WCA November 2018

From the Americas Kenneth Gillingham, a Yale University economist who led a study that found that found a much smaller effect, said, “I think it’s fair to say that [the Trump] number is at the high end. And there are several arguments they dismissed that could bring it down.”  The ‘pricier vehicles’ argument. The Trump administration also argues that the Obama fuel economy standards would add an estimated $1,900 to the average cost of a new car. That would deter people from buying newer vehicles with such advanced safety features as automatic emergency braking systems; and keep them driving their older, less-safe vehicles for longer periods. It may be that more vehicle fatalities occur in older than in newer cars, a view held by the US Transportation Department, but this line of reasoning is receiving pushback on a few fronts. Some economists called the analysis too simplistic, failing as it does to properly consider key factors like age, gender, and other driver characteristics that affect crashes. “I think they are substantially overestimating the impact here,” Dr Bento said. (A fact perhaps worthy of mention: President Trump is considering tariffs on imported cars and car parts that, according to estimates by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, could increase prices of American-produced vehicles by $2,000 and imported vehicles by up to $5,800.)  The ‘lighter vehicle’ argument. The Trump administration argues that strict fuel economy rules could imperil vehicle safety by forcing automakers to produce lightweight vehicles that are less capable of withstanding crashes. “The most important question is whether cars on the road are getting more similar in weight, or more dissimilar,” said Mark Jacobsen, an economist at the University of California, San Diego. “If you’re bringing down the weight of the heaviest vehicles but not the lightest vehicles, then, in the average accident, the cars will be better matched.” The Obama administration found that automakers were indeed mostly cutting weight from their larger vehicles in response to fuel-economy rules – one reason for the finding of no harm to overall vehicle safety. According to the Trump proposal, this might not always be the case.  While there is no arguing with a guess at what the future holds, Mr Plumer of the Times noted that this particular element of the three-pronged Trump proposal accounts for only about one per cent of the administration’s fatality estimates. “That is because, in recent years, experts have found that the size of a vehicle is more important to safety than its weight,” wrote Mr Plumer. The Obama standards of 2015 were designed to encourage

automakers to make their vehicles lighter without making them smaller, a stipulation that alleviated earlier safety concerns.

Telecom

Taiwanese iPhone supplier TSMC had to shut down factories after virus attack A computer virus halted several Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) factories on the night of 3 rd August, dealing the company one of its most severe disruptions as it ramped up chipmaking for the next iPhones from Apple. Reporting on the incident for Bloomberg News , Debby Wu quoted the sole maker of the iPhone’s main processor as saying that a number of its fabrication tools had been infected. While TSMC said it had contained the problem and resumed some production quickly, several of its factories were not set to restart for at least two days. The company made a point of asserting that “the virus was not introduced” by a hacker. (“Computer Virus Cripples IPhone Chipmaker TSMC Plants,” 4 th August) It is not known who targeted TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of chips for companies including Apple and Qualcomm, both of the USA. Ms Wu noted that the assault recalled the WannaCry cyberattacks of 2017 that forced corporations around the world to suspend operations as they rooted out the ransomware. TSMC did say that the extent of infection varied from factory to factory. Chief financial officer Lora Ho told Bloomberg that the company had been attacked by viruses before, but that “this is the first time a virus attack has affected our production lines.” She declined to say how much revenue would be lost as a result of the disruption, or whether the facilities affected were involved in making iPhone chips. It was also unclear to Ms Wu how the lost days of output would affect the Taiwanese firm, the latest to fall prey to what she termed “a growing scourge.” Mark Li, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, said he thought the impact would be limited. But, according to Andrew Liptak of The Verge (4 th August), the slowdown came at a critical time for TSMC, just as many tech firms were working to release their next generation of products in the autumn. In May, TSMC began manufacturing Apple’s A12 chip, to see service in the 2018 line of high-end iPhones. The implications were also unclear for Apple. The iPhone maker reported in late July that it had surpassed $1 trillion in market value, largely on the strength of sales of its pioneering smartphone.  The World Economic Forum has warned that cybercrime could cost global businesses as much as $8 trillion over the next five years. Dorothy Fabian – Features Editor

48

Wire & Cable ASIA – November/December 2018

www.read-wca.com