The effects of restrictions on shipping in the Red Sea and Panama Canal are being felt around the world. Global trade is under immense strain amid rising freight costs.
For cadmium? Sure. But not for everything you need in every step of the manufacturing process. Cars don’t go from steel to car in one factory. Bits are made in different places and those bits are assembled into other bits which get assembled into other bits and eventually the biggest bits gets assembled into a car.
Cars aren’t like what they were when the Ford Model T was being cranked out. They’re incredibly complex machines which can’t be made in one local or regional factory anymore without a global supply chain. There’s just too many things to manufacture.
I absolutely think there should be more local manufacturing, if for no other reason than to make the world less reliant on China, but if you’re talking about generalizing that process, it will only ever be the final assembly stage. You’re just not going to see a European computer company manufacture the dye that goes into the circuit boards that get printed with circuits which go into their computers. And that’s just one small chain in a huge supply web.
I would be fine with cars being made more dumb. The chips cars need (to work, without half-assed shit infotainment systems) don’t need to be manufactured by tsmc.
Computer chips are so expensive per volume, I feel they will not get impacted too much, but it would be nice to have fabs for it in Europe.
You might be fine with it, but the world is not. And you still seem to not be seeing the forest for the trees. This applies to virtually every modern convenience you are used to. None of them can be produced locally when you get down to the components.
I understand, I just don’t see why it couldn’t and shouldn’t be produced more locally. Yes, there might be a huge impact for 5 years or more, but I perceive it as infrastructural debt and over-reliance.
Yes, it could be produced more locally but, as I said, there would still be massive global shipping issues and prices would still be a problem.
Also, five years is a hell of a long time for things to be massively more expensive. And you’re not going to be able to build the hundreds of various factories you would need in five years.
Building something incredibly specialized like a computer chip fab or a nuclear plant (due to extremely hand-made nature and safety requirements) might take a decade, but for something as well understood and much more approachable as cars, 5 years for building a hangar and getting the required equipment is quite reasonable. One could even look at Tesla for how it does work.
Cars and computers are not the only things that need to be manufactured. I’m not sure why you seem to think this is just about one or two products and not every piece of technology that surrounds you right now.
I disagree that cars are incredibly complex machines. They are certainly more complex than Ford Model T, but it is generally just iteratively sometimes useful bloat. When you say they are “incredibly complex” it usually means population’s understanding of it is lacking. To the point where people are afraid to jump start a dead battery, because “it has this complex computer and stuff”
Okay, remove the word ‘incredibly.’ The point is they aren’t just basic mechanical devices anymore. There are all kinds of things cars have now that likely would not be able to be manufactured locally or maybe even regionally, be they various sensors or power steering fluid or airbags- or the components needed to make those things.
The more you work with cars (or me specifically: motorcycles), the more you understand they are quite simple. The extra stuff added on top is usually just touted as an “incredible advancement”, but really amounts to decades of strong marketing. In many ways, simple ingenious solutions these days are axed and replaced with even simpler mechanics and engineered electronics, just because the manufacturer can get away with it and hide it, for some extra money.
For cadmium? Sure. But not for everything you need in every step of the manufacturing process. Cars don’t go from steel to car in one factory. Bits are made in different places and those bits are assembled into other bits which get assembled into other bits and eventually the biggest bits gets assembled into a car.
Cars aren’t like what they were when the Ford Model T was being cranked out. They’re incredibly complex machines which can’t be made in one local or regional factory anymore without a global supply chain. There’s just too many things to manufacture.
I absolutely think there should be more local manufacturing, if for no other reason than to make the world less reliant on China, but if you’re talking about generalizing that process, it will only ever be the final assembly stage. You’re just not going to see a European computer company manufacture the dye that goes into the circuit boards that get printed with circuits which go into their computers. And that’s just one small chain in a huge supply web.
I would be fine with cars being made more dumb. The chips cars need (to work, without half-assed shit infotainment systems) don’t need to be manufactured by tsmc.
Computer chips are so expensive per volume, I feel they will not get impacted too much, but it would be nice to have fabs for it in Europe.
You might be fine with it, but the world is not. And you still seem to not be seeing the forest for the trees. This applies to virtually every modern convenience you are used to. None of them can be produced locally when you get down to the components.
I understand, I just don’t see why it couldn’t and shouldn’t be produced more locally. Yes, there might be a huge impact for 5 years or more, but I perceive it as infrastructural debt and over-reliance.
Yes, it could be produced more locally but, as I said, there would still be massive global shipping issues and prices would still be a problem.
Also, five years is a hell of a long time for things to be massively more expensive. And you’re not going to be able to build the hundreds of various factories you would need in five years.
Building something incredibly specialized like a computer chip fab or a nuclear plant (due to extremely hand-made nature and safety requirements) might take a decade, but for something as well understood and much more approachable as cars, 5 years for building a hangar and getting the required equipment is quite reasonable. One could even look at Tesla for how it does work.
Cars and computers are not the only things that need to be manufactured. I’m not sure why you seem to think this is just about one or two products and not every piece of technology that surrounds you right now.
It’s much more approachable to talk about specific items, and to some degree we can extend this to everything, with more and more details
I disagree that cars are incredibly complex machines. They are certainly more complex than Ford Model T, but it is generally just iteratively sometimes useful bloat. When you say they are “incredibly complex” it usually means population’s understanding of it is lacking. To the point where people are afraid to jump start a dead battery, because “it has this complex computer and stuff”
Okay, remove the word ‘incredibly.’ The point is they aren’t just basic mechanical devices anymore. There are all kinds of things cars have now that likely would not be able to be manufactured locally or maybe even regionally, be they various sensors or power steering fluid or airbags- or the components needed to make those things.
The more you work with cars (or me specifically: motorcycles), the more you understand they are quite simple. The extra stuff added on top is usually just touted as an “incredible advancement”, but really amounts to decades of strong marketing. In many ways, simple ingenious solutions these days are axed and replaced with even simpler mechanics and engineered electronics, just because the manufacturer can get away with it and hide it, for some extra money.
You’re really missing my point here.
I am not missing it, I am saying, from my perspective, this idea of it being so complex it can only be manufactured somewhere in China, is wrong.
Hell, my engineer friends, given material, and their tools, could do it in 2 days by reading blueprints and latheing from scratch.
That was not my claim. So yes you are.
So what couldn’t I manufacture in a fully equipped metal shop? Given materials.
So many things you could not imagine.
This isn’t conceptual. A book was written by a man who tried to make a toaster from the very base components. It was in no way easy.
https://www.amazon.com/Toaster-Project-Attempt-Electric-Appliance/dp/B00ANYWFP6
Also, I am not going to talk to you in two different comment chains, so pick one.