(Text/Yu Waijun Editor/Lou Bing) Since the epidemic, chip shortage has become the number one problem in major automobile factories. In this unprecedented "core grabbing war", Musk described it as: "Grabbing a chip is like grabbing toilet paper." Although the crisis has been going on for two years, the auto industry is still struggling to find a way to respond.
After a brief reprieve, the global automobile "lack of core" situation has intensified again, and global car companies such as Ford, Toyota, and Volkswagen have cut production plans. As of March 13, the global auto market has reduced production by about 929,500 units this year due to chip shortages, compared with the previous estimate of only 656,200 units. At the same time, China's auto market has also suffered a huge impact of "lack of core", including the hot models of large car companies such as Euler black and white cat, tank 300, and extreme kr ZEEKR 001, and even because of the lack of cores, they have been forced to reduce production and stop production.
On the evening of the 16th, earthquakes of magnitude 6.0, 7.4 and 5.6 occurred off the east coast of Honshu, Japan, with power outages in many places in Fukushima and Tokyo, and tsunami warnings were issued in Miyagi and Fukushima. Soon, Renesas Electronics, one of Japan's major semiconductor chip manufacturers, announced that due to the earthquake, the company's three factories in Ibaraki, Gunma and Yamagata prefectures had stopped production.
How to achieve self-redemption under the dilemma of "lack of core" and the resulting sharp rise in costs has become an urgent problem for car companies to solve.
The international "core" pain transfer
It should be emphasized that the chip crisis in the global automotive industry does not come entirely from the fluctuations on the supply side, but from the two-way impact of the sudden increase in demand in the industry.
With the promotion and popularization of electrification, networking, and intelligence, the demand for chips in a car is growing exponentially. Before the popularization of the new four modernizations, the demand for chips in a car generally did not exceed 300 (and the requirements of the chip for process and performance were not in the same dimension as the chips applied in the new four modernizations), and now, a traditional fuel vehicle model with high intelligent configuration requires more than 500 to 700 chips (the demand for new energy vehicle chips is more).
It is precisely the supply curve and the demand curve that move at the same time, and the problem of chip shortages has become increasingly serious.
According to the latest research report of a research agency under The Hainer Financial Group (Susquehanna), the global chip delivery time increased by 3 days month-on-month to 26.2 weeks in February this year, and buyers have to wait for more than half a year on average. That's the longest since the agency began tracking the data in 2017.
In February, hundreds of new Ford Mustangs were found idle in parking near the company's Michigan assembly plant, all of which could not be delivered because they were not chip-mounted. Hyundai Motor recently submitted the latest delivery schedule to its domestic dealers in South Korea, and the delivery time of many new models of Hyundai and Kia has been extended by another 1 to 4 months compared with the beginning of this year.
Even the first-class model wasn't immune to the chip shortage, with Cadillac eliminating hands-free driving in the 2022 Escalade, while BMW began shipping some cars without touchscreens. According to Automotive News, people familiar with the matter said at a meeting with dealers on March 12 that they plan to sell cars that lack non-safety-critical function chips or related components. Tesla's measures are more thorough, not only selling many models without USB interfaces, because the lack of chips can not guarantee a full line of configuration for new cars, so it can only support alternative chips by rewriting car software.
Extending the delivery cycle, delivering the post-reload without affecting the use of the first time, or even directly simplifying the configuration have become the choice of many car companies under helplessness. But not every car company can or is willing to take similar behavior.
The stubbornness of the autonomous camp
Since last year, independent brands have continuously increased their market share with strong and flexible adaptability. Many brands have grown in the face of adversity. Among them, GAC Trumpchi has also made historic breakthroughs in different market segments on the basis of the original best-selling product update. Cumulative sales in the first two months of 2022 increased by 25.5% year-on-year.
However, this has become another sweet "burden" of GAC Trumpchi.
Recently, the official website of GAC Trumpchi released the "Announcement on the Impact of Chip Shortage on the Output of Some Models". The announcement information shows that the global chip shortage has had a certain impact on the production and delivery of the M8 and Shadow Leopard models.
After the launch of Shadow Leopard in August 2021, sales of 10,021 and 10,052 units were sold in October and November, and orders exceeded 70,000 units in December. However, by 2022, due to the impact of chip supply, Shadow Leopard's sales began to decline.
According to the information that the Observer Network Car Channel (Engine Sight) learned from the official information of GAC Trumpchi, as the first sports intelligent car of GAC Trumpchi GPMA architecture, under the functional needs of super-sensor interactive intelligent cockpit and intelligent auxiliary driving, there are more than 500 chips used by Shadow Leopard, of which the supply of high-specification chips has been tight for a long time.
Automotive chips do not depend on the overall supply level of the industry. The same is the car chip, different functions, different specifications, different standards and even different suppliers, any link will affect the production rhythm of the vehicle. When the core chip related to the performance of the vehicle is blocked, the car company has become a "smart woman" who is "difficult to cook without rice".
It is understood that the Bosch ESP chip L9369 used by Trumpchi Shadow Leopard is from STMicroelectronics, which is only produced in a factory in Malaysia; the ESP steering system chip is from ZF, and Infineon is its sole supplier. Today, ZF's DP-EPS steering system-on-chip production capacity is so low that Trumpchi's production line is still unable to produce at full capacity.
Affected by the supply of chips, the prospective owners of GAC Trumpchi have to face a long cycle of car pick-up. In order to allow prospective car owners to have a clearer understanding of the production and delivery progress of the vehicle, GAC Trumpchi has optimized the ordering system. In order to speed up the supply of chips, GAC Trumpchi is actively working with ZF Group headquarters and chip suppliers to develop a production increase plan. At present, the Trumpchi M8, which is also affected by the supply of chips, is gradually resuming supply.
Civilian supercars are worth the wait
The shortage of chips is a kind of force majeure, and GAC Trumpchi and Shadow Leopard are happy that in the face of this force majeure, consumers give support behind them. Under the challenge of lack of cores, GAC Trumpchi actively responded, promoted communication and deployment, accelerated production and operation, and went all out to deliver products to consumers.
Since its listing, Shadow Leopard has successfully cut into the young population with sports and prices, which is one of the few products that can share the cake in the sports car market in recent years, and has verified the "market rejuvenation" process with market performance: to exercise, to young people can afford the sport.
As a Trumpchi Shadow Leopard that has just been listed for less than a year, it interprets the "Chinese speed" of the car circle with strength, and also interprets the spirit of upward breakthrough in the Chinese auto market. The emergence of shadow leopards has carried the banner of independent young sports cars and changed the market pattern of sports cars dominated by joint ventures.
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Since last year, many independent brands have grown in adversity. Among them, GAC Trumpchi, BYD, Geely and other independent brands have made historic breakthroughs in different market segments on the basis of the original best-selling product update.
However, the "core" disease will still be the "sword of Damolis" hanging over the head of the auto market in 2022. Especially for independent brands with good listing momentum, how to solve the contradiction between "chips" and the market, and meet the needs of consumers as much as possible in the case of quality and quantity, is a great test and a threshold that must be crossed.
For GAC Trumpchi and Shadow Leopard, the "missing" core is both a test and an opportunity, and also allows us to see the determination and action of GAC Trumpchi to further enhance the strength of the system. It is believed that with the gradual alleviation of the "core" disease, in the future, Trumpchi Shadow Leopard may be able to create another good performance, usher in a new take-off, and continue to lead the independent automobile market!