FAR EAST: JAPAN REPORT
Honda will sell some of its new vehicles without a function that detects vehicles in the blind spot and warns the driver, saying the dedicated semiconductors required for this function have been in short supply.
To solve the situation where it takes about a year from order receipt to delivery, Honda will sell the new models with the function reduced so that they can be delivered in about six months.
Sales of the new SUV model “ZR-V” began with a specification that eliminates “Blind Spot Information (BSI),” which alerts the driver by detecting vehicles diagonally behind the vehicle and displaying them in the door mirror. Since the procurement of the necessary in-vehicle semiconductors was not completed in time and the delivery period was expected to be prolonged, the company decided to sell the car without this BSI function. Although it varies by store and model, the time from order to delivery can be reduced by half, from about one year to about six months.
At the same time, Toyota Motor Corporation has reduced the number of “smart keys,” the remote-controlled keys given at the time of delivery, from the usual two to one, starting with production in November 2022. The second key will be given as soon as it is ready.
Nissan Motor Co. is averaging 2 to 3 months for delivery of its small car “NOTE” and mid-sized minivan “SERENA,” which is half of what it was six months ago. However, before COVID, it was one to two months.
Source: The Nikkei
PSR Analysis: I visited CONEXPO2023, the world’s largest construction equipment exhibition, where many remote-control systems, including Trimble, were on display. The system consists of multiple large monitors, a cockpit, and joysticks to operate construction equipment from a remote location via the Internet. It is my impression that many of these systems were developed by telecommunications giants and aimed at construction equipment manufacturers.
Hitachi Construction Machinery is now offering this system as its own service to its customers. In the midst of a serious labor shortage, such labor-saving systems are in high demand. Unmanned operation is the ultimate goal of the construction machinery industry, but the first step would be to operate multiple job sites from a single location using such a remote-control system. PSR
Akihiro Komuro is Research Analyst, Far East and Southeast Asia, for Power Systems Research
