Produced 丨 Tiger Sniff Car Group
The author 丨 thoughtful
Editor 丨 Zhang Bowen
Headmap 丨 《Game of Thrones》
The valley rainy season is approaching. Even in the Mohe River in the north of the motherland, the daily noon temperature is close to 10 degrees. However, for the Chinese car market, the bitter winter has just begun.
According to the "Auto Market Scan" of the Passenger Car Market Information Association (ACS), 242,000 passenger cars were wholesaled during the period, down 39% year-on-year, down 72% from the previous week and 45% from the same period last month. From April 1 to 10, retail sales of passenger cars were 246,000 units, down 32% year-on-year, down 67% from the previous week and down 39% from the same period last month.
In other words, in the first 10 days of April than in the first 10 days of March, there are nearly 160,000 fewer consumers across the country who buy a car.
In previous years, March and April were crucial for the Chinese auto market: automakers would wholesale their stock cars to dealers in March in order to unveil new cars and replacements based on older models at the Beijing/Shanghai Auto Show in April. Subsequently, the dealer will deliver the existing car to the user during this period in order to prepare for the new order.
However, with the frequent iteration of the epidemic and epidemic prevention policies, China's auto industry has entered a dilemma from the upstream supply chain to the downstream terminal retail since late March. If you use a fashionable word to describe, it is to be pressed the "pause button" one after another and enter the "slow life".
The number of arrivals continues to decline, and consumers in some provinces and cities have been "cleared to zero"
From the perspective of the entire process of car sales, entering the store is the beginning of a consumer's final transaction to buy a car. In order to attract consumers to the store, car companies and dealers often use marketing methods including offline pop-up stores, touring exhibitions, online live broadcasts, short videos and other marketing methods to obtain customers. However, with the impact of the epidemic situation and prevention and control measures, the number of consumers entering the store has continued to decline since the end of March. In Shanghai, Jilin, Shenzhen and other provinces and cities that have successively adopted strict control measures, consumers entering the store have been "cleared" before the virus.
Sun Shaojun, founder of Chefans, told Tiger Sniff that when they investigated with front-line dealers and sales managers, they found that the overall number of dealers across the country plummeted.
"Compared with the Q4 quarter, if there were an average of 15 batches of consumers entering the store every day, then today's consumers have less than 10 batches."
He told Tiger Sniff that the car fans team had done a round of research on March 17 and found that the number of arrivals was 40% lower than the previous cycle, and the order volume was reduced by 30%. However, on the evening of March 27, Shanghai announced that all nucleic acids were declared, and Pudong Puxi was sealed in batches, and the arrival of dealers showed a continuous decline.
By April 12, when Sun Shaojun and his team conducted another survey, they found that the number of arrivals and orders declined again. Among them, the number of stores entered by Volkswagen and Japanese product brand dealers decreased by 70% compared with the previous cycle. "We can't just see the suspension of car sales in the closed cities. Since March 27, dealer stores in the surrounding areas of Shanghai have begun to decline. Sun Shaojun said to Tiger Sniff, "The closer you are to the disaster area, the less users in the area will buy a car." ”
Sun Shaojun said on Tiger Sniff that the main model brands currently affected are "just needed" cars with a price of 100,000-200,000 yuan. The average monthly income of this part of the user is in the range of 10,000-20,000 yuan, which used to be the main force in car purchase. However, most of these people have already established families and are carrying mortgages. Once income expectations are affected, they will temporarily curb their consumption in cars. If they really need to buy a car, then they will often choose a model that costs less than 100,000 yuan. "Since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the automotive market has been polarized. Below 100,000 yuan, the market competition for models above 350,000 yuan is becoming more and more fierce. Sun Shaojun said.
Indeed, in these two parts of the market, the former is filled with people who just need to buy a car, and the latter is a high-net-worth group with a stable income. In contrast, their demand for car purchases has not been affected too much by the epidemic. The former began to consider pure electric vehicles that were cheaper and cheaper and had lower costs of use and maintenance. The latter, on the other hand, has also begun to consider smart electric vehicles with higher performance.
According to the latest data from the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the retail sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 440,000 units in March, of which the penetration rate of new energy vehicles was as high as 28.2%, of which the penetration rate of new energy vehicles of independent brands was as high as 46%, and the penetration rate of luxury brands was 32%.
The majority of automobile companies also see the needs of users, so they focus on these two markets. In November 2020, the A0-class pure electric sedan Euler Good Cat went on the market, leading the Euler brand to achieve annual sales of 135,000 units by 2021. Next, Euler will also launch new cars such as punk cats and ballet cats. In March this year, the sales volume of Wuling Hongguang MINI EV still occupied the top of the car sales list, and BYD Qin's sales once again surpassed Langyi. At the same time, the Xiaopeng G9, Ideal L9 and NIO ES7 are also eyeing the tiger, eager to get another piece of the high-end market.
However, the embarrassment of new energy vehicles is that although the demand of users is strong, the production capacity of some car companies is a drop... Oh no, not one.
The supply chain was partially suspended, and the production capacity of new cars was stopped and flowed
On the night of April 14, He Xiaopeng "moved scallops - mussels (bandages) could not stop."
In fact, Xiaopeng Automobile's "good brother" Weilai has stopped production. On April 9, NIO announced that its supply chain partners in Jilin, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other places have stopped production, resulting in the suspension of NIO's production. "A car can't produce a part. Affected by the epidemic in Changchun and Hebei, we cut off some parts in mid-March, relying on some parts inventory to barely support. Recently, there have been epidemics in Shanghai and Jiangsu, and many partners cannot supply goods and can only suspend production. Weilai chairman Li Bin responded to this.
