Author | Peng Fei
Source | Car Market Story
How to minimize the losses caused by epidemic prevention and control as much as possible, avoid falling behind and maintain competitiveness under the fiercely competitive market situation, has become the biggest problem for car companies in the current epidemic control area.
"I'm coming to Shanghai soon!" I've got an offer. In early March, when Ye Bing excitedly told this news to this author, his joy overflowed into words.
Ye Bing was originally an employee of Great Wall Motors, and the plan to "escape Baoding" has been planned for half a year. "I want to go to an international metropolis." After experiencing some internal struggles, Ye Bing resolutely came to a new car-making company in Shanghai, but did not expect that the entry time was repeatedly postponed.
"Originally reported on March 28, I suddenly received the news of Shanghai's sealing and control, and temporarily changed it to April 10." Since the epidemic in Shanghai has not yet reached an inflection point, the entry time on April 10 has been postponed again.
At present, Shanghai has had more than 20,000 new cases for 13 consecutive days, with a total of more than 400,000 cases. Shanghai's epidemic prevention policy, from the "grid format" screening, to the "Huangpu River as the boundary of the batch" sealing control, from the strict implementation of "staying at home" to the "three districts" differentiated control, is now in the "global static management" stage.
Is it to find a new job, or to continue to wait for the Shanghai automotive industry chain to fully resume work? Ye Bing was at a loss for a moment.
On April 16, a copy of Shanghai's "first batch of key enterprises 'white list'" began to circulate, and the automotive industry chain saw the hope of resuming work.
After understanding and listening to the voices of employees within the enterprise, it was found that the resumption of work and production faced many challenges. In addition to waiting for policy regulation, it is also necessary for enterprises and industries to actively save themselves.
The resumption of production is still delayed
Since the beginning of this year, there have been precedents in tianjin and Changchun, two major automobile towns that have pressed the pause button due to the epidemic, and Shanghai is not an isolated case. After Shanghai announced the closure of the division at the end of March, the impact on the automobile industry with a long supply chain and relatively limited reserve parts gradually revealed.
Shanghai local enterprises such as SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC-GM, and Tesla have borne the brunt of the epidemic and have stopped production one after another, and other car companies such as SAIC Passenger Cars and Zhiji Automobile, as well as parts companies, have opened fully enclosed management.
Even some models of NIO, Xiaopeng Motors and Great Wall Motors, which do not have production lines in Shanghai, were discontinued for a time.
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), and announced the first batch of key enterprises "white list".
According to statistics, a total of 666 companies are on the list, of which the number of automobile and automotive industry chain enterprises is the largest, involving 251, 41 maintain production, and more than 80% are in a state of suspension.
After inquiring about some of the listed companies, many companies replied that they had received relevant notices of resumption of work and were communicating with relevant departments and employees to arrange for the resumption of work, but even if they were on the white list, the resumption of work and production also faced many tests.
"We haven't been able to resume production so quickly." On April 18, Zhou Peng (pseudonym), an internal employee of SAIC Volkswagen, said, "After the whitelist came out, the internal discussion was about how to arrange personnel, and the number of employees who counted the 'seven days of the building' overnight, less than 30% of the employees who could meet the requirements, and the community had to release talents." At present, the documents have not yet been issued to the community neighborhood committees, and due to various processes and concerns, there are very few employees who can actually return to the factory. ”
Since April 18, SAIC Motor's SAIC Passenger Vehicles, SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC-GM, Huayu Automobile, Anji Logistics and other vehicle, parts and logistics enterprises, focusing on personnel support, supply chain support, logistics support, closed production management and epidemic prevention measures, have launched a stress test for resuming work and production.
"According to the statistics of the prevention zone personnel, we originally planned that the MEB plant could have 200 people to resume work, reaching 15 units per hour (15jph), resuming production by 30%; the third plant was planned to have 3 cars per hour (3jph) and resume production by 5%.
Unfortunately, there are too many objective obstacles, and the plan to partially resume work is still not completed, and only a small number of duty personnel are closed in the factory. Zhou Peng said frankly.
On the other side, tesla's gigafactory in Shanghai's Lingang is also anxiously resuming production. It is worth mentioning that the Lingang area also lists Tesla as a "discontinued enterprise that must resume work".
Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory began to stop production on March 28 due to epidemic prevention and control, and now it has been more than half a month. Based on the average daily production capacity of 2,000 cars, Tesla's production loss may exceed 40,000 vehicles.
On April 18, a Tesla employee said, "Our people have already entered the market one after another, and it is expected to start operations tomorrow (April 19)." "After resuming work, Tesla plans to start with one shift initially and then gradually increase it. However, due to the current shortage of materials, the resumption of work plan may still change according to the development of the epidemic.
