Chinese carmakers say printed circuit boards and multilayer ceramic capacitors are 20% to 30% short globally, with prices more than tripling over the past year because of AI data centre demand. Automotive memory prices rose about 180% in three months.
The AI boom has reached the cheapest components in a car. Chinese carmakers report a global shortage of 20% to 30% in printed circuit boards and multilayer ceramic capacitors, with prices more than tripling over the past year.
These are not exotic parts. A ceramic capacitor costs a fraction of a cent, and a modern car with driver assistance uses thousands of them.
The disruption is physical rather than financial. Geely’s Dai Yong says a lack of boards and capacitors stops assemblies running smoothly and interrupts production, which is a different problem from paying more.
The demand pulling them away is data centres. Industry officials expect at least a year before global supply can be built up to meet what AI infrastructure and carmakers now want simultaneously.
Memory is the larger half of the same squeeze. Automotive-grade memory rose roughly 180% in three months, with Samsung, SK hynix and Micron directing more than 80% of advanced-node capacity to AI servers, in the shortage that pushed Pixel prices up.
Cars are also asking for far more of it. A basic level two driver assistance system needs about 8GB, while urban navigate-on-autopilot features can require more than 300GB.
Buyers are paying already. More than ten Chinese electric vehicle makers have raised prices or cut discounts by 2,000 to 6,000 yuan, BYD has increased what it charges for driver assistance, and General Motors has warned about cost increases.
This is the same shortage that has been working through consumer hardware all year. It ended the $599 Mac Mini and pushed Microsoft to shrink Windows for machines with 8GB of memory.
European carmakers buy from the same suppliers and have no separate queue. Volkswagen, Stellantis and BMW are exposed to identical capacitor, board and memory pricing, in a market where electric car prices have already stopped falling.
The policy point is uncomfortable. Europe directed its semiconductor money towards leading-edge fabs, while the parts actually holding up production lines are passive components and automotive memory that no industrial strategy treated as strategic.
The cheapest thing in the vehicle now sets what it costs. That is a supply chain lesson the industry has learned twice in five years, and it has not yet changed what anyone stockpiles.
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