Today, Tiger Sniff learned from Weilai that under the premise of a slight recovery in the supply chain, the Hefei production base is gradually resuming production. But subsequent production plans also depend on supply chain recovery.
That is to say, if there is an unexpected storm in the day, Weilai will have to stop production.
If weilai's revenue of 36.1364 billion yuan last year is calculated, the loss of one day of suspension will be as high as nearly 100 million yuan.
Since the beginning of this year, due to the shortage of chips and the rapid rise in the price of power battery raw materials, a number of car companies in the mainland have announced price increases or suspension of production. The aforementioned Euler "stopped taking orders" in February this year due to the rise in raw material prices that led to a loss of nearly 10,000 yuan. However, with the impact of the epidemic prevention and control, since March 28, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory has begun to stop production to today, affecting the delivery progress of European consumers. In addition, brands such as Great Wall Tanks, SAIC Passenger Cars, SAIC-GM, SAIC Volkswagen and Cadillac are also in a state of suspension.
Of course, it's not without good news. With the social clearance of epidemic prevention and control in Jilin Province, FAW Group began to resume work and production. Joint ventures such as Volkswagen, Audi and Toyota will also start production. But the problem is that auto supply chain companies throughout the Yangtze River Delta region are still plagued by repeated epidemics.
Taking the global parts giant Bosch as an example, the company's Bosch Automotive Parts (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Bosch Suzhou") includes four important product divisions, namely the Automotive Electronics Division, the Chassis Control Division, the Automotive Multimedia Division and the Equipment Manufacturing Division. According to the requirements put forward at the epidemic prevention and control conference held in Suzhou on the evening of April 14, all areas will implement strict differentiated static management. At the same time, changzhou city, Zhangjiagang city and other parts of Jiangsu province have also announced containment measures. In other words, most of Bosch's factories in Suzhou are facing the dilemma of stopping production.
For China's auto industry, it is not too much to call the Yangtze River Delta region "Dantian". According to the research report of China Automotive Technology and Research Center, among the suppliers of core components of automobiles, including engines, transmissions, and core components of new energy vehicles, power batteries, drive motors, battery control systems, and reducers, the proportion of enterprises located in the Yangtze River Delta is close to or more than 50%. Once the region is suspended, it means the suspension of the new energy automobile industry in the country.
However, even humans in the Middle Ages were able to finally escape the influence of the Black Death and move towards the Renaissance. Over time, covid-19 will surely be brought under control as well. However, the needs of consumers will be trauma that cannot be repaired in the short term.
Consumer confidence crisis under the impact of the epidemic
Sun Shaojun told Tiger Sniff that after investigating Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Xi'an and other cities that have been sealed or partially sealed because of the epidemic, they found that automobile consumption has not ushered in the so-called "retaliatory growth" after the unsealing, and "the amount of stores has not yet recovered to the pre-epidemic level."
In fact, this trend doesn't just happen in the automotive industry. On April 7, 2022, CBN released the article "Residents' Consumption Is Relatively Sluggish, There Are Epidemic Factors, and More importantly, Insufficient Disposable Income", it is shown that the current epidemic prevention will affect the recovery of residents' consumption to a certain extent, especially the negative impact on service consumption; the slow recovery of consumption reflects the fact that the income of the resident sector has not been fully restored. At present, the urbanization rate of the mainland has reached 64.72% by the end of 2021. The employment and income of the vast number of urban people are bound to be affected by epidemic prevention and control measures.
According to the Purchasing Managers' Index released by the National Bureau of Statistics in March, China's manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) in March was 49.5%, down 0.7 percentage points from the previous month, below the critical point, and the overall prosperity level of the manufacturing industry has declined. At the same time, the non-manufacturing business activity index was 48.4%, down 3.2 percentage points from the previous month, and the non-manufacturing boom fell to the contraction range.
It can be seen that whether it is a manufacturing industry or a service industry practitioner, everyone's expectations for the level of production and operation prosperity in the short term have declined.
In this regard, some local governments are already taking action. On March 30, after the lifting of the risk control isolation, the Futian District Government of Shenzhen issued the "Shenzhen Futian Stable Enterprises and Benefiting the People's Relief "Ten" Policy", which provides three levels of subsidies for individual consumers to buy new cars, with a maximum of 15,000 yuan.
Market conditions after the epidemic control. Survey, the consumption of urban users who have experienced the epidemic. First, it was found that Zhengzhou, Xi'an, and Wuhan did not have retaliatory growth, even if there were consumption stimulus policies. There were originally 10 batches, but now there are only 3, 5 and 7, which have not returned to the pre-epidemic level. Before and after this, local governments such as Shenzhen Longgang District, Wenzhou City, And Jinhua City in Zhejiang Province have also introduced different degrees of car purchase subsidies for individual consumers.
The introduction of consumption stimulus policies is bound to accelerate the recovery process of the automobile market after the epidemic. However, the loss of income by consumers is bound to affect their consumption habits and confidence. If the epidemic is repeated again across the country, even if the entire automobile industry achieves great progress in terms of supply assurance, it will still be difficult for automobile consumption to recover the growth rate of the past.
It should be known that before 2021, China's automobile production and sales have fallen three times in a row.