Previously, some employees of SAIC Passenger Vehicles maintained closed production during the sealing period. After the resumption of work on April 18, SAIC Passenger Vehicles originally planned to run double shifts, but due to the difficulty of personnel entering the site and incomplete materials, it was still in the preparation stage for the time being.
"The first step in resuming work and production is to complete the replacement of personnel, there is a three-day silence period after entering the factory, and after three days, it is closed for management and does not contact with the employees in the factory." SAIC passenger car related personnel said.
According to the requirements of the plan, the whitelist enterprises ensure their normal operation through closed management, centralized office and other methods, isolate themselves according to high and low risks, strictly closed-loop management, and implement daily testing of "early antigen detection and late testing of nucleic acid".
It should be mentioned that unlike the previous closed management, the enterprises on this "white list" can allow employees outside the closed factory to enter, but once the employees enter the office to resume work, they can only live in the company, because there is no clear policy for employees who return to work.
It is understood that many parts companies on the white list have also delayed their plans to resume work.
"There is no preparation to resume work at present, and it is planned to be planned at the end of the month." ZF insiders said. "I haven't received a notice from my employer to go to work at the company." Yanfeng related people said.
Employees inside Webster revealed, "The company's factory production line in Jiaxing has been restored for about half, but the Shanghai factory has no plans to resume work." ”
"Valeo has three factories in Shanghai, but it is not possible to disclose the resumption of production for the time being, and there will be official information released after a while." Valeo said.
"It's hard for a woman to cook without rice"
In fact, whether the automobile industry chain can resume work and production depends on the guarantee and ability of the production unit to guarantee raw materials, parts and living materials and living conditions.
In recent years, due to the recurrence of the epidemic, the automotive industry chain has taken some countermeasures in terms of employee protection and redundant reserves of materials, but it still cannot withstand long-term consumption.
When parts companies stop working for more than a few weeks, vehicle companies will face the risk of exhausting inventory parts and intermittently stopping production lines.
Shanghai as an important automobile town, in addition to Bosch, ZF, Aptiv, Valeo, Webasto and other international supplier giants, around the Tesla factory, Lingang has rapidly introduced a supporting industrial chain, in just two years has gathered more than 100 enterprises such as Ningde Era, Joyson Electronics, Horizon, Yiqing Intelligence, covering engines, power batteries, chips, body interior and exterior and other fields.
Most of the above-mentioned parts and components companies have reduced production or stopped production during the sealing and control management period, resulting in the interruption of supply by OEMs.
Among them, Aptiv supplies wiring harnesses to most car companies in the country; ZF is a well-known transmission giant; Bosch has two factories in Shanghai, and its ESP (Body Electronic Stability System) is widely used in domestic cars, but due to poor land transportation, the difficulty of picking up imported goods in Shanghai Port has affected Bosch's import of ESP chips from overseas.
In addition, the Yangtze River Delta region around Shanghai has implemented strict differentiated static management, and most of Bosch's factories in Suzhou are also facing the dilemma of suspension of production.
As Li Bin, CEO of Weilai Automobile, said, "A car can't produce a part." For the previous Weilai production suspension incident, Li Bin said frankly, "Affected by the epidemic in Changchun and Hebei, some of our parts and components were cut off 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. ”
Although NIO's supply chain is now recovering slightly, and the Hefei production base is gradually resuming production, the follow-up production plan depends on the recovery of the supply chain.
On April 14, He Xiaopeng, the founder of Xiaopeng Motors, released a circle of friends dynamics, saying that 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.
The next day, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business and CEO of Smart Car BU, posted in the circle of friends that if Shanghai cannot resume work and production, after May, all technology and industrial manufacturing involving shanghai's supply chain will be completely suspended, especially the impact of the automobile industry.
In this regard, Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers and director of the China Automobile Industry Economic and Technical Information Institute, said, "There is no such absolute, only that there may be a large-scale suspension of production." But the "warnings" of these big guys are not alarmist.
A senior executive of a well-known international parts and components company who did not want to be named said, "All of our OEM customers have been more or less affected, and the resumption of work is only a very small scale (dozens of vehicles a day) production, and the supply problem has yet to be solved." ”
The supply of spare parts caused by this round of outbreak has also spread around the world.
For example, Mazda announced last week that due to the lockdown of the new crown epidemic in Shanghai and other cities, Mazda's production line in Japan could not purchase some key parts normally, and the headquarters factory in Japan stopped operating on the 14th and 15th, and then Mazda announced the news that it would continue to stop production from the 21st to the 26th.
The complexity of the automobile determines the diversification, complexity and globalization of the automobile supply chain and upstream and downstream supporting enterprises, but where there is wind and grass, it is a whole body.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Federation, judged that according to the calculations of the Association, the epidemic in Shanghai and other places is expected to bring 20% production reduction losses to the production of the automotive industry.
