#chip

The global shortage of semiconductor chips has really done a number on the industry and it’s just one of several major supplier issues created by our response to the pandemic. Years from now, people will look back and use the benefit of hindsight to come up with the perfect solution to a problem that has since evaporated. But all we can manage in the present is an up-to-date tally on how much product is being lost and wait for better news.

AutoForecast Solutions (AFS) has been keeping tabs on the situation and recently updated its numbers through the week of April 30th. Production schedules in North America are now reportedly 121,000 vehicles shy of where they’re supposed to be. Though we need to pull back and take a gander at what the whole industry was facing ahead of the latest figures to have a more complete understanding of this particularly dire automotive quagmire.

Brian writes:

I had a conversation with someone the other day who claimed his mechanic rolled back the odometer on his car. This is a late-model car with a digital odometer. I always thought digital odometers were protected from this, but a quick Google search reveals that it’s actually quite common and easy to roll back a digital odometer. I guess this is now something a buyer has to worry about on top of everything else when buying a used car.

For example, how could you ever tell a car was rolled back — say, 10,000 miles — when the car is legitimately in good condition?

What are your thoughts on this? And how can a buyer protect themselves?

As Cameron’s post earlier today indicated, at a press conference in France, Bill Ford, Mark Fields, Raj Nair and Chip Ganassi announced that Ford will be returning to LeMans to compete in next year’s 24 hour race with a red, white, and blue liveried racing version of the new Ford GT. It will be campaigned by Ganassi’s team.

Recently TTAC ran a post of mine about Nair’s hints that Ford would race again at Circuit de la Sarthe, including his reference to “kicking Ferrari’s ass” in 1966. Twelve-steppers might say that Ferrari is living in Ford’s brain rent-free because beating the folks from Modena still seems to be on the minds of the folks in Dearborn.