The "butterfly" flapped its wings in the center of the storm, setting off a hurricane for the entire Chinese auto industry.
01 The tide of production suspensions is intensifying
A few days ago, He Xiaopeng, the founder of Xiaopeng Automobile, wrote a paragraph in his personal circle of friends: "If the supply chain enterprises in Shanghai and the surrounding areas cannot find a way to dynamically resume work and production, all Chinese automakers may have to stop work and production in May." ”
Subsequently, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business and CEO of Smart Car BU, forwarded He Xiaopeng's above-mentioned post in the circle of friends and commented: "It is true. ”
The epidemic in Shanghai and Jilin has led to the suspension of production by many car companies. We combed through the fact that since mid-March, many car companies under Volkswagen, Toyota, BMW, Tesla, Weilai, FAW and SAIC have been forced to stop work, and some of them have been suspended for nearly a month.
It should be known that most of the factories of these discontinued car companies are not in the epidemic area, and the reason for their suspension is the rupture of the supply chain. As an upstream industry, the difficulties of supply chain enterprises are manifested before the vehicle companies, and they have previously affected the downstream OEMs.
"Without parts, I'm dying."
On April 11, a personnel of a leading auto parts company in Zhejiang talked about the recent situation and was anxious. Due to the lack of key components, the company has no way to supply to the next level of vehicle companies. This is becoming common in the recent past.
Shanghai is the center of China's auto industry, accounting for more than 10% of the country's vehicle production capacity, and the headquarters of SAIC Motor Group, which produces and sells 5.46 million units per year, is located here. More importantly, vehicle production is only one link in the long automobile manufacturing chain, around Shanghai, many domestic parts and components companies gathered here.
According to statistics, nine of the top ten parts groups in China are located in Shanghai, namely Bosch, ZF, Magna, Hyundai Mobis, Aisin, Continental, Valeo, Lear, Faurecia, Shanghai's position in the national auto parts can be seen.
Their shutdowns spread the effects across the country.
Bosch previously announced the suspension of production at its shanghai and Changchun plants, with two more in closed operation; ZF's plant in Puxi, despite being in closed production, was disrupted by poor logistics; and thyssenkrupp's powertrain plant in Shanghai was shut down...
Even in closed production, manpower shortages and poor supply of upstream raw materials can keep factories at low capacity levels or even stop production.
The unstable supply of parts has accelerated the spread of production suspension among domestic car companies. Weilai is located in Hefei and the Great Wall Tank Factory is located in Chongqing, neither of which has been directly affected by the epidemic, but announced the suspension of production due to the supply of parts.
Weilai founder Li Bin said when announcing the suspension of production on April 9 that there was a supply of parts in mid-March, relying on inventory support until last week, the recent epidemic in Shanghai, Jiangsu and other places caused more partners to be unable to supply, and could only suspend production. He said bluntly: "This situation is not ours, many manufacturers have suspended production." ”
The Great Wall tank, which was announced on April 13, also suffered from supply cuts. The notice issued by it said that due to the impact of the epidemic in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Jilin and other places, a total of 8 supplier partners involved in the tank 300 model have stopped work and operation. Before that, Tesla's factory in Shanghai had also stopped production for more than half a month.
Tesla is the longest shutdown in Shanghai car companies, in addition to the impact of the epidemic itself, this also has a lot to do with the zero inventory management model adopted by Tesla. At present, domestic car companies are competing for the supply capacity of parts.
The pressure of stagnation at the production end will inevitably be transmitted to the market.
The data shows that in March, the output of a number of car companies has fallen sharply, of which FAW Hongqi's output in March fell by 73% year-on-year, and FAW-Volkswagen fell by 45%. 8%, SAIC-GM fell 31. 3%, Beijing Benz fell 30. 7%, BMW Brilliance fell 51%, and SAIC Maxus fell 34% year-on-year.
Compared with the impact of the epidemic on the automobile industry in the first two years, the industrial chain pressure that began in March this year has a broader coverage and a longer time, and the automobile industry is already at a critical moment of pulling the whole body.
