Ford reported a BILLION dollar loss recently. Mostly due to unexpected material costs - gee, do those over educated idiots in purchasing actually think prices are going down?
It’s like this gigantic bet on EVs they’re all making. Of course there are a few on here that will argue till they’re blue in the face, to the contrary, but at the end of the day, the Chinese either control, completely, or have some type of control over a very sizable portion of the raw materials needed for the toy cars.
China’s EV company recently took over the #1 spot, from Tesla, in EV sales. They strangle that material to keep it all for themselves, that’s all folks.
The ‘problem’ is JITM.
Just In Time Manufacturing, an industry-wide process that was started by GM, IIRC, back in the 80’s or 70’s.
Parts suppliers and factory schedulers coordinated so that parts needed to build certain cars were delivered on the day they would be needed, so that huge stockpiles of parts were no longer necessary.
Anybody could have foreseen the troubles that would arise out of supply chain disruptions, union strikes and weather delays.
Add in COVID, idiots in the Whitehouse and foreign control of supplies and you have what we use to call in the Marines as a CLUSTERF*#%+...............