Chip Shortage Slows Huajing Deliveries, Automakers' Supply Chains Under Pressure
nashnova research
A cockpit-chip supply gap has stretched Luxeed S delivery times, while memory price hikes add roughly ¥14,000 per vehicle — forcing Chinese automakers to rebalance risk across stockpiling, long-term contracts, and in-house chip development.
Where is the delivery bottleneck?
A Luxeed source confirmed on Sept 8 that HarmonyOS cockpit chips — the processors powering in-car displays and instrument clusters — face a periodic supply shortage, stretching Luxeed S delivery timelines.
Luxeed S deliveries climbed from 3,603 units at its May launch to 7,203 in July, but August managed only 7,306 — virtually flat. This means → the production ramp stalled at the point of peak demand.
Luxeed is not alone: Buick flagged potential delays for the Velite E7 and offered ¥100/day compensation past a 30-day window; Xpeng's MONA L03 saw August output disrupted by advanced-node chip fluctuations before switching to double shifts.
How is memory inflation eating into margins?
NIO's Li Bin disclosed that per-vehicle cost rose roughly ¥14,000 from end-2025 to Q2, driven by memory, batteries, and other materials — adding about ¥1.5 billion in a single quarter.
He expects the per-car increase to widen to ¥16,000–17,000 in H2 2026, with memory alone averaging roughly ¥10,000. This means → memory chips by themselves account for most of the cost increase.
A counterintuitive twist has emerged: "diseconomies of scale" in memory procurement — small orders get discounts, but larger volumes push the price up. In plain terms = the traditional playbook of spreading cost through higher volume no longer works for memory purchases.
Who is passing costs on, and who is absorbing them?
BYD raised the option price for its "Eye of God B LiDAR ADAS" package from ¥9,900 to ¥12,000 on select models, explicitly citing memory-hardware cost inflation.
Li Auto's Li Xiang said the company will not pass costs to consumers, opting instead for deeper battery R&D, integrated design, and cost management — and announced a planned ¥2.65 billion capital injection into EVE Energy.
One executive at a newer EV maker revealed that semiconductor cost in some models now exceeds the battery, making chips the single most expensive component category. This reflects a fundamental shift: "silicon content" is rewriting the vehicle cost structure.
What new risks do stockpiling and long-term contracts create?
Desay SV's interim report shows raw-material book value surging from ¥1.71 billion at year-start to ¥3.96 billion by end-June; operating cash flow fell 35.1% year-on-year, driven by the stockpiling outlay.
Micron disclosed that its automotive strategic-customer agreements typically run three years and include purchase-volume commitments with payment obligations; Ford signed such a deal in July. In plain terms = to lock in supply, automakers must bet on future sales — if a model underperforms, the chip bill still comes due.
This means → the price of supply security is transferring demand-forecast risk from the supplier's balance sheet onto the automaker's.
How long will the supply crunch last?
TrendForce notes that memory fabs are channeling more capacity toward servers; automotive eMMC, UFS, and enterprise SSDs overlap heavily at certain process nodes, but carry lower unit margins — automakers competing for incremental supply face a cross-industry allocation squeeze.
UBS China tech research head Yu Jia stated that global DRAM supply-demand tightness could persist through Q2 2028, while NAND Flash remains tight at least through Q4 2027.
With limited room to pass prices on to consumers, the decisive question is whether automakers can diversify memory sourcing through in-house chip design and consolidate cockpit and ADAS functions to cut redundant hardware — that will determine who ultimately bears this cost cycle.
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