How to get out of the crisis?
As the second pillar industry after real estate, the mainland automobile industry is facing a severe test.
According to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in March this year, the added value of the national automobile manufacturing industry fell by 1.0% year-on-year, and the output of automobiles was 2.387 million units, down 4.9% year-on-year. In the first quarter, the industrial added value of the automobile manufacturing industry increased by 4.0% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 2.5 percentage points lower than the industrial added value of industrial enterprises above designated size in the same period.
Behind the market, many automobile industry bases are under heavy pressure.
Since March, affected by the epidemic, car companies in Jilin, Shanghai and other places have stopped work and production in a large area, and the production and sales of some large car companies have even fallen off a cliff. The latest data show that in March this year, 15 of the 28 provinces involved in automobile production in the country fell year-on-year, accounting for more than half.
At a critical period of reshaping the pattern of the automobile industry, where will many major automobile towns go?
crisis
The automotive industry is known as the "manufacturing industry within manufacturing" and has a huge industrial chain. A car contains 20,000 or 30,000 parts, and any link that is not smooth will lead to the interruption of the entire industrial chain.
According to statistics, the automobile industry accounts for about 10% of the mainland's GDP, and the pull on the upstream and downstream industrial chain is obvious - every 1 yuan of the automobile manufacturing industry can drive the value-added of the upstream and downstream related industries to 2.64 yuan. In 2021, the production and sales of mainland automobiles reached 26.082 million units and 26.275 million units, respectively, ranking first in the world for 13 consecutive years.
However, since the beginning of this year, under the background of the multi-point spread of the epidemic, the national automobile industry has suffered a strong impact. Some insiders pointed out that compared with the beginning of 2020, the automotive industry is significantly more serious in terms of the scope of the impact and the depth of the industrial chain, and the entire industry is facing unprecedented pressure.
Especially since March this year, Jilin, Shanghai and other major automotive industry towns have been affected by the epidemic and have stopped work and production, and the subsequent supply chain crisis has spread rapidly to the whole country.
On March 28, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory stopped production; on April 1, SAIC Volkswagen, which has twice started closed-loop production, announced that some factories would stop production; on April 9, WEILAI Automobile issued an announcement that WEILAI vehicle production has been suspended; on April 13, the Great Wall Tank brand announced that due to the impact of the epidemic in many places, a total of 8 supplier partners involved in the suspension and operation of the tank 300 models, and suspended the production of the model from the 14th...
How big is the loss caused by this shutdown?
Taking Tesla's current Shanghai Gigafactory, which has the highest production capacity, as an example, from March 28 to April 19, the factory stopped production for 22 days, which is the longest shutdown since it was completed and put into operation. Based on the estimated capacity of 2,000 units per day, the Shanghai Gigafactory shut down for three weeks, which is equivalent to cutting production of more than 40,000 electric vehicles, accounting for about 13% of Tesla's global deliveries in the first quarter.
Tesla vehicle deliveries (unit: millions) Image source: Tesla
The severe situation is more intuitively reflected in the latest release of the national automobile industry data.
In March this year, 37 of the country's 41 industrial industries maintained a year-on-year increase in added value. The automobile manufacturing industry, which is a pillar industry, is not among them.
In the same period, the added value of the national automobile manufacturing industry, automobile production and automobile retail sales fell by 1%, 4.9% and 7.5% respectively year-on-year. Among them, the decline in auto retail sales was 4 percentage points higher than the total retail sales of consumer goods in the whole society in the same period.
Image source: Multiplying Association
Statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers show that in March this year, the country's automobile production and sales fell by 9.1% and 11.7% year-on-year, respectively. In the first quarter, automobile production and sales increased slightly year-on-year, but the growth rate fell significantly from the same period last year.
