Chip shortage aggravates the impact of production reduction and shutdown by car companies.

The chip shortage crisis, which has spread since the end of 2020, has become a new topic after carbon neutralization. In the past half a year, under the crisis of "lack of core", news of production suspension occurred frequently in the automobile industry, including Volkswagen, Hyundai, Ford, General Motors, Toyota and other well-known brands, and many enterprises, including Volkswagen, Hyundai, Ford, General Motors, Toyota and other well-known brands, were more or less affected. It is not uncommon to announce the suspension of production in turn.

(AlixPartners), a consultancy, estimates that the chip shortage will cost the global auto industry $60.6 billion in revenue this year, affecting carmakers to varying degrees.

It is worth mentioning that US car sales rose 11.3 per cent in the first three months of 2021, thanks to stimulus measures and a backlog of demand caused by the weather in February, according to industry data firm Wards Intelligence. Among them, many companies, such as GM, Toyota, Honda, Ford, Hyundai and Stellantis, have made great achievements in the American market.

However, due to the global shortage of semiconductor chips, future car sales still face a lot of challenges. These companies, which performed particularly well in March, announced at the end of March that they would cut production or even stop production.

Volkswagen:

In early December 2020, Volkswagen publicly announced that it would adjust car production in China, North America and Europe due to chip shortages, and decided to lay off 10,000 employees to ease the pressure of suspending production. During a 2020 earnings call on March 16th, Volkswagen Group CEO Destan said that Volkswagen had lost 100000 vehicles in the global market in the first two months of this year due to chip shortages, and Deiss admitted that the chip shortage was expected to continue for some time.

General:

On March 24, GM had to extend production cuts in North America because of a shortage of chips, after it had expected to lose up to $2 billion in profits this year. GM spokesman David Barnas said the company had included the losses caused by the shutdown in its previous estimates. But GM did not disclose the specific sales losses caused by the production cuts.

Ford:

In early January 2021, Ford announced that it had to stop production at its Kentucky plant because of chip shortages, and on March 25, Ford announced that it would stop production at a commercial vehicle plant in Ohio because of chip shortages. According to incomplete statistics, the lack of core affected six Ford plants in North America, including the plant in Dearborn, Michigan, which makes Fmur150 pickup trucks, which will stop production for two weeks in April and cancel four weeks of overtime. The canceled overtime involved April, May and June.

Stellantis:

In late March, Stellantis announced that it would suspend production at five of its car factories in North America because of a shortage of chips.

Honda:

Honda announced on March 24 that it would extend the suspension of production at some factories in North America by a week "due to the novel coronavirus epidemic, port congestion, chip shortages and the cold weather of the past few weeks".

Toyota:

Toyota's four major plants in Brazil have stopped production due to the epidemic, and its plant in Colin, Czech Republic has stopped production for 14 days since March 22 because of a shortage of chips.

Volvo:

On March 17, Volvo said it would temporarily suspend or adjust car production in China and the United States due to a shortage of spare parts in March due to a global shortage of semiconductor chips.

Modern:

On March 29th Hyundai closed its factory for a week because of a shortage of chips.

Weilai:

On March 29, Xilai announced that production at the JAC plant in Hefei would be suspended for five working days due to a shortage of chips.

Suzuki:

On April 3, two of Suzuki's three factories in Japan will temporarily suspend production due to a shortage of semiconductor chips, according to the Nikkei News.

The above-mentioned enterprises are only some of the car companies that have suffered under the "core shortage tide". In addition, many enterprises, such as Tesla, Subaru, Nissan and so on, are also unable to escape the fate of reducing production and suspending production.

IHS Markit estimates that nearly 1 million cars will have to be delayed in the first quarter of 2021. Bernstein, an international research institute, said frankly that in 2021, the global auto market will reduce production by about 4.5 million vehicles due to chip problems, which is about 5% of global car production.

From the above, it is not difficult to see that the current situation of the global chip shortage has had a great impact on the automotive industry, so when will the chip crisis be alleviated?

