When Chen Xiangli (pseudonym) recalled a batch of auto export shipping orders he was responsible for in July last year, he still felt aggrieved. Chen Xiangli is a business manager at an international logistics agency in Shenzhen, and the orders were special vehicles shipped to the port of Rotterdam in Europe.
"Normal is 3-7 days of port plugs, but this time it was stuffed for nearly a month, in fact, we said at the beginning that we could not promise the statute of limitations during the epidemic, and the follow-up also repeatedly explained the reasons to the customer, but the customer still did not forgive, because we did not want to lose this customer, so we finally apologized and made some compensation." Chen Xiangli said that there were many more cases like this last year.
However, Chen Xiangli can also understand the customer's mood, the customer of this shipping order is a car export dealer, on the one hand, they pay more than 6 times the freight of this batch of vehicles before the epidemic, on the other hand, they also need to be responsible for customers in Europe, facing the default pressure of delivery delays.
Chen Xiangli's experience reflects the fact that although China's automobile exports ushered in a milestone outbreak in 2021, the annual export volume directly doubled from 1 million to 2 million, including new energy vehicles, Chinese cars were sold to more than 80 countries around the world, but the export channel was not smooth. Affected by the epidemic, the global shipping capacity is tight, the freight rate is soaring, and the heads of car companies even directly call out that "ferry tickets are tighter than air tickets", and maritime logistics has become the biggest unstable factor for Chinese cars to go global.
"Now what price is decided by the shipping company, and even they will have some outrageous requirements, and customers have to pay hard." For example, now to go to the United States there is a kind of 'port fee', a container cabinet will charge 1000-2000 US dollars (about 6316-12633 yuan), this fee feels very outrageous, that is, after the ship goes to the port there, because the dock congestion can not go in, the shipping company will charge this fee to the customer. Xie Chuang (pseudonym), business manager of an international logistics agency company in Fujian, said. It is reported that $2,000 is equivalent to the shipping freight of a single container to North America before the epidemic, of course, it has now risen to more than $20,000 (about 126,300 yuan).
When it comes to the cost of going to sea, the relevant people of the Great Wall Euler shake their heads continuously, he sighed that the export of Euler uses the way of ro-ro ships, mainly exported to Southeast Asia, and now the transportation cost of the vehicle has reached 15,000 yuan, which was originally 4,000-5,000 yuan. This means that euler's transportation costs have risen to three times the original. Moreover, including complex and changeable geographical relations, the current "channel" and cost of cars going to sea are facing many uncertainties.
As one of the largest overseas sales in the current new car-making forces, AIWAYS auto related people also admitted to the Economic Observer reporter, "Like many other brands, AIWAYS has also been affected by the increase in transportation costs and the decline in capacity caused by the epidemic." We are looking for a variety of possible modes of transport and try to find the best and most economical solution in terms of delivery time and cost. ”
In 2022, automobile exports have become the key strategy of more car companies, and at the same time, new uncertainties have been revealed in the first two months of the year. Finding more cost-controllable export logistics solutions has become another test for car companies in addition to looking for chips.
A cabin is hard to find
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in 2021, the mainland exported 2.015 million vehicles, breaking through the 2 million mark for the first time, doubling the year-on-year growth and accounting for 7.7% of the total annual automobile sales. Among them, new energy vehicles have brought a new growth engine to exports, and the total export volume reached 310,000 units, an increase of 3 times year-on-year.
More than 2 million cars are exported, most of which are shipped out by sea lanes. The shipping mainly involves three major market players: one is the automobile exporter, mainly the automobile production enterprise, but also includes the automobile dealer with export qualification; the second is the shipping company that owns the ship, which usually does not directly sign contracts with the customer, but will use the freight forwarder to sell the space; the third is the freight forwarder, responsible for the agent sales and operation of the shipping company's space resources.
Xie Chuang said that his business is mainly to represent China's routes to North America and South America, and north American routes are the "hardest hit areas" of rising sea freight rates and port delays, "Shipping companies see the freight rates of the United States skyrocketing, they will transfer the ships of other routes, so that the freight rates of other routes will also rise."
According to Xie Chuang, the freight rate from China to North America was about $2,000 (about 12,633 yuan) per container before the epidemic, while the highest after the epidemic was more than $20,000 (about 126,300 yuan), an increase of tenfold. It is understood that an ordinary container can hold up to 4 cars. Based on this calculation, if exported to North America, the freight cost of a car will rise from more than 3,000 yuan to more than 30,000 yuan. The sea freight rates on the South American route have also generally increased by 6-8 times.
