i dont think some of yall realize how small Singapore is and how big some of US cities are. Underground rail is not going to be impractical when everything is so spread out. Singapore has huge population density. If you want this underground rail, be prepared to be living on top of other people in ultra dense cities.

 

Yeah no thanks. The vastness of our country is one of the best parts. If you want stacked on top of each other, move to Manhattan. If you want home with a nice yard, etc. live in the terrible flyover country the coast people never stop crapping on. If you want acres where you can stand naked on your porch and shoot guns off (I kind of like this idea), move to pretty much any rural area.

 

The point is, a lot of city dwellers refuse to use the public transit even when they have access to it and insist on using personal vehicles. For instance, my shop is one block from a subway station and most of my employees live near the subway, yet almost all of them drive to work. It boggles my mind having to pay for the car, insurance, gas, waste time in traffic, looking for parking when the subway is so much more convenient. Or the complete and utter clusterpluck of the morning and afternoon school run, when there are hordes of minivans quadruple parked near every school, popping random u-turns and turning the streets into a complete chaos.

The only way to incentivize people to be saved from themselves it to make cars more expensive, perhaps the Singapore approach with extremely high annual taxes.

 

Well, I don't want to ride on a smelly, scummy subway. But your own car in NYC, you could definitely do without.

There is no public transportation in Knoxville other than a few bus lines and some trolleys at UT. I also like my cars, there's a reason I don't live in a super huge city (LA sucked after a few months). It would be very unfair to penalize people like me.

 

Registration fees should be regional, of course somewhere in Knoxville a car is a necessity, but in NYC it is a nuisance for most people. I do own a car, and I'd gladly pay higher fees if it reduces traffic so I can get around my business quicker. We were already supposed to have congestion fee in NYC and then it fell through because of the pandemic, and they are just starting talking about it again.

 

Ha....Great post. I love it.

 

Ok folks, back to the chip shortage.

 

Are we almost out of the woods as far as the chip shortage goes? I want to see used car prices start to drop.

 

Well, cities are overcrowded, partly because long ago all of our manufacturing was sold out to China and there are not many opportunities in many parts of the country, so people flock to the cities. Hopefully something good is going to come from all the shortages were experiencing, if manufacturing, including semiconductors, return to the US and revives the rust belt and other depressed regions.

 

No, all the predictions indicate that it will last at least through the entire 2022.

 

keep in mind the chips car makers use are the lower profit margin older chips for the semiconductor manufacturer. So they arent in exactly a hurry to ramp up production when other higher profit margin chips are in demand. Plus the drought in taiwan where a semiconductor plant has massive demand for water isnt helping. Typically yearly typhoons would replenish taiwans reservoirs, but they didnt have them this year. Couldnt come at a worse time

 

Which is why we need to manufacture these chips in the US. A lot of lower powered chips cost cents to manufacturer, so even if something that costs 20 cents to manufacture overseas starts to cost 2 dollars to manufacture at home, even if there are a few hundred of these, is the impact on the cost of a car going to be that significant?

 

Of course the world still hasn’t fully reopened; maybe getting worse? Wafer fab production facilities are ramping to catch up with the worldwide need for microchips.
2022 will show significant improvements, but I have to believe "normal" supply will happen in 2023 IF things go well.
Production will improve, but what about the supply chain?

Pandemics, floods, fires, bad forecasting, technology shifts and politics are all part of the puzzle. Nothing operates in a vacuum.
Expect higher prices due to scarcity across the board.

Personally, I was hoping to buy another Tesla within a year, but Tesla is in the same boat as everybody else. Right?

 

did you watch the video? China's been hoarding chips. i agree that more semiconductors should be made in 'friendlier' places.

 

And? If microcontrollers and the like were made primarily in the United States would you complain if most of those ended up going to U.S. based industry? China is doing what is best for China.