Efforts are underway to correct the global industry shortage in semiconductors: Chipmakers are looking for ways to boost capacity, the federal government is now taking steps to encourage chip production and automakers are reevaluating supply chain practices.
But those remedies will have little impact on the current shortage, say analysts and forecasters who are tracking the problem.
"You can't just snap your fingers and say, 'I need 20 or 30 percent more chips,' " said Jeff Schuster, president of LMC Automotive's Americas operations. "I think there's a feeling that, essentially, you're just waiting for the other shoe to drop."
Schuster and others point out that, despite the positive long-term benefits of various recent steps, such as squeezing more capacity out of existing microchip plants, they won't deliver quickly enough to solve the current supply glitch. Federal government intervention can do only so much in the short term.
"A lot of this, and how you deal with this in the future, isn't something that can be changed overnight," Schuster said.