Jaguar Land Rover to suspend output due to chip shortage(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Jaguar Land Rover to suspend output due to chip shortage
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56841946
327 comments
Most comments I've seen on this and other related articles on HN are too focused on the high-end chips doing fancy stuff. There are not only supply constraints on these sorts of high-compute chips, but also big shortages on practically all ICs in general.
I'm a hardware engineer for a medical device company, and we've been dealing with supply constraints not only with our MCUs but other ICs like high-side power switches, LDOs, memory, and more. It's tough when we're low volume (a few thousand a year) and the huge automakers and other huge consumer electronics giants are gobbling up all the parts.
I'm a hardware engineer for a medical device company, and we've been dealing with supply constraints not only with our MCUs but other ICs like high-side power switches, LDOs, memory, and more. It's tough when we're low volume (a few thousand a year) and the huge automakers and other huge consumer electronics giants are gobbling up all the parts.
> What has made the auto industry particularly vulnerable is its reliance on just-in-time delivery, where parts are brought in when needed, rather than being stockpiled.
It's fascinating that the response is to close production rather than increase prices.
Those warning of inflation point to events like this as support. But inflation requires that higher producer costs be accepted by consumers.
And for that price transmission mechanism to work, there needs to be supply actually available at the higher price. It appears that just-in-time economics mean that in the event of a shortage your supply just goes offline. You don't get higher prices, just empty shelves.
It's fascinating that the response is to close production rather than increase prices.
Those warning of inflation point to events like this as support. But inflation requires that higher producer costs be accepted by consumers.
And for that price transmission mechanism to work, there needs to be supply actually available at the higher price. It appears that just-in-time economics mean that in the event of a shortage your supply just goes offline. You don't get higher prices, just empty shelves.
> What has made the auto industry particularly vulnerable is its reliance on just-in-time delivery, where parts are brought in when needed, rather than being stockpiled.
In another version of my life I was a truck-driver bringing parts to Ford/Chrysler/GM/Honda/Toyota on a daily basis. I've done this for many trucking companies, and the warning/threat that you get at 'orientation' (aka training for 15 minutes) is the same for all of them:
GM Charges us $24,000/hour if we are late for our window by more then 15 minutes.
I'm sure the other automakers had similar threats, but I only ever heard it about GM.
In another version of my life I was a truck-driver bringing parts to Ford/Chrysler/GM/Honda/Toyota on a daily basis. I've done this for many trucking companies, and the warning/threat that you get at 'orientation' (aka training for 15 minutes) is the same for all of them:
GM Charges us $24,000/hour if we are late for our window by more then 15 minutes.
I'm sure the other automakers had similar threats, but I only ever heard it about GM.
“Other automakers purchase much less valuable silicon content, and become less of a priority when compared to Tesla, who designs chips in house, secures wafer supply from foundries directly, and buys chips directly from the various chip designers like NXP, Infineon, and so forth,” according to a note from Cho Research. “They don’t outsource the design of their chip stack; they in-source wherever possible and work extremely closely with their suppliers.”
https://www.benzinga.com/news/earnings/21/04/20771098/tesla-...
Tesla doesn't seem to have a chip problem.
this whole auto chip shortage is auto maker's own f'ck up
https://www.benzinga.com/news/earnings/21/04/20771098/tesla-...
Tesla doesn't seem to have a chip problem.
this whole auto chip shortage is auto maker's own f'ck up
Is there a good article around that explains the specific semiconductor bottlenecks everyone is facing right now? I’d like to know more. It seems like a huge opportunity, but also I am guessing it’s a very hard or impossible problem since it hasn’t already been solved by infinite money?
I don’t know any chip manufacturers that shutdown due to COVID. Everyone has been shipping the entire time and fabs are at capacity. The way chip manufacturing works is that you get a slot and if you cancel they fill your slot with something else. There have been fab issues but these have been unrelated to COVID and would have happened anyway.
To me this seems like auto industry trying to shift blame away from their supply chain management to their vendors.
To me this seems like auto industry trying to shift blame away from their supply chain management to their vendors.
> What has made the auto industry particularly vulnerable is its reliance on just-in-time delivery, where parts are brought in when needed, rather than being stockpiled.
