Smaller fabs do exist, but they don't enjoy economies of scale unless they could project very strong demand down the road. Nobody invests in such a venture guar

Smaller fabs do exist, but they don't enjoy economies of scale unless they could project very strong demand down the road. Nobody invests in such a venture guaranteed to lose a lot of money. Another issue more pertinent to automotive manufacturing is certification. For example, car makers once had to wait almost a year for Renesas to rebuild their facilities in Naka following the 2011 earthquake despite the company operating fabs in multiple countries. The latter were perfectly capable of producing the product in demand but the cost of certification is so prohibitive that moving production elsewhere was never brought up as an option.