Chip Shortage Makes GM Scrap Its Hands-Free Highway Driving Feature (cnet.com) 72
"Like a half-filled bag of salty snacks, there simply aren't enough semiconductor chips to go around these days," writes CNET.
"At General Motors, the crisis struck one of its biggest cash cows as Cadillac confirmed too few chips led it to scrap the Super Cruise [hands-free highway driving] feature from its flagship Escalade SUV."
Slashdot reader McGruber writes: A Cadillac spokesperson said "Super Cruise is an important feature for the Cadillac Escalade program. Although it's temporarily unavailable at the start of regular production due to the industry-wide shortage of semiconductors, we're confident in our team's ability to find creative solutions to mitigate the supply chain situation and resume offering the feature for our customers as soon as possible."
CNET adds that in addition, "Essentially, Super Cruise is unavailable across GM's entire lineup of cars."
"At General Motors, the crisis struck one of its biggest cash cows as Cadillac confirmed too few chips led it to scrap the Super Cruise [hands-free highway driving] feature from its flagship Escalade SUV."
Slashdot reader McGruber writes: A Cadillac spokesperson said "Super Cruise is an important feature for the Cadillac Escalade program. Although it's temporarily unavailable at the start of regular production due to the industry-wide shortage of semiconductors, we're confident in our team's ability to find creative solutions to mitigate the supply chain situation and resume offering the feature for our customers as soon as possible."
CNET adds that in addition, "Essentially, Super Cruise is unavailable across GM's entire lineup of cars."
Sure... (Score:1)
All other manufacturers stop or reduce greatly their production of cars. But for GM it's just one feature? It seems that chip shortage is a good excuse for not implementing a feature that doesn't work....
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Will they offer to retrofit the feature into vehicles sold without it though? If not I'd try to hold off buying a new car until they get their supply issues sorted.
Car manufacturers are getting bad for this kind of thing. Often you see "first edition" versions of vehicles that are missing some pretty important features that later models get, simply because they weren't ready for launch day. Worse still they charge a premium for those cars because apparently early adopters are willing to pay more for less.
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All other manufacturers stop or reduce greatly their production of cars. But for GM it's just one feature? It seems that chip shortage is a good excuse for not implementing a feature that doesn't work....
Guess you missed the news in September about how GM had to (temporarily) shut down 8 North American plants [bbc.com] due to the chip shortage. This came after GM announced in August they were shutting down 3 North American truck plants [cnbc.com] which came after the July news that they were shutting down 3 plants [spglobal.com].
Perhaps because it was so long ago you mistakenly thought it was Ford when in fact it was GM who said they were shutting down 2 plants [npr.org] back in April and 3 plants [bloomberg.com] back in February.
I know it can be hard to keep track of
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That's seriously too bad (Score:2)
If there's one segment of the population I want to see get their hands on autonomous driving features, it's the very old people who make up Cadillac's entire customer base.
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If there's one segment of the population I want to see get their hands on autonomous driving features, it's the very old people who make up Cadillac's entire customer base.
Have you seen the people driving Escalades? I can assure you, they are not very old people.
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They certainly are in my part of the country, regardless of the Cadillac model. I even play a little game, whenever I see them... I say "I bet this guy is wearing a hat", and pull up alongside. Nine times out of ten, there's an old guy either driving or in the passenger seat and he's got on a hat.
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They certainly are in my part of the country, regardless of the Cadillac model. I even play a little game, whenever I see them... I say "I bet this guy is wearing a hat", and pull up alongside. Nine times out of ten, there's an old guy either driving or in the passenger seat and he's got on a hat.
Most people driving Escalades around here have ball caps, mostly worn backwards.
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It all depends upon where you live. JD Powers says the average Escalade owner is 56...not a lot of gang bangers in that age bracket.
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Have you seen the people driving Escalades? I can assure you, they are not very old people.
According to J.D. Power, "the median age of an Escalade owner is 56 years [jdpower.com](vs. 54 [for the segment])"
.
Re: That's seriously too bad (Score:1)
I'm not even sure they're people.
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Um, my father-in-law, who just passed away in July at 83 was driving one. And from JD Powers survey:
According to J.D. Power data, 64% of Cadillac Escalade owners are male (vs. 66% for the segment), and the median age of an Escalade owner is 56 years (vs. 54).
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Oh look, a low ID woke cunt. If you want to help, kill yourself.
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Relax dude, Covid19 will give you your inheritance a few years earlier.
