Lobbyists from the American Automotive Policy Council acting on behalf of General Motors, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler, are asking the Department of Commerce and incoming President Joseph Biden to get foundries to increase output of ‘essential chips’ for cars, Electronics Weekly reported.

“We have requested that the U.S. government help us find a solution to the problem because it will diminish our production and have a negative impact on the U.S. economy until it’s resolved,” Matt Blunt, president of the AAPC and a former Governor of Missouri, told Bloomberg, “we are not primarily concerned with where blame may lie for this global shortage, if it lies anywhere, but we just want a solution. And the solution is more automobile-sector semiconductors.”

The chip shortage has resulted in temporary closings of a number of car facilities and more production cuts are expected. Electronics Weekly noted part of the blame for the predicament was the car manufacturers for cancelling orders during the pandemic. 

“Even if you solve this today, you’d have an entire quarter that’s going to be impacted,” said Blunt, “so it’s really going to have an impact through the first half of this year. And the longer it takes to resolve, the more it will bleed into the third quarter.”

One of the hurdles is that foundries have reluctance to switch production to automotive integrated chips as there is a larger profit in consumer/mobile ICs - and could take three or four months.

“There are lots of people in the incoming administration that have some automobile experience and expertise, and certainly lots of folks understand, including the president-elect, how important the industry is to the United States,” says Blunt.