August 11, 2021
The microchip shortage has been a Buddhasend for the Asian automobile industry, i.e. Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Hyundai-Kia, and China’s Volvo. Toyota sales in North America climbed 33 percent, Honda rose 8 percent, Hyundai-Kia rose 29 percent, Mazda jumped 36 percent, and Chinese-owned Volvo rose 19 percent.
Meanwhile, Ford Motor Co.’s sales plummeted 32 percent in July. Toyota now sells twice as many automobiles than Ford, which was directly caused by the current microchip shortage.
Only two countries control the world’s advanced microchip supply, Taiwan and South Korea. Analysts now predict Taiwan’s TSMC will become the world’s first $1 trillion microchip company within the next five years. TSMC’s current market cap is $600 billion, compared to America’s Intel, which sits at $200 billion, according to Motley Fool.
The Detroit 3 collectively dropped 7.2 percentage points from the same period last year. Domestic car brands now command just 37.4 percent of America’s market share. That figure is also counting Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep, which hasn’t been American-owned for over a decade after being purchased by Italy’s Fiat and once again purchased by Stellantis—making Chrysler an Italian-Dutch company now.
Although Toyota is the largest car company in the world, they have always been 2nd place in the United States after General Motors. However, that changed for the first time as Toyota’s market share reached 17.5 percent, surpassing GM’s 15.3 percent. Hyundai-Kia surpassed Stellantis as the No. 3 largest car company in the United States and Honda just surpassed Ford to grab 5th place, according to Automotive News.
Analysts now predict Asian car companies will control about 60 percent of America’s market share within the next few years and possibly reach 70 percent by the end of the decade. Toyota is set to release 15 new electric car models by 2025 after developing a new groundbreaking solid-state battery with Tesla’s battery designer, Japan’s Panasonic.
Toyota-Panasonic’s new solid-state battery has a range of 300 miles and requires only 10 minutes to fully charge and cost half as much to manufacture. Tesla’s mistake was relying on Japanese and South Korean companies to develop their “tech.”
American microchip strains will continue into the next few years—preventing GM, Ford, and Stellantis from reaching full manufacturing capacity, which marks the beginning of a new Golden Age in the Asian automobile industry.
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