Not so fast. Boomers are getting the vaccine. In fact, I don't think I know an older person that didn't get it. A few that were very weak, to begin with, contracted it and were in the hospital for a day or two. Then they're back in action. They're also living far longer than expected. I know a lot of the boomers that were in the beginning, or even before the boomers. 1930s children. They're over 80 and still kicking when 30 years ago they'd be long gone. Many of them are like - why am I still here? Things l
Good! (Score:2, Interesting)
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You certainly shouldn't be making such decisions.
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GM is using obsolete chips for self-driving? (Score:2, Informative)
TIL GM is using obsolete chips for self-driving. Those are the semiconductors that are in short supply.
Re:GM is using obsolete chips for self-driving? (Score:5, Insightful)
As they should. These chips are extremely reliable, can handle temperature extremes and vibration, power fluctuations and noise. "Modern" chips like used in cell phones simply not appropriate for for automotive duty. Not quite as important as aerospace but still important. Chips in a vehicle must be 100% reliable every time a person turns the key on, and function for at least 10 years or more.
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Something wrong with chips fabbed on 22FDX? How about 12FDX?
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"Modern" chips like used in cell phones simply not appropriate for for automotive duty.
Let me stop you there. The use of the word "modern" has nothing to do with appropriate or not for automotive duty. "Modern" semiconductors can be every bit as reliable* as any other semiconductor. Modern processes and nodes produce chips just as resistant to temperature variations, power fluctuations, and noise.
Your problem is you're comparing a cell phone to a car. That's like saying cell phones are the reason military hardware doesn't exist, or planes can't fly. The reality is there are many "modern" chip
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Let me stop you there. The use of the word "modern" has nothing to do with appropriate or not for automotive duty. "Modern" semiconductors can be every bit as reliable* as any other semiconductor. Modern processes and nodes produce chips just as resistant to temperature variations, power fluctuations, and noise.
Modern processes can produce reliable chips. But sometimes they do not:
The Google researchers examining these silent corrupt execution errors (CEEs) concluded "mercurial cores" were to blame CPUs that miscalculated occasionally, under different circumstances, in a way that defied prediction...The errors were not the result of chip architecture design missteps, and they're not detected during manufacturing tests. Rather, Google engineers theorize, the errors have arisen because we've pushed semiconductor manufacturing to a point where failures have become more frequent and we lack the tools to identify them in advance.
How reliable are modern CPUS? [slashdot.org]
It is understandable that people who care about reliability do not want to use the latest process. They want somebody else to debug it.
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Oh sure. But the comparison to cell phones is appropriate because that's where the fab time is primarily going, and partially the reason we're having this automotive shortage: canceled orders mean the fabs moved on to consumer tech, leaving automotive manufacturers in the lurch. I wasn't using "modern" in the sense of current-day production of reliable technology. I was directly responding to the notion that GM was sourcing obsolete chips, and that they should get with the program and choose something mor
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Haha, no. There's nothing wrong with chips built on modern processes. The automotive industry is just taking the old "if it works, don't fix it" approach and is suffering for it, again.
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As they should. These chips are extremely reliable, can handle temperature extremes and vibration, power fluctuations and noise. "Modern" chips like used in cell phones simply not appropriate for for automotive duty. Not quite as important as aerospace but still important. Chips in a vehicle must be 100% reliable every time a person turns the key on, and function for at least 10 years or more.
This. People forget that these chips need to work after being exposed to 30 below to 50 above zero and after a good 10 years (if not 20), not to mention exposure to rain, dust, salt water or whatever else the world can throw at us. Automakers cant just shout "huzzah" and start using a newer chip that isn't nearly as well proven and has an expected lifespan measured in months.
They're already using modern chips for non-critical applications like infotainment, but things like the ECU, ABS and other essenti
FTFY (Score:2)
Chip shortage makes Cadillac Escalade safer.
Is it really a shortage (Score:1)
IIRC the car manufacturers cancelled their chip orders because they were cutting production. The chip manufacturers other customers bought the available capacity and now the car manufacturers want it back.
Is it really a shortage if you cancelled your orders and now they are being sold to someone else?
I know there is reduced capacity in the overall chip market but the 'shortage' was somewhat expected. No?
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Yes it is.
Companies that did not reduce their orders have still had problems (though perhaps not as serious). And now we're past the point of the reduced orders and into where they've placed new orders, only to find that the time from order to delivery has shot way up (and probably the prices, too).
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Yes as i understand it there is an overall capacity shortage in the market. However, the car manufacturers did give up their place in line and spinning it as-if they had no control.
I'm not saying they made the wrong decision but they did make a decision that has affected their position somewhat.
It will be interesting to see how this all works out. I sincerely hope that it improves everything in the long run.
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Good. (Score:2)
Maybe that'll give them more time to get the bugs out.
Alternative (Score:1)
If you want hands-free transportation, go sit on a bus.
