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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Chips are mostly made in Asia. Asia had very strict lockdowns during COVID, so that disrupted production.

Demand is waaaaaaay up for chips, since you need them for everything from engines, to in-dash screen infotainment, to your power adjustable seats. Lots of chips in a single car. Automakers are competing TV, cell phone, industrial users, etc for chips.

The US is building new chip factories here to prevent this from happening again. But it will take a few years.[/quote]
Lockdowns in Korea/Taiwan were not the issue. The issue is that because new auto sales went down in 2020 (partially due to lockdowns in places that assemble cars, partially due to reduced new car demand), the automotive vendors reduced their future reserve capacity on semiconductor production lines. That reserve production capacity has now been contracted to others, and there is a spike in automotive demand. But there is now no semiconductor production capacity for them to buy.

Not a bad explanation from a Toyota dealership: https://www.toyotaofnorthcharlotte.com/research/the-car-chip-shortage-explained/

[quote]The COVID-19 pandemic totally messed up forecasting for goods. Back in March of 2020, shutdowns and quarantines kicked off. Automotive manufacturers figured that this would lead to a lower demand for new cars; due to that assumption, they forecasted fewer sales and as such, canceled chip orders. Unfortunately, they were wrong. Demand dropped temporarily, but it bounced right back up… and the car chips weren’t there, which means the car chip shortage began.[/quote][/quote]

Yes, in other parts of the world, there were chip shortages and automobile shortages.  The pandemic and the changing forecast of automakers in America (or at least ones that sell in America), allowed the chip production allocations to go to other countries who snapped them up in the 18 months that US based automakers were decreasing production plans.  Once they decided to return production to earlier forecasting models, there was no supply to buy anymore.  So, this will continue for at least a couple of years until US based chip manufacturing can be built and come on-line to start to ease the backlog.  I would guess at least three years, give or take.[/quote]

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