This idea has gotten a lot of play lately. But the unstated alternative is to somehow perfectly forecast future demand for parts. That's very difficult in general and doubly difficult during a global pandemic. And, in fact, well-practiced lean outfits are better at knowing which inputs are potentially most disruptive, because they already obsess over lead times for everything.
Without lean practices you just wind up with giants piles of almost random inventory. That you'd have wound up with a giant pile of CPUs is a total crapshoot. But you would absolutely positively have a bunch of stuff you don't need and never will. And that inventory would choke the whole company to death.
The whole idea that JIT destroyed some glorious, flawless past is the Nirvana fallacy. "Oh, supply chain disruptions happen at all, therefore JIT is entirely useless". It's just a silly idea and needs to be mocked at every opportunity.
This idea has gotten a lot of play lately. But the unstated alternative is to somehow perfectly forecast future demand for parts. That's very difficult in general and doubly difficult during a global pandemic. And, in fact, well-practiced lean outfits are better at knowing which inputs are potentially most disruptive, because they already obsess over lead times for everything.
Without lean practices you just wind up with giants piles of almost random inventory. That you'd have wound up with a giant pile of CPUs is a total crapshoot. But you would absolutely positively have a bunch of stuff you don't need and never will. And that inventory would choke the whole company to death.
The whole idea that JIT destroyed some glorious, flawless past is the Nirvana fallacy. "Oh, supply chain disruptions happen at all, therefore JIT is entirely useless". It's just a silly idea and needs to be mocked at every opportunity.
I find it bothersome that this situation is referred to as simply a shortage without any mention of the incorrect predictions or decisions the automakers made that lead to it.
I’m curious if automotive systems used more generic controllers for cabin systems if shortages like this would be less or more severe.
If the AC and the power seats and the cabin lights used the moral equivalent of a raspberry pi compute engine, would we see supply harder to disrupt, or massive consolidation that just makes these problems worse, for instance every single car plant shutting down for two weeks out of the same three months as the pause wends its way through the supply chain. Today a Chevrolet plant gets the only truckload, but Ram doesn’t run out until tomorrow due to transit delays.
If the AC and the power seats and the cabin lights used the moral equivalent of a raspberry pi compute engine, would we see supply harder to disrupt, or massive consolidation that just makes these problems worse, for instance every single car plant shutting down for two weeks out of the same three months as the pause wends its way through the supply chain. Today a Chevrolet plant gets the only truckload, but Ram doesn’t run out until tomorrow due to transit delays.
I hope countries learn from this mess and start working to build up their local manufacturing capacity, even if only to cover their own needs when global disruptions like this hit. It doesn't have to be cutting edge or competitive cost-wise. Even late 90s era tech would do.
ICs, like electricity, are indispensable to modern life. They're availability must be secured and protected in the same way.
ICs, like electricity, are indispensable to modern life. They're availability must be secured and protected in the same way.
I was looking for some graph to show the average number of silicon chips in a car over time, alas nothing. Some indication I guess from growth forcast like https://www.marketwatch.com/story/want-to-invest-in-self-dri...
But not ideal. Though all that, I wonder if this was a perfect storm and with the increases and demands for all things smart, it may be that we are playing catchup with a moving goalpost for a few years yet.
But not ideal. Though all that, I wonder if this was a perfect storm and with the increases and demands for all things smart, it may be that we are playing catchup with a moving goalpost for a few years yet.
Not relevant to production of consumer vehicles under a temporary shortage of high-tech parts (though, under a longer-term shortage, it might be) but the Soviets had an interesting approach to high-tech dependencies in their military equipment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_variants_of_Soviet_mili...
I first encountered the idea of "Monkey Models" in Suvorov's book (referenced on that page).
The TL;DR is that the Soviets would design their equipment with the best high-tech sensors, weapons, countermeasures, et c., that they could reasonably manage, but also design the equipment to function with much simpler parts & manufacturing processes. So a high-tech Soviet tank might have an electronic targeting system, but also be designed to work with a simpler glass-and-steel rangefinder that could be built with relatively simple tools, in a half-decent machine shop shed. They might fit their best models with advanced armor plating, but design a variant that replaced all that with a little extra steel. They'd do this with practically everything, including aircraft.
