a couple months, personal electronics surged as people moved to working from home. So these big manufacturers pivoted to focusing on personal electronics and haven't been able to pivot back to a fast recovering auto industry yet. They don't care who buys them as long as they're getting bought, auto industry or for iPads.8.5.7

C82021

The “problem”is this is a high tech car..one if it’s main attractions is it’s tech. That tech’s brains are powered by chips. Made in China.

MMD

I disagree. Personally I think the vehicle could still be a great vehicle without all the tech. Tech creates it's own set of unique problems.

AzDave47

I'll let you drive the 1989 Subaru Justy, the last carburated car sold in the USA.

Speednet

"Automakers around the world are shutting assembly lines due to problems in the delivery of semiconductors, which have been exacerbated in some cases by the former Trump administration's actions against key Chinese chip factories presidents before and after Trump, who have all created a dangerous dependency on China for essential parts."

There, fixed it for you.

gmarcucio

Tech is what brought us to the C8!

MMD

No thanks. I'm not a Subaru fanboy. I wouldn't have no problem driving A C2 Corvette, Ford Shelby Cobra, Mustang Boss302, etc.... The C2 had fuel injection. That was back in the mid 60s.

MitchAlsup

I worked (35 years) in the semiconductor industry (in chip design)....

Back in the days before RISC and the 68020/030 were selling (386 time period) for $75-150 each, the auto industry was consuming a chip (ever so slightly larger) and was unwilling to pay more than $10 for said chip (what became the HC11.) Heck, the package the 68020/030 went into was more than $10 ! in 1M unit order quantities.)

There is a reason that kind of chip manufacture migrated to China.......and it has everything to do with FABs, they are expensive ($2B-$10B) to make $10 parts at 10% profit ($1.00/part) it takes an awful lot of parts before the FAB pays for itself, and you havent paid for the wafers, labor, designer time, or other overheads. Secondarily, once that $2B fab starts cranking out those $10 parts, you have to put them in $10 packages made in $100M factories. Take a guess as to which factory becomes profitable first ?

Now take a guess as to how many semiconductor manufactures in USA today want to step up and serve the USA auto industries ??

MMD

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Here's where Auto Tech falls flat on its face. I agree 100% with this guy, You need to watch to see where you're wrong.
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