My dealer experience today

Well, the semantics aren't the only thing in question.

 

Was at my local dealer in San Diego, getting a break switch changed out. Looking around they had 3 Tacomas SR5 2x4 for 48, trd or4x4 56 and a pro for 65. A tundra TRD or4x4 for 48. Just thought how in October I bought my TRD or4x4 for 31. Now they are going for way over 50. Crazy to think that someone with buy that.

 

True, though in my case the dealer was telling me it can't be done and would need rewiring.

EDIT: Stupid me forgot to look..scope this thread

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2016-2018-3rd-gen-intermittent-wiper-mod.397942/

 

People seem to buy cars every month of the year.

See chart on Toyota sales.

https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/toyota-us-sales-figures/

 

Yes they do. People need to replace vehicles every day. Demand seems to be out weighing supply. I don't see demand being that high at the moment.

 

Supply is at an all-time low, because of semiconductor shortages. The chips that go into ECUs, voltage controllers, dashboard head units, and all that jazz, it's all out of stock. Part of it is pandemic supply chain ripples, part of it is that semiconductor fabs did not do a very good job of predicting the future and didn't build out capacity to meet demand, and part of it is that a lot of stuff that used to be manufactured on older, cheaper, easier, but less energy efficient transistor technology have now transitioned to much newer designs, and everyone's competing for a very limited amount of fabrication capacity on those newer designs. A whole lot of stuff that used to be built at 65nm, 40nm, 32nm, or 24nm has now transitioned to 20, 14, or 10 nm designs. Those old fabs are either idle or operating at less than full capacity while their owners scramble to replace that old fabrication equipment with new stuff. Unfortunately, the lead time on that new equipment is in years, not months. And the factories have to be updated to newer standards for dust control. That's why a shortage that began in 2020 won't be fully resolved until 2022 or 2023 at the earliest.

If you want evidence of this, go to your nearest Ford, GM, Chrysler plant and look at the row upon row of mostly finished trucks and cars that are lacking ECUs, GPS nav units, dash clusters, or head units.

Here's a photo of the holding lot at a Ford plant in Ohio. You think Ford would be sitting on a few hundred F-series if they could do anything with them?



This is one of those "perfect storm" cases where ripple effects from multiple other consumer markets and their supporting supply chains came together to just break the JIT manufacturing for a whole lot of industries.

 

Sounds like everyone will be getting a sweater this Christmas.

 

I think you hit it with the word "need". Sometimes it's a forced need, IE a major repair or accident versus a planned need.

I mean yes people "want" to as well but that is a different story at times..

 

Wants vs needs. Commercial and fleet vehicles will take precedence over private consumer vehicles. The longer this supply shortage lasts, the less likely there will be people who buy vehicles they don't need.

 

The

Are banks actually handing out loans for this type of market up?

If not, who has cash would make this type of financial decisions is what I like to know.

 

Yes, but also no. My replacement fleet vehicle was delayed by 8 months (was supposed to have been delivered in October, I got it two weeks ago). When I was going through the ordering/buying process for my 21 Sport, the dealerships were telling me that people with disposable income were still out buying vehicles, and manufacturers were adjusting their build orders to meet the demands of these higher income people. Trucks, especially ones at the higher end of the market, were in demand. There's not nearly as much demand in the lower ends of the market (not a surprise, a lot of people just got through an absolutely brutal year, economically).

So what I was seeing, were dealer lots just chock full of "cheap" cars and SUVs, and even mid-size cars. But on the other hand, they couldn't keep "luxury" vehicles in stock. They sold like crazy. 4Runners, Tacomas, F-Series, Rams, Silverados, Explorers, Durangos, Pony cars, all those were in demand and thus short supply. There were probably 200 RAV-4s on Riley's lot when I went to pick my truck up in mid-May. Every Tacoma on the lot was spoken for, and they had one Tundra that sold the next day. They had a handful of 4Runners, all lower end models. Similar story when I drive by their GM lot and other dealerships. Lower-end cars and SUVs out the ass, nothing else in stock.

