Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%:
The world's biggest carmaker had planned to make almost 900,000 cars next month, but has now reduced that to 540,000 vehicles.
Volkswagen, the world's second-biggest car producer, has warned it may also be forced to cut output further.
The Covid pandemic boosted demand for appliances that use chips, such as phones, TVs and games consoles.
On Thursday, German firm Volkswagen, which cut output earlier in the year, told Reuters: "We currently expect supply of chips in the third quarter to be very volatile and tight.
"We can't rule out further changes to production."
Toyota's other rivals, including General Motors, Ford, Nissan, Daimler, BMW and Renault, have already scaled back production in the face of the global chip shortage.
[...] New cars often include dozens of microchips but Toyota benefited from having built a larger stockpile of chips - also called semiconductors - as part of a revamp to its business continuity plan, developed in the wake of the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami a decade ago.
The decision to cut production now has been precipitated by the resurgence of coronavirus cases across Asia hitting supplies.
[...] The aim for Toyota as a whole was to make up for any lost volume by the end of 2021, he added.
[...] Shares in Toyota fell by 4.4% on Thursday, their biggest daily drop since December 2018.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:28AM (1 child)
8========m===========D ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~
Blame it on the rain! Ya Ya
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @04:37PM
One would think that would be the pure example of something deserving a Spam mod. Why so shy?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:31AM
yeah that feels good Yoda,
don't stop
I love it
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:38AM
Coming to a supermarket near you.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:43AM (7 children)
Old man looks up from pointing his timing gun at the pulley while turning the distributor cap and says, "SHORTAGE OF WHAT? HAHAHAH".
OK, she's all tuned up now... gotta go pump $100 worth of gas in. Nothing is perfect.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Rich26189 on Saturday August 21 2021, @12:20PM (5 children)
It's a timing light not timing gun. And that was only done after pulling and plugging the vacuum advance hose and setting the idle speed to whatever the spec's called for. Rub a little chalk into the timing mark to better see it in the dark. Roughly gap the points to get the engine running, later use a dwell meter (set to 4, 6 or 8) to get it closer. Before all that install new plugs, points, rotor, cap and "condenser"? Don't have the specs for the gaps on the points and plugs? It was said that "1935" would be close enough to get a 6 running. (No feeler gauges, use a paper match to gap the plugs). Tweak the timing, dwell and idle speed until you're happy. Remember to reattach the vacuum hose.
(Score: 2) by HammeredGlass on Saturday August 21 2021, @07:04PM (3 children)
The one I own looks like it was a Buck Rodgers gun prop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @10:58PM (2 children)
Yeah, this. GP had to get all pedantic about the ol' tune-up procedure and that's fine; but I never saw a timing light that wasn't gun-like in appearance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 22 2021, @03:55AM
Yes, most of them look gun like, some much more gun like than others, but in the trade they are called "timing lights" not "timing guns".
(Score: 2) by Rich26189 on Sunday August 22 2021, @02:28PM
I wasn't getting all "pedantic" I was reminiscing 8ˆ)
As HG said above, mine too looks like a Buck Rogers' prop gun. I wonder if there's an automotive museum that would take the timing light and dwell meter? Probably not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 22 2021, @06:15PM
Ahh, the mystery of the female orgasm solved.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Saturday August 21 2021, @11:25PM
Jokes on you. There's a rubber shortage too, even your old clunker needs tires :p
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36312124/tire-shortage-possible/ [caranddriver.com]
FWIW, I couldn't get the the right tires for my bike this summer.
(Brake parts were impossible to find too.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MIRV888 on Saturday August 21 2021, @10:25AM (3 children)
On demand delivery looks pretty f*cking stupid now.
It always did.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday August 21 2021, @11:28AM
And now we have a bunch of hungry grasshoppers [read.gov].
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Saturday August 21 2021, @11:31PM (1 child)
The current supply chain disruptions are now being measured not in weeks, or even months, but years. Even if you were doing classical warehousing instead of a JIT delivery stream strategy for your components, you'd still be screwed.
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Saturday August 28 2021, @04:03AM
Better than no inventory. It's that or domestic production of semiconductors. We both know that ship has sailed.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @12:23PM (5 children)
This is going to get a whole lot worse
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday August 21 2021, @12:43PM (4 children)
When that happens:
1. plenty of jobs leave China and come home
2. NATO engages too
Neither of them would be to Winnie the Pooh's liking - bad luck, enough of his population have now tertiary degrees. That's dynamite [medium.com] (communism in East Europe fell because of this too - among others).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @12:54PM (3 children)
If China invades Taiwan with force, then mutually assured TSMC timeout for all, including China seems likely to follow.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Saturday August 21 2021, @01:36PM (1 child)
True, but that will result in a transient stage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants#Open_plants [wikipedia.org]
https://www.reuters.com/technology/chipmaker-tsmc-eyeing-expansion-planned-arizona-plant-sources-2021-05-04/ [reuters.com]
https://www.crn.com.au/news/japanese-companies-to-develop-chipmaking-technology-with-tsmc-565309 [crn.com.au]
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/TSMC-eyes-Germany-as-possible-location-for-first-Europe-chip-plant [nikkei.com]
With a caveat https://itwire.com/manufacturing-technology/tsmc-founder-casts-doubts-on-success-of-planned-arizona-plant.html [itwire.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @05:52PM
Competent workers are available anywhere if a fair or better-than-fair wage is offered - people will even move to a different state for a good job - seeing that they are already complaining about the supply of workers may be a good warning from them that this is not the workplace you are seeking
(Score: 2) by Acabatag on Saturday August 21 2021, @03:50PM
They used to be called 'fabless vendors' and it was looked down on. That was when most major chip vendors maintained their own fabs, though.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dcollins55 on Saturday August 21 2021, @04:25PM (12 children)
Umm, what? How about "modern journalists - idiots who don't bother with even a google search before writing on a subject"
Ah yes, Toyota's business plan was developed "in the wake of" an earthquake and a tsunami. In fact, all this text reads like it was written by someone in a high school english class trying to sound smart, or a soylent comment.
