The Silicon Shortage Spreads To Cars

Hope You Weren’t Thinking Of Putting That GPU Money Towards A New Card

The global shortage of chips is spreading, it isn’t just about that new CPU or GPU anymore but will also have a significant impact on automakers in 2021.  Today is news that Daimler, Nissan, Honda and Ford are all facing shortages of silicon which is going to reduce the amount of new cars they will be able to ship, at least for the beginning of the year.

With the supply chain being hit again, after trying to recover from 2020, the space in the production lines of chip fabrication plants is very limited.  When you consider that just about everything you will use today has at least a few semiconductors in it, as well as the limited amount of sources for them you can take heart that there is supply out there even though it is limited.  There may be fallout from this, if fabs find they can make more money off of these chips, they may not renew contracts for the processors they are currently making, which could spell bad news for enthusiasts down the road.  That graphics card you picked up has a lot of electrical components above and beyond the GPU, which may well be affected by this.

For complex systems such as a car, where even your trunk release requires a processor even a few parts which can’t be sourced in large volumes means that cars cannot come off the assembly line and head to market.  Currently automakers are doing their best to shift production to models that they can source parts for reliably, though even still you can expect the volume to drop.  Of all the lines, those producing electric cars will be hit the hardest due to the complexity of their electronics systems.

Let’s not think about the chips the robots making the cars need, at least for now.