DEARBORN, Mich. — Henry Ford, the godfather of mass production, was tormented by the possibility of running out of parts and raw materials. He bought his own coal mines in Kentucky and Virginia, along with railroads to carry their output to his factories. And he erected an enormous plant outside Detroit on the River Rouge, a complex of factories engineered to handle every stage of turning raw materials into a finished automobile. A century later, the Rouge plant remains in operation, yet it is bedeviled by a shortage of a crucial component that would have horrified Mr. Ford. The company he founded cannot buy enough semiconductors, the computer chips that are the brains of the modern-day car.

Source: New York Times June 10, 2022 22:18 UTC