> there's nothing unpredictable about the supply chain if you don't cancel your orders
Unless there's a fire at an AKM plant. Or a fire at a Renesas plant. Or a drought in Taiwan. Or blackouts in Texas.
When you're running at low utilization, lead times are shorter and the market is more forgiving of order alterations and incorrect predictions of demand. But that's not the case right now, and there have been several exogenous setbacks for the sector.
Fair points re: disruptions... but you will have those issues anywhere in factories run by any company. I was responding to the implication that there's anything inherently unpredictable in the chip companies being foreign. My point was that the autos are uniquely screwed vs. many other customers of the chip companies due to their own decisions and actions.
Regarding utilization rates, that's probably where most of my snarkiness was coming from: the autos knew demand was high before they cancelled their orders and they chose to do so anyways. I'm sure they had every right to do what they did (contractual language allowing for cancellations etc), but when you step out of line for whatever reason it should come as no surprise that when you decide that you want to be in line after all that you're going to now be at the back of it. This has nothing to do with an unpredictable supply chain and everything to do with an unpredictable customer who didn't plan properly. Yet the story gets played up as the failure of a brittle supply chain.
Unless there's a fire at an AKM plant. Or a fire at a Renesas plant. Or a drought in Taiwan. Or blackouts in Texas.
When you're running at low utilization, lead times are shorter and the market is more forgiving of order alterations and incorrect predictions of demand. But that's not the case right now, and there have been several exogenous setbacks for the sector.