, IHS Markit had predicted that the supply of automotive chips would gradually return to normal in the third quarter, while Citic Securities expected the shortage of chips to continue into the fourth quarter of 2021, when supply and demand were the most tight in the first two quarters of 2021. CEO, the largest contract chip manufacturer in the US, responded more seriously, warning that the wave of core shortages could continue until 2022 or later.

According to the semiconductor industry association, the United States' contribution to global semiconductor manufacturing has now dropped from 37% in 1990 to 12% today, which to some extent reflects the current trend of hollowing out of the US manufacturing industry.

Hex, the latest news on April 4, Japan's Kyodo News Agency reported that Japan's Asahi Kasei Company revealed on April 3 that it was currently discussing whether to give up repairing the semiconductor factory in Yonoka City, Miyazaki Prefecture, because of the serious damage caused by the fire. plans to rebuild new factories in the future. Once this decision is adopted, it may further aggravate the global shortage of semiconductors. At that time, the automobile industry will be deeply affected.

However, it is gratifying that under the circumstances that some semiconductor manufacturers have stopped production and the supply and demand of chips has tightened due to Earthquake, fire and other reasons, many manufacturers have expanded production one after another. TSMC had previously said that it would invest US $100 billion in the next three years to expand capacity; Intel also announced on March 23rd that it would invest US $20 billion in two new fabs in Arizona and planned to become a major supplier of chip foundry business in Europe and the United States.

GE Core, the largest chip contract manufacturer in the United States after TSMC and Samsung, also plans to invest 1.4 billion US dollars in chip factories this year and double the investment next year to boost the supply of semiconductor chips after expressing concern about the global lack of cores.

On the other hand, in the US $2.25 trillion infrastructure stimulus package just proposed by Biden, a considerable amount of money has also been invested in the semiconductor sector. When Biden disclosed the plan, he asked Congress to provide 50 billion US dollars in subsidies to promote semiconductor production in the United States; the Nikkei Asia Review also reported that the governments of the United States and Japan will cooperate to ensure the supply chain of strategic technology components such as semiconductors, and hope to reach a supply chain agreement when the heads of state of the United States and Japan meet in mid-April.

According to SEMI, North American semiconductor equipment shipments in February 2021 were $3.135 billion, an increase of 32% over the same period last year; according to the Japan Semiconductor Manufacturing Devices Association, semiconductor equipment shipments in Japan in February 2021 were 187.516 billion yen, an increase of 9% over the same period last year.

Galaxy Securities expects that, taking into account the construction cycle of the new production line, SEMI expects that the future semiconductor equipment boom will last until 2022: the global semiconductor equipment market is expected to reach US $71.9 billion in 2021, an increase of 15.5% over the same period last year. The market size of semiconductor equipment in mainland China is expected to exceed US $16.8 billion, accounting for about 23% of the global market; and the global semiconductor equipment market is expected to exceed US $80 billion in 2022.

It is worth mentioning that in the context of the global lack of core, BYD, Geely and Xiaopeng, as well as ideal cars, are still "self-sufficient". One of the most affected Geely, on March 24 Geely 2020 earnings conference, Geely Automobile Group Chairman an Conghui said that the chip shortage has not yet had an impact on Geely, but whether it will be affected in the future. It's not clear yet. However, due to the shortage of chips, Geely's production plan, which was originally made every three months, has now been changed to the frequency of hourly adjustment. Gu Hongdi, president of Xiaopeng Automobile, previously revealed that "Xiaopeng's chip supply can be maintained for two to three months and will not be affected in the short term." Ideal car, although also facing the impact of chip supply shortage, but does not threaten its original production plan.

BYD is the most "comfortable" car company under the wave of lack of cores. As the only car company in China with a complete industrial chain of IGBT technology, BYD has now mastered a number of core technologies, including chip design, wafer manufacturing, testing, packaging and so on. It has even been reported that BYD has more power to support other automakers in the context of a global lack of cores.

At present, the chip shortage is still continuing, as for the future trend, SMM will continue to follow up.