According to foreign media reports, affected by factors such as the epidemic and the earthquake in Japan, on the basis of the extension of the delivery time in February, the global semiconductor chip delivery time in March was extended again, reaching a record high.

　　This means that buyers have to wait more than half a year on average, and the global semiconductor shortage problem has once again become prominent, and the impact of the global electronics industry, including automobiles, may be further exacerbated.

　　According to research by market researcher Susquehanna Financial Group, the lead time, or the time between when a chip is ordered and delivered, increased by 2 days in March 2022 to 26.6 weeks from February. This is the longest run since the agency began tracking the data in 2017.

　　In 2021, the global chip shortage will last for a whole year, and in 2022, the chip shortage has not been alleviated. According to the data of the above-mentioned institutions, the chip delivery date shortened in January this year for the first time since 2019, but in February, it increased by 3 days from the previous month, reaching 26.2 weeks.

　　According to a report from analyst Chris Rolland, lead times for most chip types increased in March, including power management, microcontrollers, analog and memory. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the coronavirus lockdown in parts of China and the earthquake in Japan "will have a short-term impact in the first quarter, but could have lingering effects on severely constrained supply chains throughout the year," he said.

　　Looking at the trend, although chip users are once again facing longer waiting times, the rate of increase in delivery time is significantly lower than in 2021, when many industries, including automobiles, were forced to cut production due to a lack of key components.

　　According to Yuan Chengyin, secretary general of the China Automotive Chip Industry Innovation Strategic Alliance, "The longest delivery time for automotive-grade chips was 52 weeks, and now it has eased a lot." He told the "First Electric Network", Chips are a global industry, and if a certain region is affected, the entire chain may break.

　　With the rise of electrification and intelligence, more and more parts of traditional cars need to be controlled by chips. A global semiconductor shortage began in the first half of 2020 as the pandemic spurred demand for consumer electronics and cars.

　　The shortage of automotive chips is the key to affecting the production and delivery of vehicles. March has always been a peak season for auto sales, but data show that the sales of new cars in the United States in the first quarter fell by 12% year-on-year. In terms of major car manufacturers, GM's car sales in the United States in the first quarter fell by 20% year-on-year, Honda fell by 23%, and Nissan was even sharper. Nearly 30% off.

　　On April 4, Mercedes-Benz Group stated that due to the shortage of semiconductor chips, its two factories in Brazil will suspend production for 16 days from April 18 to May 3. More than 5,000 employees will be collectively furloughed.

　　Yuan Chengyin believes that many domestic car companies are already hoarding chips, and there are alternatives, such as using domestic chips as an alternative, and can also be coordinated through the industrial chain, such as wafer fabs that focus part of their production capacity on automotive-grade chips. In order to alleviate the temporary chip shortage. In the medium and long term, in addition to building an independent supply chain system, some automotive-grade wafer production will be completed in China, and automakers are encouraged to use their own chips as alternatives.

　　On April 6, Jihu Auto and Chery New Energy announced price increases at the same time. During the week including the Qingming Festival, as many as 6 new energy car companies have announced price increases. Under the pressure of multiple factors such as lack of cores, rising raw material prices, and declining national subsidies, mainstream new energy vehicle companies have issued price increase notices successively since the beginning of this year, and many of them have had multiple rounds of price hikes.

　　"The price of chips and batteries are rising this year, which will inevitably lead to an increase in car prices. At the same time, due to insufficient supply, the cycle for consumers to pick up cars will also lengthen, and the inventory of car companies will decrease. Overall, the profits of car companies will not be affected. " Yuan Chengyin said.

　　There is also a lot of good news for the chip industry. The United States announced plans to invest $52 billion last year to strengthen the chip supply chain; at the end of last year, India approved a chip manufacturing promotion plan of 760 billion rupees; the European Union announced the long-planned "Chip Act" in February this year, and plans to invest more than 43 billion euros in Europe Locally promote the independent research and development and production of chips.

　　Intel plans to invest 89 billion US dollars in the next 10 years, with an initial investment of about 19 billion US dollars to build two new chip factories in Germany; SMIC has broken ground on the Lingang project in Shanghai, and the two projects in Beijing and Shenzhen are also progressing steadily. It will be put into production by the end of 2022.

　　"The expansion of chip production capacity will take time. The epidemic is superimposed by the impact of regional conflicts. It is optimistic to watch. The shortage of cores may improve in the second half of this year." Yuan Chengyin judged. Some people believe that by the end of 2022 or 2023, the chip industry will gradually achieve a balance between supply and demand.

　　At the same time, Yuan Chengyin said that the problem of "lack of cores" also prompted the development of domestically produced auto chips to welcome good opportunities. The China Automotive Chip Industry Innovation Strategic Alliance and the National New Energy Vehicle Technology Innovation Center carry out innovations such as technological research, platform construction, ecological integration, standard formulation, testing and evaluation, and chip loading for key independent automotive chips, and accelerate the innovation of domestic automotive chips. and application.