EU carmakers ‘days away’ from halting work as chip war with China escalates

[jfoonly]

From the Guardian

Carmakers in the EU are “days away” from closing production lines, the industry has warned, as a crisis over computer chip supplies from China escalates.

The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) issued an urgent warning on Wednesday saying its members, which include BMW, Fiat, Peugeot and Volkswagen, were now working on “reserve stocks but supplies are dwindling”.
...
The chip shortage is also causing problems in Japan, where Nissan’s chief performance officer, Guillaume Cartier, told reporters at a car show in Tokyo that the company was only “OK to the first week of November” in terms of supply.

Beijing banned exports of Nexperia chips near the start of the month in response to the Dutch government’s decision to take over the Netherlands-headquartered company on 30 September and suspend its Chinese chief executive after the US flagged security concerns.

Also, Volkswagen indicates shortage of Chinese chips would hit profits

The situation seems mostly political, so will be hard to discuss, but it will be interesting to see what happens.

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[COdogman]

The chip supply chain is the new oil cartel. What a disaster.

 

[jfoonly]

Yeah, and we've certainly seen how fragile a single source supply chain is the last 5 years, especially with varying politics. It may have been cost efficient; hopefully companies will learn a lesson on sustaining production.

 

[jfoonly]

It seems the chips, or components, are actually made in the EU and shipped to China for packaging then back to EU auto makers. ??

Nexperia halts chip supplies to China in threat to global car production

Nexperia, the EU-based automotive chipmaker at the centre of a geopolitical dispute, has suspended supplies to its Chinese factory, stepping up a trade war that threatens to halt production at carmakers around the world.
...
An extended blockade threatens the supply chain, because many Nexperia products manufactured in Europe – including the wafers from which chips are cut – were previously shipped to the Chinese factory for packaging and distribution.

 

[HaveBlue]

Wait til the Netherlands goes full tilt at asml

 

[Donald Stanfield]

China has been embedding hard-coded backdoors in all these chips to steal data or who knows what else. That is the security concern; essentially, all chips manufactured there, except for products like Apple silicon, can be compromised by the CCP. Coming from a country that openly rips off others' designs, these accusations don't surprise me, and they have been consistent from both the previous US administration and the current one.

IMO, we've put up with China's blatant IP theft for far too long, and something must be done about it.

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