The issue of guaranteeing circulation is key
In the difficult epidemic prevention and control war, in order to ensure the smooth flow of the automobile supply chain, seeking policy support has become a life-saving straw for car companies and parts companies. A positive signal is that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Shanghai Economic and Information Commission have all intervened to provide guarantees for the resumption of work and production.
At present, in addition to the problem of personnel in place, the highest demand in the industry is to solve logistics problems. Because the automotive industry chain is extremely large, the chain is long, the process is many, and it is extremely dependent on logistics.
An auto parts insider based in Waigaoqiao, Shanghai, said, "At present, the factory has begun to commission, but because the logistics are closed, raw materials cannot be returned if they cannot come in." ”
It is understood that since March 28, in addition to epidemic prevention and daily necessities in Shanghai, many production and logistics have pressed the pause button.
"Over the past two weeks, it has been difficult for our company to find available trucks near Shanghai because there are a lot of truck drivers who are either stuck on the highway or trapped in the city." A person in the automotive logistics industry said that today's freight market is facing a big gap, and people and cars are difficult to find.
Some car companies began to send people to guard the highway every day, using their own cars and drivers to pick up Shanghai goods to complete the transfer.
Corresponding to the gap is the soaring freight rate of trucks.
It is reported that at the end of March, the price of truck transportation from Shandong Province to Shanghai has risen from 7,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan, more than quadrupling. By mid-April, the waybill to Shanghai was up 3-5 times from March, and the capacity was extremely tight.
Under the escalation of epidemic prevention and control, the supply chain, which has been blocked by many links such as raw material procurement to production and manufacturing, to transportation and shipment, is experiencing an extraordinary period.
Analysts pointed out that if the government can use relevant policies to open up personnel and logistics links, then the resumption of work and production of enterprises will be much smoother.
Compared with the complexity of the automobile production and supply chain, the automobile sales side is slightly more flexible, but it also faces the impact of demand lag.
"All sales stores in the Shanghai area have been closed, and we have received instructions from the group not to resume work next week." A manager at Shanghai Yongda Automobile Sales Company said. At present, car companies and dealers will do some online live broadcasts, short videos and other marketing methods to obtain customers, and accumulate some fans first.
Many industry insiders said that from upstream to downstream to sales terminals, the impact of this round of epidemic on the automobile industry is more than the 2020 Wuhan epidemic.
According to the analysis of the National Passenger Car Market Joint Association, the retail sales of automobiles in March were much lower than the wholesale volume in China; from April 1 to 10, the retail sales of passenger cars were 246,000 units, down 32% year-on-year; and the wholesale of passenger cars was 242,000 units, down 39% year-on-year.
When will the automotive industry recover?
How to minimize the losses caused by epidemic prevention and control as much as possible, avoid falling behind and maintain competitiveness under the fiercely competitive market situation, has become the biggest problem for car companies in the current epidemic control area.
An industry expert said that confidence is more important than gold, and companies need to actively help themselves. First of all, we must make every effort to reduce costs and solve the problem of liquidity.
The second is to flexibly carry out online office and accelerate the digital transformation process, including the establishment of a rapid response mechanism for user feedback and service guarantee. In addition, it is necessary to prepare diversified online marketing and increase promotional efforts until demand recovers.
When it comes to when the auto industry can fully recover, the industry's statement is cautiously optimistic.
On the one hand, with a series of larger tax reductions and fee reductions, support policies continue to land, it will help car companies to bail out; on the other hand, if the epidemic is effectively controlled in the second quarter, the consumer demand on the market side is expected to be released in the second half of the year.
Some people have analyzed that after the recent impact of the epidemic is lifted, the recovery of the overall supply chain will still take 1-2 months; some pessimists have bluntly said, "If there are still one or two cases of 'static' and road closures in local policies, it will be too difficult." ”
What can bring dawn to Shanghai's auto industry is that in Jilin, where the epidemic was serious in the early stage, FAW Group has started to resume work in an all-round way.
As of April 16, faw group's five main engine plants in Changchun had all resumed work, with a total of 7,438 people returning to work. Previously, due to the impact of the local epidemic, since March 13, FAW Group's five OEMs in Changchun have announced the suspension of production.
For the resumption of work and production in Shanghai, car companies and parts companies are still like climbing team members climbing against the 8-level wind: they must be tight all over their bodies to stand firm, and if they are not careful, they will be blown back a few steps.
"A grain of dust of the times, falling on everyone, is a mountain", whether it is for enterprises or individuals, in the torrent of the times, it is wrapped up and pushed, and it is involuntarily. For Ye Bing mentioned at the beginning of the article, although he has received an offer, not being hired means that there is no income.
"I am still willing to believe that the epidemic in Shanghai will soon usher in an inflection point, and the resumption of work and production of enterprises is proceeding in an orderly manner." After a soft "come on", Ye Bing finally made a decision.