'No Chips, No Music' Says GM And BMW As Semiconductor Shortage Silences Apple CarPlay And Android Auto
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Apple
The Automotive News Europe reported last week that BMW car buyers are finding their expensive new vehicles can’t connect to CarPlay or Android Auto, the two leading smartphone standards.
Lost connection is a perfect metaphor. Investors should lose most legacy auto stocks.
Modern cars and trucks are supposed to come with all of the modern conveniences. Sophisticated navigation, advanced driver-assistance systems and state-of-the-art infotainment have become entitlements.
CarPlay and Android Auto are software platforms developed by Apple (AAPL) and Alphabet (GOOGL). They let car owners link their smartphones, and run familiar applications like Google
The ongoing chip shortage is exposing the biggest weakness of the legacy automakers: They are not technology companies.
For most of the last two decades that skill set didn’t matter.
Traditional automakers were good at making cars and trucks the old-fashioned way. General Motors
Then the Covid-19 pandemic occurred.
Expecting slower sales, executives at legacy automakers cut orders for the semiconductors that power navigation, advanced safety, and infotainment systems. Chip suppliers obliged, and then moved on to orders from customers in the consumer electronics sector. Automakers lost their place in the queue. They are paying for their lack of foresight to this day. That’s not reason to avoid shares of most legacy automakers. It’s worse.
Most auto firms are still not focused on integrating software engineering talent. Almost two full years into the shortage the industry is still dependent solutions from third party software firms. It’s a mess with no easy fix because auto execs believe outsourcing is an industry strength. It’s not.
Tesla
The Austin, Tex.-based company has become a vertically integrated vampire in the automotive world, to switch metaphors. Elon Musk, chief executive, maintained chip orders in 2020 and has since accelerated purchases. When supplies ran short in 2021 he had company engineers rework the vehicle codebase to work with microcontrollers, according documents filed at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Independence is a theme at Tesla. Its electric vehicles have never directly supported CarPlay and Android Auto. While Google Maps is licensed, the Tesla infotainment platform is proprietary. Smartphones connect via Bluetooth, an open standard outside the control of Apple, Alphabet, and chipmakers.
A statement from BMW last week revealed that to maintain its production schedule, the company was forced to change to a different chip. The Automotive News notes that silicon does not currently support CarPlay and Android Auto. The platforms have come as standard equipment since 2020 in most new BMWs.
CarPlay and Android Auto are the link to the modern digital world.
Auto company stocks have been weak in 2022, yet the worse may be yet to come. The industry is drowning in debt. Interest rates are rising. The economy is set to contract. Production at the leading legacy automakers will surely follow.
Volkswagen, Toyota, Ford, BMW and GM owe $211B, $185B, $154B, $127B and $114B respectively, according to the latest financial filings. Tesla has only $13B in longer-term debt.
Investors should be especially careful with shares of GM, down 32.4% year-to-date. Ironically, executives have pushed the company all-in on EVs at a time when sales of internal combustion engines cars are needed to service soaring debt levels.
A statement from GM in 2021 promised to only produce EVs by 2035. And the Detroit, Mich.-based firm has 30 new EVs planned by 2025, at a cost of $27 billion.
Although GM shares are down 32.5% in 2022. Existing GM investors should consider selling into strength to protect capital.