The soaring freight rates brought about by the tension of cross-ocean transportation capacity have brought cost pressure to many car companies. Tesla CEO Musk also urged employees to find ways to reduce the cost of delivering electric vehicles to customers in a company-wide email last November, and not to rush orders at the last minute to meet end-of-quarter sales targets regardless of costs.
It is worth noting that several large domestic auto groups have already established their own auto logistics companies, so they face less pressure on freight. For example, ANJI Logistics under SAIC, Changchun FAW International Logistics under FAW, Chongqing Changan Minsheng Logistics under Changan, and Tongfang Global (Tianjin) Logistics, a joint venture between FAW, GAC and Toyota.
However, they still suffer from maritime delays. According to the Shanghai Air Exchange, the "arrival and departure service on the global main route from Asia to the west coast of North America" was only 11% in January this year, which continued to maintain a low level.
"Including the blockage of shipping terminals caused by the epidemic, it has had a considerable impact on us. Now our ship is overseas, especially in South America. Because of the local epidemic, it could have been unloaded in one day, but now it takes 3-4 days, and the container ship is caused by 17% waste due to waiting, and the Ro-Ro ship has a similar degree of waste compared with this. Wang Zemin, general manager of Anji Logistics, said a few days ago.
"The port can not operate because of the epidemic, the loading and unloading workers often have strikes, the truck drivers are often not enough, it will cause delays, it involves the entire supply chain, one link out of the problem will slowly vicious circle, affecting another link, each link delay a little, it is quite a lot of days." Xie Chuang said.
In fact, many delays have already occurred at the domestic port end, even if the car company and the freight forwarder successfully signed the contract, the port loading link still faces the order of priority, and this order is determined by the shipping company.
"Maybe you have loaded the goods into the cabinet, ready to load the ship, and the result is that the ship is limited in weight, and your cabinet will have to wait for the next one, but even if you wait for the next one, your cabinet may continue to be dumped." Because in the case of a ship that is difficult to find, if you lack friendship with the shipping company, or do not buy the so-called 'diamond space', even if your cabinet is loaded and pulled to the dock, it may not be sent out. Shipping companies have their priority customers, and they will prioritize loading the goods of priority customers. Chen Xiangli said.
Chen Xiangli said that the priority customers of shipping companies are usually those large and stable export volume of large enterprises, and most ordinary small and medium-sized enterprises are not qualified to attract shipping companies and establish direct contact with them, "There are so many routes for shipowners, a large number of freight forwarders look for him to buy routes, do not worry about selling, and will not pay attention to you at all."
A box is hard to find
In addition to the difficulty of finding a cabin, there has also been a shortage of containers in domestic ports, which has directly led to an increase in container prices. According to the Shanghai Shipping Exchange, China's Export Container Freight Rate Index (CCFI) was 3500.19 points on February 18, while the index was still around 2600 points in early 2021.
For the reasons for the shortage of containers, the relevant person in Tianjin Port told the Economic Observer reporter that the container shortage is a common phenomenon in domestic ports, and now the export volume is relatively large, the import volume has not increased enough, and many major foreign ports have declined in their operational capacity, there has been a situation such as port pressure and ship pressure, China does not have this situation, the box is the amount of dynamic balance, "all run out, can not come back that is not less."
"Many shipping ships in foreign ports have been blocked and can't come back, containers are either on board, or on the top of foreign docks, foreign docks are very congested, the goods there can't be loaded on the ship, they can't come back, the ship can only wait here, it is impossible to run empty, and the freight can't afford to lose." When it comes to the shortage of containers, Xie Chuang is also helpless.
It is understood that most small cars are transported by container ships, large cars are transported by frame cabinets in small batches, and large quantities are transported by Ro-Ro ships. This means that the shortage of containers will most directly affect the transoceanic transportation of small cars.
Shipbuilding, land transportation, and factory construction
After the explosive growth of exports in 2021, traditional automobile groups such as SAIC and Dongfeng and some new car manufacturers have begun to set more ambitious targets for 2022. Among them, SAIC Motor announced that it plans to exceed 800,000 overseas sales in 2022, an increase of about 15% year-on-year, and will fully exert its efforts in the European market. Dongfeng announced that the overall target of overseas business in 2022 is to anchor 160,000 vehicles, an increase of 36% year-on-year in the same caliber.
