Well, it's apparently the car mfgs' own fault, as the supply of chips didn't just stop production. Yes, it slowed, but it was a case of shifting demand due to the lockdown. It was a multi-step confluence that caught the automakers with their pants down.
- Car mfgs saw the economy slowing, so they slowed, then stopped, production lines.
- Due to "just in time" mfg, this meant the # of chips going to automakers were free to go elsewhere....
- ....And those chips did - into the increased demand for electronics as people were suddenly working from home or were out of work and locked down.
- One analyst in a TV interview commented that he saw electronics mfgs in mid-2020 were stockpiling all the chips they could buy because demand just kept building.
- Now the automakers are ramping back up, but so is everyone else. Appliance mfgs, equipment mfgs, etc., all use those chips as well.
- Chip makers have struggled with their own supply chain/COVID slowdown restrictions, so even a small reduction in supply causes pain everywhere, because demand is simultaneous across the board.
Great article on this situation from LGUS:
Why a silicon chip shortage has left carmakers in the slow lane
A global dearth of these vital components, and a reliance on just-in-time manufacturing, has put the motor industry in a tricky spot
London Guardian U.S. by John Naughton 05 Jun 2021
(free access)
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-shortage-has-left-carmakers-in-the-slow-lane
(excerpt) Here’s a tale of two industries – cars and computers. In February, major car manufacturers such as Nissan and Honda began to warn shareholders that revenues were likely to fall significantly below expectations. And the reason wasn’t Covid-19 – well, not directly anyway: the pandemic had already significantly depressed sales in 2020. No, the problem was that manufacturers were now unable to make some cars because they couldn’t get the silicon chips (processors and other semiconductor components) needed to get the vehicles rolling off production lines. As a result, some factories were temporarily closing or being put on short time.
Meanwhile, in the same month, the computer industry was looking at a record year. Laptop sales were up 90% year on year. Tablet sales had recovered after a long slump. Even desktop computers and printers, for heaven’s sake, were flying off shelves and into delivery vans. So how did it happen that one industry struggled while another boomed?
The answer is that both had found themselves caught in a perfect storm that one had weathered and the other hadn’t. This storm bought three forces simultaneously to bear on an unprepared world: the fragility of a global supply chain on which both industries critically depended, the exigencies of US-China geopolitics and a pandemic that, more or less overnight, transformed the way large parts of the industrialised world worked.