Why? Multiple reasons: 1) it let them export "new" equipment to allies and puppet-states at a lower cost and in much greater quantities, by selling them "monkey models" with much of the high-tech gear & parts swapped for low-tech counterparts (older generations of top-end gear would be sent to the closest allies/puppets or, more often, to domestic reserve units, in a kind of tiered system), 2) since most of the Soviet gear the West encountered was in direct or proxy wars with Soviet ally, client, or puppet states, the West couldn't gain much insight into the actual capabilities of modern Soviet equipment, 3) so-equipped allies would be starved of gear that could threaten the actual Soviet military, in case they became adversaries, 4) less-advanced allies could more easily maintain gear without so much high-tech junk in it, and 5) perhaps most importantly, it gave the Soviets a kind of supply-line defense-in-depth—they had not only designed these weapon systems so they could be built (as weaker versions) without high-tech manufacturing, but practiced doing it. In the event of a shooting war with, say, the US, the Soviets could keep shipping (inferior, but much better than nothing) tanks & aircraft to the front lines even if all their high-tech facilities were bombed out of existence and they lost access to advanced materials (say, high-tech armor material), with hardly a hiccup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_variants_of_Soviet_mili...
I first encountered the idea of "Monkey Models" in Suvorov's book (referenced on that page).
The TL;DR is that the Soviets would design their equipment with the best high-tech sensors, weapons, countermeasures, et c., that they could reasonably manage, but also design the equipment to function with much simpler parts & manufacturing processes. So a high-tech Soviet tank might have an electronic targeting system, but also be designed to work with a simpler glass-and-steel rangefinder that could be built with relatively simple tools, in a half-decent machine shop shed. They might fit their best models with advanced armor plating, but design a variant that replaced all that with a little extra steel. They'd do this with practically everything, including aircraft.
Why? Multiple reasons: 1) it let them export "new" equipment to allies and puppet-states at a lower cost and in much greater quantities, by selling them "monkey models" with much of the high-tech gear & parts swapped for low-tech counterparts (older generations of top-end gear would be sent to the closest allies/puppets or, more often, to domestic reserve units, in a kind of tiered system), 2) since most of the Soviet gear the West encountered was in direct or proxy wars with Soviet ally, client, or puppet states, the West couldn't gain much insight into the actual capabilities of modern Soviet equipment, 3) so-equipped allies would be starved of gear that could threaten the actual Soviet military, in case they became adversaries, 4) less-advanced allies could more easily maintain gear without so much high-tech junk in it, and 5) perhaps most importantly, it gave the Soviets a kind of supply-line defense-in-depth—they had not only designed these weapon systems so they could be built (as weaker versions) without high-tech manufacturing, but practiced doing it. In the event of a shooting war with, say, the US, the Soviets could keep shipping (inferior, but much better than nothing) tanks & aircraft to the front lines even if all their high-tech facilities were bombed out of existence and they lost access to advanced materials (say, high-tech armor material), with hardly a hiccup.
I can hear the youtube video now "how I replaced my unavailable ECM with an arduino"
I wonder if anyone has documented the various sensors and algorithms used for basic vehicle functionality.
I wonder if anyone has documented the various sensors and algorithms used for basic vehicle functionality.
Doing computation in hardware is lightening fast and highly desirable on mobile devices however this chip shortage for vehicles would get resolved if the computation on those chips was shifted into software and executed on commodity x64 cpu hardware ... possibly expedited if the computation intended to get run on these hard to obtain chips already has a software level simulation solution ... would be interested in learning of any show stoppers to this proposed solution ... turnaround time to go this route would be worth it especially since it eliminates such a chip shortage in the future ... is it that much simpler to implement computation in purpose built hardware than software ?
I bet Tesla's decision to design and manufacture their own machine learning chips for their "self-driving" functionality is looking pretty smart now. They have their own contracts with the fab companies to produce them. These are not the only kinds of chips that go into cars by a long shot these days, but it is the biggest ticket one.
