Written by / Author of Finance and Economics Weekly Wang Xin
Edited / Mao Shiyang
Anxious car company big guys, drinking and seeking cores
"At the time of the handover at the airport, I told the leaders of the XX municipal government that at least two people must be sent, and they are party members. Finally sent four past. Xu Daquan, executive vice president of Bosch (China) Investment Co., Ltd., described to caijing Tianxia weekly, "After the other party saw our personnel, before opening the box and inspecting the goods, he first took the photos of the four people (who received the goods) and sent them to us, saying ' Confirm that this is Bosch (coming)'?" We say 'yes'. ”
This is similar to a thrilling scene in a Hollywood blockbuster, which really happened in 2021, and the participant is not 007, but the world's top 500 companies.
"The box of chips I was carrying was worth about 35 million yuan." Xu Daquan said that in addition to the value of the goods themselves, this batch of chips to a certain extent determines the annual sales from "Wei Xiaoli" to Volkswagen, Geely, Great Wall and other car companies, because "a chip is a car." ”
Around a small chip, under the glamorous appearance of auto companies such as "Wei Xiaoli", a dark war is underway.
"Whoever can give me a chip, I'll ask him to drink." Just this past December 25, He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng Motors, faced CCTV cameras and told his biggest anxiety in 2021.
According to the latest data from research institute AutoForecast Solutions (hereinafter referred to as AFS), as of December 19, the cumulative production reduction in the global automotive market in 2021 due to chip shortages was 10.272 million units, of which the cumulative production reduction in the Chinese automotive market has reached 1.982 million units, accounting for 19.3% of the total production reduction.
Previously, most chip manufacturers did not directly supply car companies, but supplied to Bosch and other parts manufacturers for the production of key components and then supplied to car companies. However, in the special market, in order to ensure production capacity, some OEMs began to bypass parts manufacturers, personally go to the black market to "sweep goods", and purchase chips at high prices to provide parts manufacturers for processing.
An industry insider told the "Finance and Economics" weekly that the original price of 13 yuan / ESP (body stability system) chip, the black market price has been speculated to 4,000 yuan / piece, nearly 300 times higher.
The most extreme sweeping is the ideal car. "The sweeping goods were very high at that time, and at the peak, the ideal car bought 5,000 pieces, 5,000 yuan a piece, but the actual normal price was only 11 yuan a piece." A senior member of a parts company revealed to the "Finance world" weekly, "They also regretted it later, no one processed it for them, so everyone felt that it was meaningless." ”
Today, automakers are sending people everywhere to ask for chips to leave a new name in the industry - the core chaser. A senior executive of an auto parts company told the "Finance and Economics" weekly that there are too many people in the entire industrial chain who chase chip suppliers to drink, but often drink bitter wine, and the chips that can be sought can be "fit in a pocket of clothes".
As a result, many car company bigwigs began to break through from the "high level". It is not only He Xiaopeng who wants to invite people to drink, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, is the person who "works hardest" for chips.
"From May to December 2021, we see each other almost every month. He is the owner of the automaker who talked to me about the lack of core supply in May 2021, and he foresaw the lack of core at the earliest. Chen Yudong, president of Bosch China, told Caijing Tianxia weekly.
But that didn't change anything.
"People are still hoping that a miracle will happen in the last week, which is actually impossible. The last few days of 2021 will be when the original form of the oem will be revealed. Chen Yudong told Caijing Tianxia Weekly.
(Photo/Visual China)
The lack of core changes the sales ranking of car companies in 2021
On December 23, a salesperson of the Xiaopeng brand revealed to caijing tianxia weekly that at the end of the year, some of its products began to stop accepting some orders.
"We have no way to estimate the production time of the car." Xiaopeng Automobile staff told Caijing Tianxia Weekly, "Our exhibition cars have been sold out, and the test drives have all been sold out." If you look at it again in January, it is estimated that there is only one P7 version of the Pengyi version. ”
According to the practice of previous years, December has always been the last hurdle for car companies to sprint in sales, especially for Wei Xiaoli, who needs to report his achievements to investors and the industry. But this time, because of the lack of core, the car company that was forced to "give up" the sprint when it was at the door was not just Xiaopeng Motors.
