【Introduction: Shanghai and Changchun, as two important automobile towns in China, not only have a number of well-known vehicle companies, but also supply the national and even global automotive industry with their spare parts. With Shanghai and Changchun pressing the pause button one after another, China's auto industry in 2022 has added variables. 】
Written| by Zhang Chi and edited by | Kang Qiao
He Xiaopeng, founder of Xiaopeng Motors, and Yu Chengdong, head of Huawei's automotive business, have recently said that if automotive supply chain companies cannot dynamically resume work and production, all Chinese automakers may stop work and production in May. In the case that Weilai has announced the suspension of production, domestic automobile companies are experiencing a relatively large impact. Especially for the new force car companies that are still losing money, it is necessary to reverse the situation of suspension of production as soon as possible, otherwise it will face a great impact.
Car companies outside the epidemic area may not be spared
Enterprises in the epidemic area will mainly face two situations, one is that there is no way to reproduce, forced to close the assembly line, into the shutdown; the other is to open the closed production mode, that is, the factory employees do not leave the factory, eat and sleep in the factory every day to solve. For car companies, even if they get the approval of the government and can carry out closed production, they will actually face great pressure. This is mainly because the oem assembly line is more to assume an assembly role, which requires a large number of parts to continuously input in. Once the supply of parts is cut off, even if a local State-owned enterprise in Shanghai like SAIC receives the news in advance, the amount of production that can be grasped is very limited. Many parts suppliers in Shanghai or the Yangtze River Delta, even if they can produce, also face the embarrassment of logistics interruption.
For those car companies that are not in the epidemic area for the time being, life will not be much better. Jilin and yangtze river delta are the main domestic auto parts production bases. There are tens of thousands of parts for a car, and as long as one of them does not arrive, the automaker cannot operate normally. Once you want to re-locate the switch, leaving aside the complicated business process, it will take a very long time for the parts to be certified in the early stage, including from the part level, to the system assembly level to the vehicle level, especially the vehicle level, and the test may also need to go through different times in summer and winter. Previously, in order to hurry, some companies chose to go to Australia for winter testing in the summer of China, and the cost of this and the manpower and material resources invested are self-evident. If you do not go through a very strict verification process, once the problem occurs in the later parts and leads to the related recall, the manufacturer will lose both fame and fortune.
Toyota's lean production model is unlikely to be sustained
When it comes to Toyota's lean production, zero inventory is undoubtedly one of the main signs. Leave inventory with suppliers to minimize the use of their own idle resources. At the same time, many of Toyota's hot models also use order-based production methods. That is, consumers place orders in 4S stores, and manufacturers produce again.
But this model has been greatly challenged at home. Taking Weilai as an example, many of its parts have been out of supply since March, and the reason why it can still produce for a period of time is because of the inventory prepared before many parts. From a longer perspective, from the chips that began in the second half of 2020 to today's various auto parts, which company has more inventory determines which car can produce more models. Considering that many popular electric vehicles in China are difficult to find at present, especially those models like those that cannot be upgraded to the green card next year, they must hope to ship more this year. Once there is no green card support, sales will inevitably be greatly affected.
A few conjectures and predictions for the future
Another point has to be said that many foreign car companies have placed many basic parts in their supply chains in China. Because compared with Europe, China's manufacturing industry still has a lot of advantages. At the same time, China's local governments are also very active in attracting investment, coupled with China's infrastructure leading the world. Therefore, domestic auto parts will not only be used by domestic vehicle companies, but also a considerable part will be exported to overseas markets. The lockdown caused by the epidemic and the almost interruption of logistics will inevitably affect the supply chain security of overseas car companies. In this case, whether foreign car companies will consider relocating part of the supply chain, or repeatedly building some auto parts in overseas markets, has become the subject of research by the supply chain security departments of many multinational car companies. Therefore, the relevant domestic policy-making departments also need to design policies in advance to keep more production capacity of these enterprises in China.
For China, auto companies also need to put overseas factories on the agenda. Building factories overseas can not only better serve local customers, enhance local market share through faster delivery and response, but also export related cars to China through the form of reverse export, and at least part of the auto parts can be exported to maintain after-sales business can be carried out normally.
From the perspective of consumers, domestic automobile prices have ushered in a considerable proportion of increases this year. For car companies, whether it is a joint venture car company or an independent brand or a new force, for a long time to come, the high probability of car prices will show an upward trend. After all, on the one hand, the rise in raw material prices poses a relatively large challenge to the cost of the whole vehicle; on the other hand, the production and sales of car companies themselves have been greatly impacted, and there are not too many resources and space to reduce prices. Therefore, from the perspective of consumers, if you can buy a car, buy a car as soon as possible and lock in the current price; if there is no demand for a car in a short period of time, then simply lengthen the entire car purchase cycle. After this round of global inflation and the impact of the epidemic have peaked, vehicle companies will more or less re-release considerable discounts for the sake of performance.
Comments
In the face of the impact of the epidemic, major car companies need to actively respond and do everything possible to resume work and production as soon as possible. Whoever can overcome the supply chain crisis will be able to occupy a larger market share. Any crisis is actually an opportunity, who can use the crisis to take the initiative to exercise themselves, rather than choose to lie flat, so that after the crisis, get greater development.
(This article is the original of "Heyan Reading Car", without authorization, it may not be reproduced)