There is a global shortage of computer chips, and few industries have been hit harder by it than the auto industry.
There are dozens of chips used in a car. They are in the airbag control units, the electronic brake systems, and numerous other places throughout a modern automobile.
The pandemic, and the freeze in Texas last winter created a world-wide shortage that the world is still trying to recover from.
According to a feature in Fortune, the makers of the chips are telling the leaders of car companies it’s time to wake up and modernize. The CEO of Intel is Pat Gelsinger. He told Fortune that the car companies have begged him to invest in semiconductors that are considered obsolete in the tech world. In other words, the auto industry continues to demand old model chips, while the chip makers would prefer to help them modernize.
Here’s a quote from Gelsinger in Fortune.
“It just makes no economic or strategic sense. Rather than spending billions on new ‘old’ fabs, let’s spend millions to help migrate designs to modern ones.”
The past year provided almost a perfect storm of disastrous conditions that led to the world-wide shortage of chips. On top of the aforementioned pandemic and cold snap in Texas, there was a fire at a chip supplier in Japan.
Because of this, over 9 million cars might not be able to be produced this year. That’s over 10% of a typical output for a year. And the reason for it is because of the industry’s reliance on an inexpensive chip that is outdated.
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