"Due to the shortage of chips, the car machine suddenly can't come, but the vehicle battery motor, tires have arrived, do I install, or not?" Daniel Zhang, co-founder and president of Nezha Automobile, told Caijing Tianxia Weekly, "If it is not installed, the output may be empty today, and if it is to be installed, the vehicle will be missing the off-line, how to reload after the missing parts are off the line, how to do a good job of quality control, do a good job of factory inspection, this pressure on the entire system is huge." ”
Daniel Zhang told the "Finance and Economics" weekly that in the absence of parts, the production line can be offline 400 to 500 vehicles a day, and there are less than 100 when there are missing parts, and even the day will be empty. "It is that the vehicle cannot leave the factory, the missing parts or the quality inspection time is not sufficient, and the factory inspection process must be completed before it can be started."
A hard-to-find hardcore off-road net red brand tank 300 is a concentrated portrayal of great wall motors' lack of cores, and once suspended orders because of the lack of chips due to hot orders. "130,000 orders have been delivered now, but the current order volume has exceeded 220,000." In the WEY brand store where Tank 300 is located in early December, a staff member told consumers who came to see the car that it would take more than 6 months to order a car.
At the end of 2021, a person close to the top management of NIO revealed to caijing Tianxia weekly that NIO had set a target of 100,000 vehicles in 2021, but according to the sales volume in December, it is expected to be unable to complete.
According to the data released by NIO on January 1, in December 2021, NIO delivered 10,489 new cars, and delivered 91,429 new cars for the whole year, an increase of 109.1% year-on-year.
The quality of chip supply has directly affected the sales of car companies.
Due to the failure to book sufficient chip orders at the beginning of the year, coupled with various objective factors such as the supply chain and the transformation of production lines, Weilai in the new force car manufacturing company "Wei Xiaoli" was the first to feel the problem. Since August, NIO has lost its sales champion, and sales in October even slipped to 3667 units.
It's not just new cars. Due to the lack of cores, Volkswagen's two joint ventures in China continued to decline by double digits from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, and in early 2021, Geely Automobile announced a sales target of 1.53 million units in a high profile, but in the first 11 months, Geely Automobile sold 1.1693 million vehicles, only 76% of the annual sales target, which means that in the last month, Geely Automobile will sell 360,000 units to achieve the target, obviously even the miracle of the end of the year is difficult to achieve. In addition, Toyota Motor Corporation announced that it will suspend production at five Japanese plants in January 2022 due to factories such as supply chain crisis, chip shortages, and the epidemic. Toyota said the shutdown at those plants would affect about 20,000 vehicles.
"I am also very sad that we basically failed to complete the original requirements of major domestic customers such as Great Wall Motors." Chen Yudong told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that according to his calculations, according to orders and shipments, Bosch's shipments in the third quarter were 1.5 million less than the order volume, and the fourth quarter was also 1.5 million, which will be directly fed back on the production capacity of the whole vehicle.
The supplier of "suddenly becoming a regular house" has a word of suffering
"Once the car manufacturers were too arrogant to take care of chip companies." For the status of chip companies, Li Bin, founder and chairman of Weilai Automobile, once said.
"Before, as a second-tier supplier, I went to the main engine factory, if I could communicate effectively with a minister, I would be happy for half a day, and now I basically sit with the CEO of the main engine factory to eat, and often sit in the main seat, but it is very uncomfortable, and it feels like suddenly changing into a regular room." Zhao Mingyu, vice president of Renesas Electronics, said.
Behind this, the status of chip companies in the vehicle supply chain is not high. In fact, automotive chips are often not demanding, represented by 8-inch wafers, which have been in a state of relative overcapacity, so from around 2019, most chip foundries have begun to focus on products with higher thresholds and higher profits such as 12-inch wafers.
At the other end, cars are mostly "small customers" for chip companies. TSMC accounts for more than 90% of the market share of high-end automotive MCUs, however, automotive chip revenue only accounts for about 4% of TSMC's operating income. Compared with the low added value of automotive chips, the hot sales of consumer electronics such as smartphones have pushed up the demand for mid-to-high-end chips.
Due to the transfer of production capacity, the lack of core in the automotive industry today has buried hidden dangers since then.
Some insiders told the "Finance and Economics" weekly that in 2019, the trough of automobile sales, the problem of lack of core did not appear, in 2020, a large number of inventory chips alleviated the shortage, until 2021, the shortage problem broke out.
