2021 car market inventory: "lack of core" impact let car companies both sweet and bitter can not say

Recently, Ford Motor confirmed that eight of its North American plants will stop production within a week starting February 7, including Ford's plants in Michigan, Illinois, Missouri and Mexico. Even factories that do not stop production will reduce overtime or shifts. The root cause is the shortage of chips.

Toyota expects that in February 2022, they will cut production in Japan by about 150,000 units, and reduce production globally by 700,000 units, and Toyota motor has stopped production several times last year.

If you want to take stock of the biggest variable that affects the fluctuations of the global auto market in 2021, it must be the "chip famine" that breaks out in a large area.

As a global crisis, according to the forecast data of Auto Forecast Solutions, the cumulative production reduction of the global automotive market will reach 11.324 million units in 2021, resulting in a loss of about 1.3 trillion yuan for the global automotive industry, of which the cumulative production reduction in the Chinese market is expected to reach 2.148 million units.

For the Chinese auto market, which has been in a price war for a long time in the past, the "lack of core" not only allows some models with high inventory to digest inventory, but also reduces the annual sales target, thereby avoiding the price scuffle affecting the terminal ecology, so that many auto marketers can loosen the tight strings for a short time.

However, the "lack of core" caused by the reduction of some models, the shortage of entry-level models, the production capacity of car companies to ensure high profit models, and even the subsequent arrival of chips and then loaded into the car, etc., are also emerging.

What makes people feel helpless is that there are voices within the industry that predict that the automotive semiconductor supply crisis that lasts for more than a year will last for 1-2 years, and most of the new chip and expansion projects will not be officially put into production until 2023.

That is to say, under the influence of the long production and manufacturing cycle of vehicle-grade chips and the risk of global epidemic or rebound, the "stored grain" is becoming less and less, but the demand is becoming more and more exuberant, and the lack of core in 2022 will not only not disappear, but may be more severe.

Indeed it is. At the end of 2021, including Infineon, the world's largest automotive semiconductor supplier and Bosch, have predicted that the global chip crisis will be very serious in 2022.

In the past year, including Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda, Ford, General Motors and other car companies, they have carried out different degrees of production cuts or even production stoppages. If the situation in 2022 is more severe, it is not difficult to guess that these car companies will be further frustrated by "production capacity".

So, what are the specific impacts on consumers?

Although on the surface, the shortage of chips directly affects the automakers, but in essence, it affects the terminal consumer market. Due to the limited chips, in order to rationally allocate limited resources, most car companies will choose to give priority to the supply of high-profit models.

As a result, the entry-level version of some models may appear "out of stock", and some models have also been reduced due to chip shortages, and even triggered consumer rights protection. In addition, due to the rising cost of raw materials, the terminal discount of some volume models will be further "recycled".

Although some Chinese brands have put semiconductor self-research work on the agenda, the research and development cycle of vehicle-grade chips is still long, and under the influence of the uncertainty risk of the epidemic abroad, in the past two years, the entire industry will face this "helpless" challenge.

Previously, Bosch China's top management had predicted that from the third quarter of 2022, the chip shortage would ease. But if there are other contingencies – such as fires, earthquakes or repeated outbreaks – the "missing core" crisis will continue.

Once the chip problem is solved, the production capacity of car companies will be restored in a large area, and the market competition will further intensify, and with the decline in the transaction price of automobiles, a new round of automobile price wars is bound to start.