How RAM memories are already making cars more expensive

Because of RAM memories, the price of cars and features is already getting more expensive. Not yet as exposed as computer manufacturers, modern vehicles rely increasingly on these and other components to support their digital technologies.

It turns out dRAM memories and chips are getting considerably more expensive, due to the growing demand resulting from the needs to support increasingly widespread artificial intelligence technologies.

Data available on the BVM expert's website suggest that currently cars consume large dozens of gigabytes of RAM: between 4 and 16 GB for infoentertainment, from 8 to 32 GB for advanced driving and safety assistance systems, in addition to 16 to 64 GB allocated to centralized computers. One already report published by Micron at the beginning of the year estimates that the average car with current Level 2 driving assist systems uses about 16 gigabytes of DRAM, but reaching Level 4 requirements exceed 300 GB.

BYD increased prices, GM predicts more expensive cars

BYD has already had to increase the prices of driving assistance resources by 20 percent sold apart from cars, according to Nikkei Asia. Moreover, the cost of memories in cars manufactured in China will already be the highest in the world, suggest Huayuan data Securities conveyed by Nikkei – more than double compared to Japanese. It is important to remember that many Chinese brands want to distinguish themselves by advanced technological resources.

In the United States of America, general Motors also feels the effects, even hoping the cars in the country will become 0.3 percent more expensive this year. At the recent investor results presentation conference, transcribed by Yahoo Finance, the builder's financial director, Paul Jacobson, admitted that the “highest costs of DRAM” had a negative impact on the gains in addition, the commission considers that, in the absence of any comments from the interested parties, it is necessary to assess whether the aid is compatible with the internal market.

The person responsible expects that the increase in memory costs, together with the rise of raw materials and the lack of logistical aspects, results in a “negative impact between 1.5 billion and 2 billion dollars” all this year. The numbers on the specific weight of DRAM memories have not been specified – an area in which GM has a collaboration with Micron that allows “intensifies access to vital memory technologies”.

The costs of DRAM memories are associated with the general supply shortage for such demand. And for that reason, the builders are also already guarding for stock. In this sense, still recently seven Japanese car manufacturers signed long-term supply contracts.

According to Nikkei Asia, artificial intelligence alone consumed 32 percent of DRAMs in 2025, but this number may skyrocket in the coming years. The automobile industry only uses about ten percent, refers to AlixPartners, but a purchasing manager of a Japanese parts manufacturer warned that the production of memories “is not reaching the automotive sector”.

Back in China, Executive Chairman Zhang Xinghai of the Seres Group stressed that “the exorbitant price of memories is the biggest challenge for automobile manufacturers.” Then there is the Hyundai case in South Korea, which tries to take advantage of the country's large memory and chip industry and launched a call for manufacturing cooperation for the automotive sector to more than 20 national companies in the sector.

The issue of DRAM memories is yet another one in a list of several challenges currently facing car manufacturers – even taking into account the strong pace of technological development not only in the sector, but in general.