That's what happens when consumer demand rapidly shifts, and businesses start panic-buying and panic-cancelling. As far as I recall, actual chip fab output didn't really change that much.
I ask ChatGPT about this. It says the root was demand collapse at the start of COVID. So fabs stopped producing the many low-end chips reqd for modern cars. They retooled/pivoted to higher-end chips. When auto manufs came back knocking after COVID, the fabs didn't want/need their biz of low-end chips.