On the one hand, there is overcapacity, on the other hand, there is crazy expansion, and French cars lose to electrification
Text | Guo Huaiyi
Edit | Zhao Cheng
The Wuhan No. 2 Plant of DPCA, which has been dormant since 2019, has finally been taken over by Dongfeng Honda.
▲ Image source network
On February 7, Caijingqiche (ID: caijingqiche) learned from multiple independent sources that DPCA's second plant in the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone (hereinafter referred to as the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone) has been taken over by Dongfeng Honda, which will transform the plant into a new plant specializing in the production of pure electric vehicles.
Annual sales returned to 100,000 units
But DPCA is still overcapacity
"At present, the production equipment in the second factory has been emptied." A source close to DPCA told Caijingqiche :"Dongfeng Honda used the back (second) factory, and DPCA only retained the fountain and office building in front of the factory. ”
In January this year, Dongfeng Honda signed an investment agreement with Wuhan Economic Development Zone for a new electric vehicle plant project to build a new plant specializing in the production of electric vehicles. According to public information, the plant covers an area of 630,000 square meters and is scheduled to be officially put into operation in 2024, with a basic annual production capacity of 120,000 units at the beginning. In October last year, Honda launched a new pure electric brand e:N in China and announced that Dongfeng Honda will build a new pure electric vehicle plant in China and put it into operation in 2024.
"The plant is the new energy factory that Dongfeng Honda previously announced to settle in the Wuhan Economic Development Zone." The above-mentioned sources revealed
For the news that Dongfeng Honda took over the DPCA Plant, DPCA said in its reply to Caijingqiche (ID: caijingqiche): "The DPCA Plant was previously handed over to the local government for storage, and we are not very clear about which company it has since been handed over. ”
Dongfeng Honda said that it has not yet gone to work today and needs to be confirmed tomorrow.
"Although DPCA grew significantly last year, with sales returning to 100,000 vehicles, the previous standardized production capacity was one million, so it is still necessary to dispose of some production capacity, including the second plant." An insider of DPCA told Caijingqiche.
In 2021, with the excellent performance of Dongfeng Citroen Versailles, DPCA achieved rapid growth last year. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers also mentioned in its monthly report that the growth rate of French passenger cars is remarkable. According to data from the China Automobile Association, in 2021, the cumulative sales volume of DPCA was 101,000 units, an increase of 100.07% year-on-year.
Among them, the cumulative sales of Dongfeng Peugeot 4008 were 15,000 units, an increase of 65.99% year-on-year; the cumulative sales of Dongfeng Peugeot 408 were 12,000 units, an increase of 35.41%; the cumulative sales of Dongfeng Peugeot 508L were 9,206 units, an increase of 75.99%; the cumulative sales of Dongfeng Citroen Versailles C5X were 13,000 units; the cumulative sales of Dongfeng Citroen Tianyi were 9,963 units, an increase of 1.88%; and the cumulative sales of Dongfeng Citroen C3-XR were 9,554 units. The year-on-year increase was 228.99%; the cumulative sales of Dongfeng Citroen C6 were 7877 units, an increase of 400.76% year-on-year.
CaijingQiche (ID: caijingqiche) learned that DPCA has four production bases in China, three of which are located in Wuhan, Hubei Province, which are the first, second and third plants of DPCA, and the fourth factory is located in Chengdu, Sichuan. The production capacity of these four factories is 300,000 vehicles, 150,000 vehicles, 300,000 vehicles and 360,000 vehicles respectively, so the total production capacity of the current DPCA plant in China is 1.11 million units, which is far greater than its actual sales. In view of this, DPCA has previously carried out a series of production capacity "slimming".
In August 2019, it was reported that Dongfeng Group and the then PSA Group reached a consensus to close the wuhan first factory and sell the second plant, and the potential next home was the other two joint ventures of dongfeng group: Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Honda. Since then, DPCA has begun to promote the capacity layout adjustment plan codenamed F99 internally, and the production capacity of the first plant in Wuhan has been transferred to the third plant, and the second plant has entered a dormant state.
At the same time, the Wuhan Economic Development Zone began to help DPCA deal with idle production capacity, collect and store the assets of DPCA automobiles and complete land regulation to meet the conditions for listing and transferring commercial land.
Production capacity is tight
The proportion of Dongfeng Honda electric vehicles needs to be increased urgently
While Dongfeng Honda is busy dealing with idle production capacity, Dongfeng Honda has obvious capacity shortage.
According to dongfeng Honda's official information, it put into operation three plants in 2004, 2012 and 2019, with a design and planned production capacity of 768,000 units.
But as recently as 2019, Dongfeng Honda's production and sales scale has reached 791,000 units and 800,000 units. In 2020, these two figures will reach 840,000 vehicles and 850,000 vehicles. In 2021, affected by the shortage of chips, the cumulative new car sales of Dongfeng Honda terminals were 793,000 units, down 7.6% year-on-year. In terms of electric vehicles, terminal sales last year were 137,000 units, up 47% year-on-year, but only accounted for 17.3% of total sales. Among them, the sales volume of Siming M-NV last year was 5391 vehicles, and the Siming X-NV was only 658 vehicles, a year-on-year decline of up to 90%.
It can be seen that Dongfeng Honda fuel vehicles not only do not have idle production capacity, but also their troubles in the field of new energy have also been exposed.
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in 2021, China's new energy vehicle market ushered in an outbreak, with production and sales of 3.545 million units and 3.521 million units respectively, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year, and the market share reached 13.4%, 8 percentage points higher than that of the previous year.
▲ Image source IC
With the acceleration of the global electric wave, China's huge new energy market has become the main position of the electrification transformation of major car companies. In this context, Honda China, Dongfeng Honda and Guangqi Honda jointly released a new pure electric vehicle brand - e:N. Honda China is more emphasized that it will further accelerate the launch of electrified models and quickly complete the transformation and upgrading of the brand for electrification, and all new models launched by Honda in China after 2030 are pure electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles, and no new fuel vehicles will be released.
Among them, Dongfeng Honda has released the first model of the e:N brand, the e:NS1 special edition, which is expected to be launched in the spring of 2022. In addition, Dongfeng Honda will also launch three more e:N brand models in the next five years. In order to achieve the above goals, Honda China said that Dongfeng Honda will build a new plant for pure electric vehicles in China and put it into operation in 2024.
The Wuhan No. 2 Plant of DPCA Automobile, which was previously known as the "Global Model Factory of PSA Group", will undertake this heavy responsibility. Caijing Automobile (ID: caijingqiche) learned that the plant is dongfeng Honda's fourth vehicle production plant and Honda's first new energy benchmarking plant in the world, with a total planned investment of about 10 billion yuan.
In this regard, Dongfeng Honda has publicly stated that the new energy plant project plans to produce Honda's new e:N series electrified models, with a planned production capacity of 256,000 units. After the completion of the project, Dongfeng Honda will have a production and marketing capacity of more than one million units.