There will probably be more supply available later in the year as the manufacturers scale back their lower end production to focus on higher end stuff that's more profitable, insofar as they can get the electronics for those higher end vehicles.

 

My gut says with the current inflation "upward" trend, once the supply chains, shipping, etc all level out.. we will be left with close to what we see now, maybe slightly less (~6-8% overall increase in pricing).

 

I think it'll be 2-3 years before the supply catches back up with demand, and 40-50k will be the new "normal" for Tacomas. Even more likely, if Toyota drops a Gen4 in 2023 to get a hybrid/EV out the door to compete with Ford/GM's upcoming stuff.

 

What if the supply of electronics goes down instead of up, or more likely see a delay in production?

What will Ford build Broncos or police vehicles?

 

They'll build whatever makes them more money. Fleet vehicles don't tend to make them as much money as you'd think, especially police vehicles. There's a lot of extra investment in R&D, a lot of extra work per vehicle, and the markup isn't that great. They're great at building brand recognition. Crown Vics were popular cars because police drove them. Explorers are popular because police drive them. Tahoes, Chargers, Durangos, they're all popular at least in part because people see police driving them.

The supply of electronics isn't going to go down, unless there's another work stoppage. In the past, that was usually a hurricane or an earthquake in Taiwan or China, but a lot of Semiconductor/IC Fab is done in Thailand, Vietnam, or elsewhere in SE Asia and the market is less susceptible to those shocks now. What is more likely to happen is what usually happens: Fabs have limited capacity, and companies vie for fab runs by outbidding each other. Car companies may have their orders pushed back by the fabs in order to prioritize product runs that make them more money. You can bet that if Apple waves a pile of cash at TSMC or Samsung, they're gonna build Apple's next iPhone before they build the ECU for a Ford Focus or Toyota Tacoma.

 

Yes, who ever buys the most product will get their products first.

 

It's not about most. It's about profitability. If TSMC can make more money per chip, they're gonna make that first (within reason. Contracts obliging delivery dates can be a bitch).

There are only I think three companies in the world that operate truly cutting edge semiconductor fabs. TSMC in Taiwan, Samsung in Korea, and Intel (their shit is spread out everywhere). Of those, TSMC does almost entirely contract manufacturing. They build smartphone chips, game console processors, graphics cards, AMD's CPU's, and a whole lot of other stuff besides. Samsung does their own stuff, but they also do a lot of contract work. Intel mostly builds for themselves, but they do a little contract work as well.

There's a whole lot of "it's complicated" in the semiconductor manufacturing world, and it gets even more convoluted and messy when you talk about final integration, where chips are mated with circuit boards and fully wired up. Once it gets to that point, there's hundreds of contract manufacturers, most of which are in China, Taiwan, or Thailand. Foxconn is the big fish in that pond, and they do contract manufacturing for literally everyone.

 

Don’t know why Toyota dealership feel the need to bend people over barrels. Went to test drive a hybrid highlander and this is the only one they have which is a platinum for $53k but they decided to slap on a $3,500 incentive not to buy it because their inventory is low… I don’t think I’ve ever ended a conversation so quickly in my life.

 

door guards and 1 window tinted = nearly 2K

 

Feels like used car salesmanship cranked up to 11. One guy I talked to at Joe Machens told me they could have a truck shipped in and add everything I wanted, no problem. Then proceeded to throw out eye-watering prices for stuff that even from the factory is inflated. Performance exhaust? Sure, they'll add it. $1500 (factory $780). Tube steps? No problem. $800 (factory $400-ish). You want mudguards? We'll put on mudguards. $800. ($265 factory). Sure, we'll ship in a $37000 truck and sell it to you for $45k. GOTTA MAKE DAT MONEY!

I told him to eat the deepest part of a baby's ass and walked out of the showroom.