Chips act passes congress. Are the automakers going to grab the brass ring being offered and form at least two chip manufacturing entities?

[scotman]

Or, are they going to take a wait and see attitude, continue to lose production volume and hope that someone else will step up and create the future chip supply for the industry?

My guess is that they are going to sit on their hands until the absolute last possible moment!

 

[LionsTooth]

It's the way we do things as a species....overall, we are not very proactive.

 

[Handy Andy]

They're too busy looking down while at the stop light for the chips to arrive - they're checking their Facebook status on their phones while they wait.

They don't know how to make the chips, and people at Intel lost their edge to AMD and China - so we will have to start all over again.

We can do this, just no one wants to invest - unless we go back and look at the lessons learned in the NASA space program.

 

[scotman]

I believe that the manufacturers are blinded by their own cheapness. They love the idea of putting components out for bid. Along with the responsibility for QC and almost all of the supply chain. About ten years ago an engineer told me that the ultimate goal was to have everything including the assembly outsourced! He laughed and added that perhaps the manufacturer might have their people oversee the VIN assignment and post assembly inspection!
The reality is that they are trying to get their respective suppliers to get back to producing the old, slow an cheap but reliable chips they have been using. The chip makers are taking the opportunity of the shutdown to retool and leave the old shit behind. They have many other buyers who want the new and faster chips. The auto industry don't have the same leverage on price and quantities anymore. If they don't create their own sources, they will be slaves to the market forces of demand for every single consumer product that has smart tech built into it.

 

[Handy Andy]

Hmm...Am I going to see older mechanical systems stick around longer?

This might be a boom for the 3rd party markets that cater to the aftermarket and used car realms.

Many of the chips for OE now are clones of each other - but before that - much of the OBD 1 platform was proprietary to the maker - maker specific. OBDII and their support require the chips that we are short on.

Now because of their (OEM makers) cheap approach to logistics and the supply chain reduction - I think it would be prudent to go back to the know what works and stick with it. I can see several lessons being learned here. But, to do that, they also are getting pressure from the Electric markets and so much of the new market is on the power supply and chassis of the Electric - but Electric has its power to weight ratios and the number of kWh/mile costs to make it move.

We haven't even addressed their influence on the power grid demands and more than likely they may never be met. It may help with adding charging stations, but that only helps with tourism, and then that is not going to work if everyone else is too cheap to hook up at home and use the stations ahead of the tourists - I can see where fights might break out over this. Just like the gas lines back in the Embargo days of the 70's.

That opens another can of worms regarding whom will have access to energy - this is a free country at last check - which meant you were not being forced into turning off your power to afford the gas - but there are signs that we may not be as free as we once believed.

The electrical market still is in the stranglehold of the electronics needed to move these vehicles - right now the Chinese and East realms are doing better because they don't - or didn't have the regulatory stranglehold that put us in this mess.
But then this puts them (Eastern and Asian) at an advantage over the electronics side, but we have the advantage of the resources side, that regulatory issues prevent us from touching.

At the current time - if you own an older car - you're in a better position - especially if the body is in good shape - the latest rounds of new chips and their fallout made the mess we have today for the newer cars is what holds much of the new car market buyers as hostages. You pay the price if you want to own it.

It is because of that result in the above paragraph - does the issue of re-sale/refurbish/rebuild of older vehicles becomes a lucrative market - it has been getting larger in volume of sales and in maintenance - it is cheaper to keep your car due to the "chips" are driving the costs and availability of the chips makes inflation seem tame - are those chips really necessary?

This comes down to how policies that handle the electric and fossil fuels are being handled and their futures and both have their emissions and total energy required to make and operate - usage problems that has to go into making these things work. There are several areas of conflict - so someone is not addressing the issues correctly. The outcome is not the best for both, for one side finds comfort in low emissions but high costs to build, versus the lower cost to build but uses a fossilized energy source. This goes to the realm of the diplomats - their policies will be overridden by the next one that comes along. It's by popular pressures does the wheels of technology advance - but as more hold onto their investments - the wheel doesn't stagnate; it still turns but for a different reason; of preservation of a way of life and a standard of living.

We do live in interesting times.

 

[scotman]

There is a couple of court battles being waged on the subject of "right to repair" and secondarily the reach of the manufacturers to control the access to the technology. That second one is germain to wether or not we will have any right or access to a non Ford repair of that Sync or My ford touch or Sync3 that takes up the middle of our instrument panels!
My guess is that they will do everything possible to prevent any "field service" or "independent vendor" from stepping into the void and mitigating the plan of making it obsolete.
The old stuff MUST be made obsolete and either unusable or very compromised.
Any reasonable degree of functionality is a threat to the idea of creating a turn and churn leasing scheme.

 

[Handy Andy]

To help with the example,

The "PHONE" and Satellite menu portions have or are, being made obsolete by the shutting down of 3G systems to make way for the 5G and its support.

So, we lose one, but keep BT to allow the newer phones access to dial - but the "Standalones" that used 3G support is getting turned off.

So, what is the big deal?

911 assist uses 3G - an example would be those standalone blue beacons were originally set for 3G - and are now upgraded, but I don't see Ford offering such an upgrade.

Not a big deal if you don't use phones while driving, you still have the redundant of the 911 in the phone itself - but it may not work if you are in a crash. That is what is in jeopardy - any sort of 3G support that Fiestas have, now is considered deprecated so that relates back to SYNC and its ability to maintain its integrity - is in jeopardy.

 

[scotman]

I don't have much depth of knowledge about the inner workings. But, i have watched the compatibility of my cell phone with my sync3 Fiesta totally evaporate. Since the upgrade to the latest iteration of the network i am on. It's so bad that I have just switched to an Apple phone and changed carriers. The new one works with sync3.
My Android, the smartphone I post here with is extremely glitchy now. If i can't get it to be less troublesome i will take a sledgehammer to it.