Data and chips, the journey of smart electric vehicle players has just begun

Data shows that automotive chips only account for about 10% of the total sales of the chip industry, and Apple alone purchases much more semiconductors than the entire automotive industry. TSMC's automotive chip sales account for only 4% of its total revenue. Large mobile phone chip manufacturers such as Apple and Qualcomm purchase a variety of chips from Taiwan, China, and they get preferential treatment for large quantities, so they can get priority.

In this regard, Sun Xudong analyzed that in the era of software-defined cars, the automotive architecture began to leap from distributed to centralized, that is, from distributed ECU and MCU to domain controller and central processing unit. The demand for corresponding chips is relatively strong. However, for traditional MCUs, the current shortage is actually due to short-term tensions caused by global supply and demand imbalances, coupled with the impact of the global epidemic, and even some companies hoarding and other factors, which further aggravated the shortage. "Once the epidemic subsides or the supply chain balance is restored, these demands may plummet."

The practice of locking chip production capacity may be an unconventional operation in the industrial model of wafer foundry over the past years, because wafer fabs have always paid great attention to the flexibility of production capacity orders, which is also an important model for chip foundries such as TSMC to maintain their profitability over the years. However, in the automotive field, Sun Xudong pointed out that locking production capacity in advance is not a new thing. "For example, batteries. If CATL's battery production capacity is not enough, car companies such as SAIC and NIO may directly buy a production line to ensure production capacity." In his view, locking chip production capacity and investing in wafer fabs is actually a strategy.

McKinsey analysts also recommended in a report that automakers and their suppliers pay deposits in advance to ensure production capacity one year in advance and retain a flexible delivery system for six months. Analysts also recommended that the automotive industry invest selectively in chip manufacturers.

It seems that even a company as full of technological optimism as Tesla still has to face the "boring" daily reality.