The high demand for new energy vehicles has also made many new car manufacturers take overseas expansion as a mandatory action. Aiways auto related sources told the Economic Observer that in 2022, AIWAYS will continue to accelerate its expansion of the global market and enter all remaining major markets in Europe, including Northern Europe (Norway and Finland) and Eastern Europe. In addition, Aiways' new model, the Aiways U6, will also land on the market within the year, and it is expected that AIWAYS' overseas sales will exceed five figures in 2022.
In the face of the reality that the efficiency of shipping has been reduced due to the epidemic, in order to meet the demand for export growth in the new year, directly strengthening cooperation with shipping companies has become an important choice for some large car companies. Recently, Dongfeng Motor cooperated with Nippon Mail Shipping Co., Ltd. (NYK), one of the world's largest shipping companies, and 1,500 Dongfeng Motor set off on the Japanese NYK Ro-Ro ship ARIES LEADER, opening up a new route for automobile exports from Nansha in Guangzhou to South America.
In addition, there are also large car companies that choose to buy boats at one time. However, due to the long shipbuilding cycle, this method cannot solve the urgent need. In January this year, SAIC signed an agreement with China State Shipbuilding Group to customize two ocean-going vehicle carriers (Ro-Ro ships) with 7,600 parking spaces for SAIC's Anji Logistics. However, the Economic Observer reporter learned from SAIC that the two Ro-Ro ships will not be officially put into use until two years later, that is, in 2024.
In the case of tight shipping capacity, the All-weather, high-frequency China-Europe Express has become a new choice for more and more car companies in the past two years. In September last year, after being inspected and released by Huangpu Customs under Dongguan Customs, GAC Trumpchi achieved the export of cars for The First Time between China and Europe. In February this year, 1,200 Geely "Binyue" cars were shipped from Xiangtan Comprehensive Insurance District and will be exported to Russia through China-Europe express trains and shipping.
According to the data, at present, the China-Europe express train has laid 73 operating lines, reaching more than 170 cities in 23 European countries, and transporting more than 50,000 kinds of goods, including automobiles and auto parts. In the first eight months of this year, a total of 10,030 trains were opened and 964,000 TEUs were sent, an increase of 32% and 40% respectively year-on-year.
However, Chen Xiangli believes that although the price of shipping has soared, it is still competitive with land transport as a whole, one is that the price of China-Europe express trains and so on is also rising, and the second is that the magnitude of land transport cannot be compared with shipping, usually a train can only hold double-digit containers, and a shipping ship can hold four-digit containers.
Some car companies are also pinning their hopes on the intervention of government forces to solve the problem of tight shipping capacity. During the two sessions last year, Chery Chairman Yin Tongyue suggested that the state should plan the international shipping supervision functions scattered in commerce, customs, transportation and other departments, implement key monitoring of the fluctuations in shipping prices and capacity of key routes, understand the policy demands of enterprises, guide shipping enterprises to improve operational efficiency, standardize charging behavior, and prevent rising international maritime prices from hedging the effect of the mainland's stable foreign trade policies.
At present, there is still no clear dawn for the normalization of global maritime transport. "More and more shipping companies are forming alliances to maintain tacit understanding on prices. Second, the epidemic has led to fewer workers and a decline in the turnover rate of containers in ports. At the same time, the rise in iron ore prices has raised the price of shipbuilding and container groups. As a result, shipping companies are underpowered to expand capacity. The improvement of the situation may still depend on the timing of the recovery of the epidemic and the international situation. Some people in the logistics industry told the Economic Observer reporter.
In addition, SAIC Motor, as the largest auto exporter in China, also plans to accelerate the increase of overseas production capacity to completely solve the problem of maritime logistics. It is understood that SAIC's main overseas production bases are located in Thailand and Indonesia in Southeast Asia and Pakistan and India in South Asia. Of SAIC's overseas sales, 1/3 is produced and supplied by overseas bases, and 2/3 is supplied by exports from China.
Recently, Yu De, general manager of SAIC International, revealed that SAIC motor is planning to build a new overseas production base, and plans to basically achieve a 1:1 ratio of overseas manufacturing volume and domestic export volume during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. In other words, half of the overseas sales achieved within five years will be supplied by local factories.
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