ELECTRONIC chips may be the size of a fingernail, but their miniscule dimensions belie their ability to bring the global car production to its knees. Global consulting firm AlixPartners estimated last month that car-makers will lose about $US110 billion ($A142b) of sales this year due to the shortage of semiconductors, almost double an earlier projection. Tesla boss Elon Musk this week tweeted that the chip shortage was making car production difficult and blamed some companies for over-ordering the chips. His tweet read: "Our biggest challenge is supply chain, especially microcontroller chips. Never seen anything like it. Fear of running out is causing every company to overorder – like the toilet paper shortage, but at epic scale." He said the chip shortage was a "huge problem" and one of the most difficult supply chain challenges the company had ever experienced.