Rather, the only people with intent to deceive might be the chip vendors. They either sold chip capacity that the automakers still had the legal rights to, or they reneged on sales to non automakers to resume supplying to automakers.
Why would you build chips you know you can't sell?
Also, people talk about how big of an impact car manufacturing is to the economy and while that is true, they aren't chip manufacturers biggest customers. Apple spends more per year on semiconductors than the ENTIRE auto industry. To top that off the automotive ICs aren't high margin stuff, so if I was a fab or chip vendor, I would be focused on higher margin stuff.
The blame for this is SOLELY on the auto manufacturers.
Or is this the mass exodus from American cities I keep reading about? They're buying cars because they're moving from NY to Florida, that sort of thing?
My running theory is that manufacturers and retailers continue to underprice their goods,likely because they expect to eventually return to normal. This ends up effectively hiding inflation.
Many buyers have more discretionary cash than usual due to reduced spending from lockdowns. Demand is therefore increased on the things people can and want to buy. Then resellers/scalpers see the margin and buy up inventory to arbitrage. The scarcity compounds.