In addition, from the beginning of 2021, from heavy snow in Texas, to the Renesas fire in Japan in March, to the closure of factories in Malaysia in July, these three "black swan" events have exacerbated the lack of core in 2021.
The chip crisis soon spread to tier 1 suppliers such as upstream Bosch. Since the automotive chip industry is basically monopolized by large global suppliers such as Renesas, NXP, and Infineon, the international giants of tier 1 suppliers represented by Bosch have almost all built factories of automotive chips in Southeast Asia, and the outbreak of the new crown epidemic has led to a direct reduction in the chip industry by 40%. Affected by the epidemic in Malaysia, Bosch HAS a shortage of chips such as ESP/IPB, VCU, and TCU.
The most extreme lack of cores occurred in July and August 2021, when Bosch's order satisfaction rate was only 20-25%.
The crisis in the supply of semiconductor chips, one of the automotive components, is the biggest crisis chen yudong has encountered since he started his career. "In 2021, I'm under the most pressure." Chen Yudong told Caijing Weekly that the entire semiconductor industry began to have a chip shortage in mid-2020, "but in 2020 we successfully passed, chip supply did not cause a great impact, when the shortage was only about 10-15%." Unexpectedly, 2021 has been struggling to guarantee supply. ”
Because the goods could not be delivered, the people in the OEMs began to blame the suppliers. Some automakers ridicule Bosch's English Bosch as "no production," and there's an explanation called the Brooken supply chain.
"Almost all the CEOs of car companies are squatting in the Bosch China headquarters in Shanghai to ask for chips, and Lao Xu (Xu Daquan) is going to jump off the building." In August 2021, Zhu Yanfeng, chairman of Dongfeng Motor Company, joked.
In August, a group of car company CEOs squatted at the Bosch China headquarters in Shanghai, waiting for chips. Including Geely, Changan, Great Wall, Weilai, Ideal, Xiaopeng Automobile, in short, almost all the heads of the purchasing department of the main engine factory will bring their own bosses to Shanghai to take turns to "seek cores".
However, it's hard to change anything. The person in charge of Bosch told caijing tianxia weekly that since the main car companies are Bosch customers, Bosch has a clear supply distribution plan, and everything is distributed in the same proportion based on the orders at the beginning of the year.
In fact, the shortage of chips has also affected the revenue of parts companies. According to consultancy AlixPartners, the shortage of semiconductor chips will cost the global automotive industry $210 billion in revenue in 2021, which is equivalent to 7.3% of the total revenue of the global 500 vehicles and components in 2021.
How many years will it take to pick up?
"After August 2021, we gradually resumed climbing in September and October, but until now we have not fully returned to the stage of supply freedom, but we are still missing about 30-40%. Therefore, by the end of 2021, most manufacturers will not be able to complete the task. Chen Yudong told Caijing Tianxia Weekly.
In fact, not only has the lack of cores in the fourth quarter of 2021 not improved, but it will not be easy for car companies in 2022.
According to industry insiders, under the expectation of lack of cores and price increases, middlemen and automobile companies have begun to place orders directly from upstream chip companies, which not only causes an increase in procurement costs, but also brings different degrees of capacity run. According to media reports, the production capacity in the first half of 2022 has been fully booked, and more than 90% of the production capacity in the second half of the year has also been booked.
In addition, automotive chips have become a seller's market, and the proportion of advance payments has increased, and the delivery cycle has been extended. As the industry predicts that the shortage of automotive chips will continue beyond 2023, more and more car companies have begun to choose to sign 2-3 year contracts with chip foundries.
In order to alleviate the shortage of chips, upstream foundries began to build additional factories and expand production capacity, but it takes many years for new production capacity to be built from factory construction to capacity release before it can truly enter the supply chain of OEMs. For the vehicle-grade chip, this cycle is further extended.
Caijing Tianxia weekly learned that the construction of new factories often takes 18 to 24 months, and the cycle of forming stable production capacity is often longer.
How has the lack of cores improved? Chen Yudong told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that the degree of core shortage in the first half of 2022 will be around 20-30%. "In the second half of 2022, with the semiconductor cycle capacity up, the lack of core conditions began to improve, but the improvement is not the freedom of supply, it is estimated that the fundamental improvement will be after 2023."
But it will take longer to solve the long-term supply problem.
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