As a result of a great shortage of automotive chips in 2021, several of the world’s largest automotive companies have turned to the Taiwanese government for help.
The US auto industry recently met with Taiwan’s representative in the US, hoping that Taiwan would ensure priority supply of automotive chips to US car manufacturers (Ford, GM, Chrysler), while German auto groups such as Volkswagen approached the President’s Office, Mr. Lin Hsinyi, to help secure TSMC’s production capacity for automotive chips.
The current chip production capacity is mainly used for the rapid growth in demand for 3C chips during the epidemic, including chips for notebook computers and communication devices, which have been fully occupied for a long time, and for the new smart electric vehicles, which require more chips, resulting in an imbalance between supply and demand.
A number of car manufacturers are in danger of shutting down production due to a shortage of chips for their vehicles. The Volkswagen Group’s Audi workforce was forced to go on unpaid leave; Ford Germany’s assembly plant was shut down for a month; and two of Volkswagen’ joint venture plants in China were rumoured to have halted production. The main reason is rumoured to be the shortage of car chips, and it is estimated that the crisis of shortage of car chips can only be solved in 2021.
According to Bloomberg, German Minister of Economics and Energy Peter Altmaier wrote to the Taiwanese government, urging the authorities to urge TSMC to increase the supply of automotive chips to the German automotive industry. He said the current shortage of chips has put the German automotive industry and the global economic recovery at risk and called on the Taiwanese government to send a clear message to TSMC, its main chip producer.
