Global chip shortage preventing automakers from building or finishing new cars & SUV's, giving rise to price inflation of older & used vehicles that are selling for many thousands of dollars more than the normal depreciations rate for an older or used vehicle, some used vehicles selling now for more than the price paid for them brand new. So why do automobiles have so many computers anyway? Let us explore chips in vehicles.
Purely mechanical cars & trucks with carburetors produced excessive tailpipe emissions of brain damaging HC or hydrocarbon vapor, brain damaging CO or carbon monoxide, NOX or oxides of nitrogen (toxic gases that make nitric acid rain), & SOX or oxides of sulfur that make sulfuric acid rain, + tons of extra CO2 emissions because these ran fuel rich with lower fuel to air rations like 6:1 or 8:1, when a clean burning stochiometric mix more like 14.2: 1, parts air to fuel. Poor fuel economy meant higher operating costs of more money spent on fuel to drive. The first models had a manual choke to further richen the air fuel mix on cold startup, that the driver had to adjust. Later models had automatic chokes. No matter what the automakers did, they could not comply with the clean air laws passed during President Nixon's time in office. He actually worked to create the EPA so that he could gain control of it to destroy clean air & clean water regulations that made it harder & more expensive for manufactures to sell profitable vehicles by eating into their profits with complicated emissions controls, fuel injection, ECU modules & today electronics in a new car can comprise up to 50% of the manufacturing costs of that vehicle.
Electronic fuel injection, electronic engine monitoring with a crank position sensor, temperature probes, an intake mass flow sensor (warm wire chill rate analysis), exhaust temperature probes called O2 or Oxygen sensors that produce a specific voltage at different hot exhaust temperatures; data from these & other sensors like an oil pressure sensor, are wired up to send signals to the ECU or engine control unit where the CHIPS with many lines of software code are present inside sealed passive cooled & heat tolerant electronics modules that have to work daily for 20+ years from -40 F to +257 F, with shock impact resistance of up to 50 G, when a car hits a taller speed bump at higher speeds, or the wheel & tire hit into a pot hole at freeway or highway speeds, producing sharp short duration intense vertical acceleration or vibration, shock, noise & harshness, often smoothed out by spring, strut, shock absorber enhanced suspension arms, links or connectors to minimize uncomfortable stress applied to the driver & passenger, or in other words to improve handling comfort, road handling performance, & overall vehicle dynamics. The better newest vehicles have fully electronically adjustable or pneumatic bag suspension & some even use magnetic fluids with electromagnets for the best dynamic continually adjustable suspension damping & stabilization.
Features like VSC or vehicle stability control, require chips that can measure pitch, roll, yaw, acceleration & deceleration, with sensors that feed the ECU valuable information to stabilize the vehicle to prevent roll over, unintended drifting, sliding or loss of traction, to help the driver recover from hydroplaning or other dynamic unstable events that could cause a loss of control of an unassisted vehicle. Antilock brakes, airbag systems, emissions controls & other driver safety & assist features, each requires a different compute module, all now connected over a CAN-BUS network, accessible via the OBDII "diagnostic, software upgrade" port near the drivers footwell typically.
As more ADAS or advanced driver assist features are integrated by automakers, the more compute required. A modern luxury car from 2021 can contain more than 100 different chip enhanced compute modules. Infotainment & navigation & collision avoidance systems, active lane keep assist, automatic emergency braking, even level 1 to level 3 vehicle autonomous self-driving modes in the latest Tesla model whatever battery electric luxury performance vehicle made in California, USA.
Automotive chips have to be more robust to thermal cycling, shock, water & damage, more electrically efficient, produce less waste heat, operate frozen cold or burn your hand hot near the exhaust header in the engine bay, though sometimes the waste heat from the electric motors or controllers can be vented into the wire harness to keep the ECU & wires dry. Not hard to imagine why high humidity conditions can condense water into a car parked in very cold conditions, like outside during a winter day.
I have been driving cars since I was 15, motorcycles since I was 16, a motor scooter since I was 30, & even work as a school bus driver, driving a 40,000 lb turbo diesel automatic tranny bus full of children from their neighborhoods to school & back, to & from after school academic or sports activities. I have a commercial drivers license now, as required by the school district, with air brake, passenger & school bus endorsements. I also have a 2 wheel unlimited class endorsement that enables me to ride motorcycles with any engine size, legally on public roads, as long as I carry liability insurance, which I do through Geico, what has been a Washington state law since 2020. Our 2005 Prius II & 2010 Prius III, each have more than 130 compute modules.
Our 2020 Yamaha MT-03 has a complex ECU & related info-display computers, complex emissions controls enhanced with multiple sensors on the engine, intake air box & exhaust. Its a 321 cc offset twin engine with about 40 hp or 34kw & enough torque to accelerate from 0-60 mph or 0-100 kmph in less than 4.5 seconds, able to hit a top speed in gear 4, of 6 possible gears, of 112 MPH best case. It gives up 52-85 MPG depending on rider operating style & topography & wind speed & air temperature. I run E0 or ethanol free gasoline that I buy at The Grange in Issaquah, that they obtain from CENEX, an agricultural supply company. E0 contains more energy, due to the lack of ethanol, not as corrosive or hydroscopic as common E10 ethanol laced gasoline sold at most normal gas stations.
CHIP's in consumer passenger vehicles are not only here to stay, but there will also be more compute in future vehicle offerings from the world's automakers. These tough strong resilient integrated circuits, robust software code, excellent operating life in the real world, they are the foundation of cleaner vehicle technology, safer vehicles & vehicles that are better in nearly every way than those before electronics merged with mechanics.
Today vehicles are a hybridization of microelectronics, wiring & sensors, networks, software & mechanical systems; an interdisciplinary fusion of integration by automakers who source parts from many OEM suppliers that sell the thousands of parts for each vehicle to the automakers, noteworthy the worlds chip foundries', who are having supply chain shortage problems so bad that the automakers cannot finish building & thus cannot sell new vehicles, a problem that needs urgent attention in America where most people are dependent on cars to work & function, since everything so spread out, urban sprawl. I live in an urban/ densely populated residential suburban area, & walking to the closest grocery store on foot at normal speeds (Safeway) takes almost an hour one way; how fubar is that.
The global chip shortage has indeed posed significant challenges for automakers, impacting production and supply chains. It's a reminder of how interconnected our world has become, with disruptions in one industry reverberating across others. On a related note, for those who might be considering retiring their older vehicles due to these technological advancements, Cash for Car Removal Gold Coast (scrap unwanted cars) offers a convenient solution. They can help you free up space, dispose of old cars responsibly, and even provide some extra cash in the process.
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