Month: December 2022

Enlarge / Some analysts have estimated that the chip shortage has caused new car prices to rise by 16 percent in two years. (credit: golibtolibov/getty images)

We can expect continued disruption to the global semiconductor industry and, therefore, continued supply chain shortages in the automotive industry throughout 2023, according to a new report in the Financial Times. The head of Onsemi, Hassane El-Khoury, told the paper that "there's nothing you can do now to change 2023," and that "we will be adding capacity every quarter, every month in 2023 to meet our customer demand."

The problem began during the pandemic and its associated shutdowns around the world. These caused automakers to temporarily idle plants due to public health concerns, leading some to cancel just-in-time orders for silicon chips. But as vaccines became available and production restarted, the silicon fabs that would have made chips for automakers had already switched that production capacity to other customers like IoT device makers.

Chip plants are running flat-out to meet demand but have warned that the problem is not going to be solved quickly.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

If you were too distracted this weekend by John Carmack's Friday departure from Meta to donate to this year's Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes, don't worry. You still have time to donate to a good cause and get a chance to win your share of over $2,000 worth of swag (no purchase necessary to win).

So far this year, in less than two weeks, more than 160 readers have donated nearly $12,000 to either the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Child's Play as part of the charity drive (Child's Play is leading in the donation totals by about $1,000, for what it's worth). That's still a long way from 2020's record annual haul of over $58,000, but there's still plenty of time until the Charity Drive wraps up on January 3, 2023.

That doesn't mean you should put your donation off, though. Do yourself and the charities involved a favor and give now while you're thinking about it. Don't forget and end up kicking yourself in January for not participating.

Enlarge / The HIF synthetic fuel plant near Punta Arenas in Chile. (credit: Porsche)

This week, a Chilean startup called Highly Innovative Fuels officially opened its first synthetic gasoline production facility. HIF was created to run the new plant, which is the result of a collaboration between the automaker Porsche, Siemens Energy, Exxon Mobil, Enel Green Power, the Chilean state energy company ENAP, and Empresas Gasco. Initially, the site will produce around 34,000 gallons (130,000 L) a year, scaling up to 14.5 million gallons (55 million L) a year by 2024, with plans to increase that tenfold to 145 million gallons (550 million L) a year by 2026. The first gasoline produced by the plant was used to ceremonially fill a Porsche 911, a task performed by Chile's energy minister, Diego Pardow.

"Yesterday, we celebrated together with all the employees from HIF and our partners, this historic moment," said Barbara Frenkel, Porsche's board member for procurement. "It was a very special evening, because we are encountering something which is of course, very important to us for our sustainability strategy, but also as we see big potential in efuels for the decarbonisation of the Earth's climate. So, the synthetic fuel we are producing here, stemming from wind energy, water and CO₂ is really a compelling idea," she said.

The site, located in Punta Arenas in Southern Chile, will use wind to power the process—the area sees high winds roughly 270 days a year, and a wind turbine can expect to produce up to four times as much energy as one in Europe, according to Frenkel.