2017 - GM Had the Same Issue (Score:2)
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My parents bought a 2017 vehicle from Chevrolet, and on paper its supposed to have Carplay & Android Auto however apparently GM failed to secure a full supply of chips for their infotainment systems and shipped a large number of vehicles without it.
If they paid for it then it should be in there. Sometimes those things are options. Depends on the model and the trim level. For example the Venture WB edition has a lot more stuff than just the Venture. There is usually a LS level and so on. Back in 2017 I don't recall them having any problems with chips. It's this wuflu crap that has really set the civilized world back.
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"scrap the future"? really? (Score:2)
Really, a chip shortage now made GM/Cadillac to tantrum on its future?
Ah so it isn't so much a shortage of chips (Score:2)
as it is an excess of compute-hungry "features" that either didn't exist or were the punchlines of jokes as recently as 5 years ago.
Pushbutton start instead of keyswitch start.
Lane assist.
Backup cameras.
A 10 inch infotainment screen in the front row.
A screen in the instrument cluster, or even a screen instead of an instrument cluster.
I remember reading a while back in a major newspaper that something like 2/3 of new vehicle owners were actively trying to turn off the lane assist and other crap that got on t
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So how much cost did the cameras, the processor, the software, and that button and the wiring harness that included that button, add to the car.
Features implemented electronically are almost always cheaper than the same features implemented mechanically.
Features implemented in software have a marginal cost of near zero.
Re: Ah so it isn't so much a shortage of chips (Score:2)
That presumes the people writing and testing the code work for free. And even if they work for pennies on the other side of the world, the CXO "managing" them doesn't come cheap either.
But more to the point...industrial cameras ain't cheap. The cameras in the front and back of cars with all these gizmos (color, industrial spec temperature range, etc) probably add a couple hundred to the cost of the car. The SoC that does the video processing is probably close to a hundred if the cost breakdown of comparable
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That presumes the people writing and testing the code work for free.
I see that you have no idea what the word "marginal" means.
Try reading this: Marginal cost [wikipedia.org].
Re: Ah so it isn't so much a shortage of chips (Score:1)
I understand it quite well. You're glossing over the fact that if the marginal cost is nonzero for a feature some people don't use, then it's all cost and little benefit.
I don't use backup cameras. Because I was taught to always look where the car was going and my peripheral vision is better than the backup cameras therefore my situational awareness is not improved by the backup camera.
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Really? You can see through the rear structure of the car, into the substantial blind spot between the mirror view-line and below the rear window view-line in most modern cars?
I am in awe of your X-ray vision! You are the superior driver!
No, actually, I despair of people who go "I am a perfect driver, I don't need any technical assistance, it is un-necessary for me". Please get off the road until you get a clue, before you drive into someone and hurt them.
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"I don't use backup cameras. Because I was taught to always look where the car was going and my peripheral vision is better than the backup cameras therefore my situational awareness is not improved by the backup camera."
Then you're blinded to your own lack of awareness. You can't see through your rear pillars, and you can't see through your trunk.
I was taught to always look as well, and have continued to do so in spite of having back up cameras since '03. The camera saved my ass from running over a toddl
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Backup cameras are amazingly useful. Why would you include those on that list of features?
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And that reminded me of when I got a newish Toyota loaner car a few years ago while my shitbox chevy was being repaired. And the thing kept beeping at me until I realized it was the lane assist not being able to cope with the narrow and windy Massachusetts roads.
As the owner of a Toyota with that same lane assist safety feature (yes, safety feature, as I'm pretty sure the reason for the beeps is to wake up a sleepy driver who's unaware that they're drifting, like the rumble strips do), I can assure you that it was not needlessly beeping at you, but informing you that your driving was so bad that you couldn't stay in your effing lane and were being a hazard to other drivers.
My dad was similarly puzzled why my car kept beeping at him as he was "hugging the corners"
Re: Ah so it isn't so much a shortage of chips (Score:1)
I take it you've never driven on the old cowpaths-turned-state-roads in the Boston suburbs.
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Pushbutton start and backup cameras have been around for a couple decades now...I had them both in my '03 Infiniti. A 10 inch "infotainment screen" isn't really any different than any other small screen.
I've only tried lane assist on two vehicles, and Escalade and an F150...not impressed by either.
Why would I buy this car now? (Score:2)
Why would I pay as much as GM charges for a car like the Escalade, or any other car that's at the higher end of the price range, if it didn't have similar levels of self-driving autonomy to "Super cruise" ? Semi-autonomy is rapidly becoming a must-have for any expensive car (except actual sports cars where manual control is the point of the car). Rational car buyers looking for cars to get them places (rather than to drive around) are going to by-pass GM for something else with autonomy.