I tried to find some numbers on the relative amount of chips in a standard ICE car vs. a BEV. I'd have to guess BEVs have perhaps even an order of magnitude more chips. Certainly, they have chips that are far more advanced, looking at the Tesla FSD computer[0].
The chip industry, and the chip equipment industry are still capacity limited due to demands of remote work and school. That may level off and revert somewhat towards the end of the year. BEV sales may take up the slack, but also may demand a somewhat different chip supply chain and drive demand for different segments in the industry. We may well see the typical crash in equipment sales in 2022 as those two market drivers transpire.
> I tried to find some numbers on the relative amount of chips in a standard ICE car vs. a BEV. I'd have to guess BEVs have perhaps even an order of magnitude more chips. Certainly, they have chips that are far more advanced, looking at the Tesla FSD computer[0].
Well, you could have FSD in an ICE car just as easily.
In fact, I'm going to guess an electric vehicle has fewer chips than an ICE car because it doesn't have an engine. Depends how many PMICs you need for the battery cells.
It's also highly debatable whether you need chips made with the latest process nodes for these purposes. Few cars or trains have to be machine-learning monsters. Also, power electronics, used by all kinds of vehicles, is perfectly fine using larger, cheaper and more rugged nodes.
The chip industry, and the chip equipment industry are still capacity limited due to demands of remote work and school. That may level off and revert somewhat towards the end of the year. BEV sales may take up the slack, but also may demand a somewhat different chip supply chain and drive demand for different segments in the industry. We may well see the typical crash in equipment sales in 2022 as those two market drivers transpire.
[0] https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-fsd-computer-retrof...