During the two sessions of the National People's Congress this year, Wang Fengying, a deputy to the National People's Congress and president of Great Wall Motors, put forward the "Proposal on Promoting the Utilization Rate of China's Automobile Industry".
Wang Fengying suggested that the automobile industry should be promoted to gather in areas with full capacity utilization and perfect supporting systems, and a number of advanced manufacturing clusters in the world should be cultivated; encourage qualified advantageous enterprises to merge and reorganize enterprises with low capacity utilization or special publicity; strictly control the new vehicle production capacity, curb blind investment, avoid inefficient duplicate construction, and establish an exit mechanism;
According to the data, in 2021, Chinese automobile manufacturers sold a total of 21.456 million passenger cars, an increase of 6.6% year-on-year, ending three consecutive years of negative growth.
However, in the context of the good trend of the domestic automobile environment, for most weak enterprises, life is not good, and the serious excess capacity utilization rate is the best proof.
According to the statistics of the Association of Automobile Associations, by the end of 2021, there are only 86 car companies with automobile sales statistics, and the capacity utilization rate is only 52.47%. It should be noted that the development of these 86 car companies is extremely uneven. From the chart, there are 16 car companies that sell more than 600,000 vehicles, 6 car companies with annual sales between 200,000 and 600,000 vehicles, and the total sales of these 22 car companies in 2021 are 19.066 million units, with a total production capacity of 24.994 million vehicles, and the average capacity utilization rate is 76.2%.
In addition, there are 29 car companies with annual sales of less than 10,000 units, with total sales of 99,600 units in 2021 and a total production capacity of 4.922 million units, with an average capacity utilization rate of only 2.02%.
While frantically expanding, while overcapacity, domestic car companies are "rolling" what? According to the data, there are 11 car companies with a capacity utilization rate of more than 100%, and another 4 new energy vehicle companies have a capacity utilization rate of 100%.
Taking Dongfeng Honda as an example, it currently has three vehicle plants in China with a planned annual production capacity of 768,000 units, but in 2021, Dongfeng Honda will sell 793,000 vehicles, so Dongfeng Honda will take over the second plant of Dongfeng DPCA to prepare a new energy plant.
Taking Tesla China as an example, the current monthly delivery volume is maintained at the level of 50,000 vehicles, and the capacity utilization rate reaches 100%, while Tesla's market demand at home and abroad is getting higher and higher, so it is constantly rumored that various factories have been built and production lines have been acquired.
A few years ago, some car companies were too optimistic about the development of the future market, so they expanded wildly, and with the intensification of competitive pressure, the sales of these car companies began to decline, resulting in a lot of waste of production capacity.
At present, the marginalized car companies are mainly divided into three categories, one is the third-tier joint venture brands represented by DPCA, Beijing Hyundai, GAC FCA, Dongfeng Yueda Kia and Dongfeng Renault, etc., some of which have a very low capacity utilization rate, and some have announced delisting. Taking DPCA as an example, it created a peak of 704,800 vehicles in 2015, and the ambitious DPCA began to impact the million target, and in order to meet the market demand, it planned to build four major vehicle factories, of which one, two and three plants were located in Wuhan, Hubei Province, and the fourth plant was located in Chengdu, Sichuan, the planned annual production capacity of these four factories was 300,000 vehicles, 150,000 vehicles, 300,000 vehicles and 360,000 vehicles, with a total planned annual production capacity of more than one million vehicles.
However, since then, the sales of DPCA automobiles have begun to decline, falling by 15.2%, 36.85%, 32.89%, 55.17% and 55.74% respectively from 2016 to 2020, and the sales volume has been cut for two consecutive years, and the sales volume in 2020 is only 50267 units. At its peak, DPCA had planned a million production capacity, but the current annual sales of only 100,000 vehicles are far from the same, the capacity utilization rate is seriously insufficient, and it is imperative to dispose of excess capacity.
It is understood that DPCA will sell a factory in 2019, and according to domestic media reports in February, the second plant of DPCA has been officially taken over by Dongfeng Honda and will be transformed into a pure electric vehicle factory, and both sides have confirmed the news.
However, even if DPCA only has two production bases left in Wuhan and four factories in Chengdu, according to the cumulative sales of DPCA in 2021 100567, even if DPCA doubles its sales in 2022, more than half of its production capacity is still idle.
In addition to DPCA, Beijing Hyundai's first factory has been sold to the new power brand Ideal Automobile, and even Beijing Hyundai, which sold a factory, has a capacity utilization rate of less than 30%. What's more, Dongfeng Renault announced its withdrawal from the Chinese market in 2020.
The second type is the independent car companies that continue to hover on the edge of the market, they have no strong dependence behind them, and they fail to keep up with the pace of market development, and eventually go bankrupt because of the break of the capital chain.
Since 2019, dealer rights protection incidents including Huatai Automobile, Zotye Automobile, BAIC Yinxiang, Cheetah Automobile, Lifan Automobile and so on have been staged continuously, and eventually the factories of many car companies have been merged and acquired by head companies, such as Geely taking over the Cheetah Automobile Factory in Changsha, and Great Wall Motors taking over the Zotye Linyi Factory.
In addition, even if car companies such as Zhonghua Automobile and Xiali Automobile rely on powerful groups, they will eventually go to the edge under the influence of various factors.
Taking Zhonghua Automobile as an example, it is backed by Brilliance Group, which is a large vehicle manufacturing enterprise controlled by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Liaoning Province, directly or indirectly holding and participating in four listed companies including Brilliance China, Shenhua Holdings, Jinbei Automobile and Xinchen Power, and the joint venture brand BMW Brilliance is sitting on the throne of the luxury car market.
However, Brilliance China originally had a good foundation, whether it was BMW Brilliance or Brilliance Gold Cup are in the leading position, and Brilliance Group did not continue to strengthen independent technology research and development to ensure the continuous improvement of product strength, but in the face of regulations and fierce competition passive response, and was finally ruled bankruptcy reorganization.
It is worth noting that in the context of serious overcapacity of domestic passenger cars, enterprises that have already possessed production qualifications still have 10.46 million vehicles under construction capacity that will be completed and put into operation, and most of the construction capacity is new energy vehicles. Although some car companies have revitalized their resources through the acquisition of production capacity, for car companies that develop new energy vehicles, they prefer to build new factories, because the cost of renovation of old factories is higher, and some old factories do not meet the standards for the production of new energy vehicles.
On the other hand, local governments have also expressed a positive attitude towards the landing of new energy vehicle projects. In addition, due to the people's livelihood and economic development, even if the car companies that are on the verge of bankruptcy, the local government will still contribute to the rescue, which will eventually lead to the poor management of the car companies becoming zombie enterprises, and the production capacity is idle and cannot be delisted.
In addition, the matter of cross-border car-making crazy enclosure factory expansion capacity, whether it is "enclosure" or "car-making" has also become a hot topic in the market. Taking Evergrande Automobile as an example, according to the planning of Evergrande Automobile, its total production capacity will reach 1 million vehicles per year in 2025 and 5 million vehicles per year in 2035, which comprehensively explains the willfulness of housing enterprises.
However, with the break of Evergrande Group's capital chain, the goal of car manufacturing has also become a dream of Nanke, and the first model Hengchi 5 is planned to be listed in the second quarter, and whether it can be sold is a problem.
The market is cruel. No matter how big the Chinese market is, it cannot accommodate hundreds of automakers to share the cake together, and now whether it is independent, joint venture or foreign-funded car companies are facing market tests together. The market is fair, and car companies without brands, core technologies, and capital will fall one after another.