The EV industry giant Tesla reportedly has a hard time keeping up with the IC supply in the middle of a global chip crisis. Giant automakers like Ford and General Motors have had bad times with their chip supplies resulting in manufacturing closure.
Digitimes have reported that Tesla is approaching IC suppliers in Taiwan, Korea and the US to secure steady supplies of automotive chips even with advance payments.
As more and more EVs are getting popular, new generation cars are heavily dependent on semiconductors, so it is difficult for Tesla to achieve significant results. Already the IT and automotive supply chain makers have been competing for the foundry capacity since Q4 2020.
It is speculated that in Q1 2021 only, Tesla had already piled up enough IC parts for its target production of 500,000 EVs. However, it doesn’t seem true as speculations suggest the firm is short of semiconductor parts and admits that they are also feeling the pinch of the global chip crisis.
It is rumoured that Tesla’s recent decision to remove mmWave radar sensors from its EVs is the reason for the shortage of its IC parts. Even though Tesla has enough resources to buy foundry houses as an alternative to the chip shortage, that would involve many efforts in terms of technological and geopolitical concerns.