What's weird is it's a BBC article. My theory, precipitated by the equivalence of myself as a journalist to the article's author, and in the wake of the resurgence of coronavirus cases across Asia hitting supplies, is that we should read this article:
https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/19/22632330/toyota-production-japan-north-america-chip-shortage-ford-tesla-gm-vw [theverge.com]
which starts with a much more informed title.
No, Toyota is not cutting production in their factories by 40%. It's doing that in its factories in two contries - USA and Japan. Here's the full list of countries where they have car factories, most of which are not cutting production.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_factories [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by captain normal on Saturday August 21 2021, @06:15PM (4 children)
Mostly an informative post, except for a bit quoting out of context.
The relevant two paragraphs you may have skimmed over in the BBC article are:
"Until now, Toyota had managed to avoid doing the same, with the exception of extending summer shutdowns by a week in France the Czech Republic and Turkey.
New cars often include dozens of microchips but Toyota benefited from having built a larger stockpile of chips - also called semiconductors - as part of a revamp to its business continuity plan, developed in the wake of the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami a decade ago."
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @06:35PM (3 children)
Mostly a strawman post.
Title: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
This is false. Period. They cut production by 40% in 2 countries only, not globally.
I also don't see what context negates the article's simple and wrong claim that "chips" are also called "semiconductors". This is simply false.
You make a claim and then spend two paragraphs do zero to support it. That's because your claim, like the article title and the claim that a semiconductor is a chip, is simply false.
Try again.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @07:00PM (2 children)
My theory, predicated on the observation of endless contrarian assburgers on this site correlated with tedious protests of informal fallacies whenever they encounter the slightest criticism of their pointless ravings, is that you are an asshole.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @07:44PM (1 child)
>assburgers
You spelled that wrong. Judging by that word soup you barfed up, you clearly have something else.
Asperger's Syndrome, a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @11:08PM
Assburger detected.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 22 2021, @12:25PM (6 children)
How do you know they're not cutting production elsewhere? Sorry, a business massively cutting production in some places probably is cutting in others too, maybe even more. It's something like inferring from the cockroaches scuttling across my floor, that there must not be cockroaches scuttling around in the places where I'm not looking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 22 2021, @06:24PM
Trump would offer them free cash money to stay open. Biden hates jobs. Amirite?
(Score: 1) by dcollins55 on Sunday August 22 2021, @08:24PM (4 children)
How do you know there's no god, unless you prove there's no god?
Because when they announce "we're cutting production by 40% in Japan and the USA", no rational person assumes "they're cutting production globally". Then there's you. The real question is, how do you know they're cutting production elsewhere? You are free to think what you want. A journalist like in the original article, can't take a little conspiracy theory based on zero released information, and publish it as fact. We call news sources that do that tabloids. The BBC is usually not a tabloid.
There's a difference between you stating "there may be other cockroaches scuttling around" and you stating as fact: I see 3 cockroaches in the kitchen, so there are 233 more under the floor, and 16 in the cupboard. Why? Because how do you know there aren't.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 23 2021, @02:46AM (3 children)
What does "cut production globally" mean here? And who made that claim?
Toyota just announced that they're cutting back. Conspiracies are covert.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 23 2021, @03:12AM
If global production goes from 900k to 540k, that's a cut. And given that it was announced, it's not a conspiracy either.
(Score: 1) by dcollins55 on Monday August 23 2021, @07:02AM (1 child)
>What does "cut production globally" mean here?
Cut production globally means exactly what it says it does. It does not mean cut it by 40% in two of the 20 countries they have factories.
>And who made that claim?
Did you even bother reading the first line of the this submission, or the title of the linked article?
"Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%"
I seriously don't know what to tell you here. I do know I'm not going to bother reading the rest of your post, or your reply to this comment. You seem to be putting in zero effort into the conversation, and there is a high chance you don't know where you are right now, or what year it is.
Take care good sir, and good luck with all that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 23 2021, @12:31PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 22 2021, @03:38AM (1 child)
This didn't count for mom-and-pop shops, but many larger concerns were thoroughly vertically integrated until various regulators and assorted useful idiots supporting them declared that approach, rather than brute scale was the problem. You can still find it here and there, but arguments about economy-wide efficiencies, rather than industrial stability took hold and won out.
A lot of ideas that were darlings of the second half of the 20th century's encroaching modernism and (on the marketing front, mostly) post-modernism and (on the regulatory front) progressivism are shown to be the chocolate easter bunnies that the grognards warned they'd be. They look promising in the foil, but hollow inside and generally flavoured with disappointment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 22 2021, @06:26PM
You should buy the ones with candies inside. Can't believe you take Easter eggs so seriously... grow up, son, Jesus is not real.