Chip shortage getting better all the time ... but not for everybody

Even as the global microchip shortage slowly improves, some automakers are still feeling pinched more acutely than others, new data shows.

Honda told shareholders this month the semiconductor shortage is bottoming out — but that it has nonetheless cut its global sales expectation for the year ahead. BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Renault and Nissan have not been affected so far this year by the shortage, according to a report this month from Bank of America Global Research analysts, citing data from S&P Global.

But the positive outlook has not spread to every automaker.

Bank of America said Volkswagen is projected to cut about 65,000 autos from its production schedules in the first quarter of this year because of the shortage. Toyota is expected to lose about 58,000 vehicles, while Geely could lose 50,000 units as it grapples with the shortage on top of the impact of COVID-19 in China.

"Improvements are on the way," said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions. "However, the good news is not spread equally around the industry."

The chip shortage has eased significantly from its peak in 2021 and even since last year. According to Bank of America, the industry has eliminated 200,000 vehicles worldwide so far this year, down from about 500,000 per quarter worldwide since the third quarter of 2022, and down from a peak of 3.4 million units of lost production in the third quarter of 2021.

AutoForecast Solutions estimates that automakers have cut about 350,000 vehicles from their plans this year, down from about 530,000 in the same period of 2022.

Overall, the industry is still about 10 percent under-supplied on semiconductors, compared with about 20 percent last year, Bank of America concluded. Resolution could come by the end of this year, though key hurdles remain, the bank said.

"Things have been improving," said Phil Amsrud, associate director in the automotive semiconductor research area at S&P Global Mobility. "What it has not done is gotten back to what it was in 2019, and therein is one of the big questions: When this gets back to normal, what exactly is normal going to be?"

Automakers have taken a variety of approaches to the shortage as they feel out what that new normal will be, Amsrud said. Some have "looked inward," he said, attempting to cut back on certain vehicle features that are low volume but complicate their supply chains. Other automakers have turned outward, reviewing their supply chains to see what component makers can do differently and putting pressure on them to make changes.

"I think the ones that are looking more inwardly at what they can do differently are set up to come out of this thing better," Amsrud said.

Some automakers are likely to look at boosting their inventories of semiconductors as chip supply loosens. Achieving this might come down to whether "EV volumes rise above expectations," Bank of America wrote in its report.

But manufacturers will need to do more than just rebuild their microchip supply if they want to avoid another such crisis in the future, Amsrud said.

"I don't think the solution to all this is that everyone is going to carry more inventory," he said. "What we learned over time is that if you're carrying four months of inventory, that's great for any supply disruption that's four months or shorter. If it's longer than that, you're in the same situation everyone else is."

To that end, some automakers are making strategic investments aimed at securing their supply of microchips for a longer outlook.

General Motors said this month it had reached a long-term agreement with semiconductor maker GlobalFoundries to boost its supply of microchips in the future. GM hopes to use fewer unique microchips in its vehicles in the future, leading to improved supply predictability.

Apart from such moves by automakers, suppliers are indicating that microchip headaches are likely to continue for some time.

Speaking to investors this week on a quarterly earnings call, Magna International Inc. CEO Swamy Kotagiri said, "We expect continued OEM production schedule volatility, primarily due to semiconductor supply constraints."

Magna, North America's largest parts supplier, pointed to the semiconductor shortage as one of several factors that led to an 80 percent drop in its fourth-quarter 2022 earnings.

The shortage has led to a "rebalancing of power" in the automotive supply chain, Amsrud said.

"The OEMs and the Tier 1's, for the last many years, have been able to dictate what the negotiating terms are for annual contracts," he said. "But with the shortages, that has been inverted. It's been the semiconductor and foundry guys that are saying, 'These are the terms that I need to have in order to support you.' "

That's likely to be a part of the "new normal" for the auto industry, Amsrud said. "We'll see how this new power balance is going to play out," he said.