The future of the auto industry depends heavily on chip supply as more and more technology is incorporated into cars and the manufacturing focus shifts towards electric and self-driving cars.
An electric car uses an average of about 3,000 chips, which means an electric car will need more than twice as many chips as a non-electric car.
Moreover, 95% of chips are imported, and the entire market is basically monopolized by foreign chip manufacturers, such as Renesas, NXP, Infineon, Texas Instruments, Microchip, STMicroelectronics, etc. These foreign companies are automotive chips giant.
So why is the number of automotive chips produced in China so low? The reason is that the requirements for automotive chips are too high, and the threshold is quite high.
Automotive chips need automotive-grade chips, which have very high requirements for performance indicators, service life, reliability, safety, and quality consistency, far exceeding that of consumer electronics chips such as mobile phone Soc and CPU.
Because the car is used in harsher conditions, such as high and low temperature environments, high vibration, high dust, and electromagnetic interference, and even wind and sun exposure, the service life is generally 15-20 years, and it must also meet the requirements for automotive chips. Yes, various stringent certification standards. The analysis agency AFS (Auto Forecast Solutions) said that the reason for the reduction in global car production is the shortage of chips, and the estimated loss of vehicles caused by the shortage of chips has been raised to 3.3 million.
Even if the auto industry strives to reduce the negative impact of chip shortages, the global auto market is still unavoidable against the backdrop of repeated epidemics and rising chip prices. According to the latest data from AutoForecast Solutions, in 2021, the global auto market will reduce production by about 10.2 million vehicles due to chip shortages.
Among the major regions, production in North America decreased by 3.178 million units, in Europe by 2.954 million units, in China by 1.982 million units, in the rest of Asia by 1.74 million units, in South America by 355,000 units, and in the Middle East/Africa combined by 62,000 units. Among them, Asia will be the region with the most severe reduction in automobile production in 2021, with a total reduction of more than 3.6 million vehicles.