That was a multi-billion dollar, very bold and risky bet that paid off. How many car companies do you know where they decided to take on industry leaders like Nvidia and Intel and actually produce a better product? That's really quite remarkable.
If GM said tomorrow that they were going to build better machine-learning chips than Nvidia, we'd all get a good laugh at that.
That was a multi-billion dollar, very bold and risky bet that paid off. How many car companies do you know where they decided to take on industry leaders like Nvidia and Intel and actually produce a better product? That's really quite remarkable.
If GM said tomorrow that they were going to build better machine-learning chips than Nvidia, we'd all get a good laugh at that.
I checked a Jaguar dealer page now and I see they're still offering finance incentives which I didn't except since their inventory is taking such a hit. Plus luxury cars have been selling for over MSRP on most popular models for the last year.
What I (foolishly) hadn't realized until I saw it in EE Times the other day: the shortage is in parts built on older tech (e.g. larger feature size). These factories don't produce the high margin parts so investment in them has lagged.
Allegedly you can bring up a fab large node (still sub micron) in just 4-5 months -- there's a lot of surplus / used gear out there, but will anyone bother (try might not earn back your cap ex).
Allegedly you can bring up a fab large node (still sub micron) in just 4-5 months -- there's a lot of surplus / used gear out there, but will anyone bother (try might not earn back your cap ex).
How much of our collective chip-manufacturing capacity is being devoted to Crypto mining? (a useless and environmentally destructive activity)
Could Land Rover petition the UK Government to ban the exchange of Proof of Work coins in the UK in order to alleviate this chip shortage? Mining activity is a function of the price of the coin, and even bans from minor economies like Turkey have been enough to decrease prices.
Could Land Rover petition the UK Government to ban the exchange of Proof of Work coins in the UK in order to alleviate this chip shortage? Mining activity is a function of the price of the coin, and even bans from minor economies like Turkey have been enough to decrease prices.
I wish the chip foundries published their production queue to the general public... that would be some fascinating data to go thru
I fear our upcoming high inflation will be abused as an example to legitimize harsh austerity in the future, because liars will draw the causality with the expansive monetary policy of the 2010s and not with the Corona pandemic. They already conveniently forget that there was a flu pandemic in the beginning of the 20th Century.
It's toilet paper all the way down...
You'd think with decades of CAD experience we could figure out how to build a chipless car that has all the benefits of computers in cars and none of the downsides of carburetors. How long will this have to go on before someone considers it?
Funny nobody considers designs which don't rely on complex chips - and simple ones can be made cheaply in many places. Are we that demanding that WiFi and USB are required for cars?
I'd buy a simpler car instead of having no car any day.
I'd buy a simpler car instead of having no car any day.
There is an Aussie expression “saving it for Ron” where Ron is an abbreviation for “later on”.
It sounds like Toyota is placing two orders: one for now, and one for Ron.
It sounds like Toyota is placing two orders: one for now, and one for Ron.
I don't understand how cars, which sell in relatively low quantities and use relatively unsophisticated chips, would be delayed by chip shortages.
It seems that the Jaguar I-Pace production is not stopped. It is produced by Magna and not Jaguar but perhaps it gets priority on the parts.
I think car manufacturers have been specializing their chips and electronics more and more to avoid 3rd party servicing and now we see the fallout which could still be a win for them. Just jack up the prices! How about we standardize the chips used in automotive manufacturing to help alleviate this problem and cut down the number of unique SKUs fabs have to make.
subaru is also shutting down some plant(s) temporarily due to chip availability.
> After the [Fukushima] catastrophe severed Toyota’s supply chains on March 11, 2011, the world’s biggest automaker realised the lead-time for semiconductors was way too long to cope with devastating shocks such as natural disasters.
> That’s why Toyota came up with a business continuity plan (BCP) that required suppliers to stockpile anywhere from two to six months’ worth of chips for the Japanese carmaker, depending on the time it takes from order to delivery, four sources said.
> The sources said Toyota has another advantage over some rivals when it comes to chips thanks to its long-standing policy of ensuring it understands all the technology used in its cars, rather than relying on suppliers to provide “black boxes”.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-fukushima-anniversa...