02 Launch a battle to ensure supply
Obviously, the resumption of work and production in Shanghai and Jilin, the two major automobile towns, is imminent.
After several weeks of production, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology finally intervened to try to break the deadlock.
Under the impetus of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, on April 16, the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology issued the "Guidelines for the Prevention and Control of the Epidemic in Shanghai Industrial Enterprises Resuming Work and Production (First Edition)", announcing the first batch of key enterprises to resume production "white list".
Of the first 666 companies, more than 250 were automotive-related. Among them, Shanghai-based vehicle companies, such as SAIC Passenger Cars, SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC-GM and Tesla (Shanghai) are listed.
As of now, SAIC Motor has officially launched the stress test of resuming work and production on April 18; on the same day, tesla gigafactory in Shanghai Lingang is recalling staff and starting the resumption of work in the afternoon of the same day; in addition, a number of auto parts supply chain companies, including Bosch, Weipan and ZF, are actively preparing for the resumption of work and production in accordance with policy guidelines.
In addition to Shanghai, Changchun has also launched a comprehensive battle to ensure supply.
FAW is known as the "cradle of the new Chinese automobile industry", as a leading enterprise in the pillar industry of Jilin Province, FAW's early resumption of work and production will play a positive role in promoting Jilin to get out of the impact of the epidemic and ensure the stable operation of the national automobile industry chain.
Earlier, Li Xuefeng, deputy secretary-general of the Changchun Municipal People's Government, said at a press conference on epidemic prevention and control that under the premise of ensuring the safety of the epidemic, before the end of April, priority will be given to promoting the resumption of the first batch of 128 key projects.
At present, FAW has fully started the resumption of work procedures. On April 15, the Hongqi brand successfully rolled off the production line of 160 new cars in a single day after resuming work and production, and 47 core supporting enterprises of the Hongqi brand resumed work and production simultaneously; on April 17, faw group resumed work in all five OEMs in Changchun.
However, as the epidemic prevention and control continues, the actual situation of resuming work is not optimistic. In the context of the impact of the overall industrial chain of automobiles, it is still very difficult for car companies to resume production.
03 Resumption of production is trapped in the neighborhood committee
A major question that needs to be faced in resuming work and production is whether the community is willing to let it go?
At present, for the sake of prevention and control considerations, the community neighborhood committee and the community property have not yet implemented the guideline policy for resuming work and production.
An employee of a company that is about to resume work and production said that the requirement to meet the conditions for resuming work is that the entire floor and my nucleic acid test must be negative for 7 consecutive days. According to statistics, less than 40% of employees meet the working conditions. And because the local neighborhood committee and community property "do not release people", less than 30% of them can really reach the post.
An employee of an automobile industry supporting company who has received a notice to resume work and production told us that if the neighborhood committee and the property agree, employees can apply for work, and the group will issue a "pass", but they need to isolate themselves for three days after arriving at the post.
In addition, it is difficult to clearly demarcate the management boundaries between the prevention zone and the control zone.
At present, in order to control the epidemic more effectively, Shanghai is divided into three major areas: closed area, control area and prevention area. Among them, the closed area is strictly managed in accordance with the state of no entry and exit, the control area can be arranged in an orderly manner in accordance with the documents issued by the town and district governments, and the prevention area can be applied for according to the enterprise.
However, there is a problem, if the surrounding community has a confirmed case, then the nearby community that is not diagnosed will also be classified as a control area. Based on this, it may take time for Shanghai to fully resume work and production.
Referring to the progress of changchun's resumption of work, if Shanghai can resume production at the end of April, it is already very optimistic. But Shanghai must gnaw down this "hard bone." The longer the downtime, the greater the cost of restarting.
In the face of repeated epidemics, the sharp decline in sales of China's auto market in 2022 is a foregone conclusion, as a person in charge of a car company said:
"Be prepared for a hard life."