According to statistics, in the first quarter of this year, FAW-Volkswagen sales fell by 40.2%, SAIC Volkswagen sales fell by 34.5%, SAIC-GM fell by 40.5%, and Dongfeng Nissan fell by 33.5%.
recovery
The widespread impact of the shutdown crisis is related to the important position of Shanghai and Jilin in the field of national automobile industry.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2021, the top three provinces in the country's automobile production are Guangdong, Shanghai and Jilin, and the total output of the three places accounts for nearly 1/3 of the country.
Among them, Guangdong's annual output reached 3.3846 million units, accounting for 12.8% of the country's total output. The annual output of Shanghai and Jilin is 2.8332 million units and 2.4241 million units, respectively, accounting for 10.7% and 9.1% of the total national output, respectively – that is, the total output of the two places is close to 1/5 of the country.
Not only that, the automotive industry chain has high requirements for synergy and close upstream and downstream links, which can easily trigger a "chain reaction". On the evening of April 14, He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng Automobile, bluntly posted in the 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." ”
According to the data, Shanghai gathers more than half of the world's parts giants' Chinese headquarters and some factories, and 9 of the top ten parts groups' Chinese headquarters are in Shanghai, including Bosch, ZF and so on.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, pointed out that the shanghai epidemic may cut off the logistics system of the global automotive industry chain, "from the whole vehicle to the chip, from the parts to the battery equipment, from the sensor to the industrial robot, all are blocked in situ." In addition, the freight volume of Shanghai Port has dropped by 40%, and the impact on the global industrial chain is also deepening. It is expected to reduce production by 20% to automobile production. ”
From a domestic point of view, in March this year, the country's total of 15 provinces in the car production fell year-on-year, accounting for more than half of the 28 automobile production provinces. Among them, Jilin and Liaoning fell by 53.4% and 53.1% respectively.
In addition, since the shutdown date of local factories is mainly after mid-to-late March, Shanghai's automobile production in March fell slightly by 0.7% year-on-year, and the loss of production reduction may be reflected in the follow-up in April. In Guangdong, which is less affected by this round of epidemics, automobile production achieved a rapid growth of 30.2% in March.
The good news is that car companies in Shanghai, Jilin and other places have recently reported the news of resumption of work, and the crisis of industrial chain supply interruption is expected to ease.
Just on April 21, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed on the first quarter earnings call that Tesla did lose a few weeks of production capacity due to the shutdown of the Shanghai factory, but now that production capacity has recovered, there will be a record weekly production next.
At present, major automobile towns are making every effort to resume work and production, hoping to accelerate the "return to blood".
On the evening of 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)", focusing resources on priority to ensure that 666 key enterprises in key industries such as integrated circuits and automobile manufacturing resume work and production. Among them, there are more than 200 automobile-related enterprises, accounting for more than 1/3.
Tesla was listed as a "discontinued enterprise that must resume work" in The Lingang New Area. Public information shows that on April 17 and 18, 8,000 Tesla employees have returned to the factory one after another, and the battery and motor workshops resumed production on the morning of the 19th. Song Gang, senior director of production and manufacturing at Tesla Gigafactory, revealed to the media that at the same time as Tesla resumed work, many Tesla parts suppliers in Shanghai also began to resume work, becoming the region with the largest proportion of supplier partners resuming work and production.
Change
Nevertheless, in the eyes of many people in the industry, the overall recovery trend of the national automobile industry remains to be seen.
On the one hand, the automotive industry chain is long and complex, and the impact of secondary parts supply interruption may continue to have an impact on production and sales in the second quarter; on the other hand, in the context of repeated epidemics and weak consumption momentum, the retail trend of the automobile market is not optimistic. According to Cui Dongshu's forecast, "the trend in the second quarter looks at the recovery speed of Shanghai under the epidemic, and retail sales are expected to achieve zero growth throughout the year."
In any case, the epidemic will eventually pass, in the long run, which major automobile manufacturing provinces have more staying power?
From the perspective of automobile production data in various provinces in the past 5 years, in 2021, a total of 10 provinces in the country will produce more than 1 million vehicles, namely Guangdong, Shanghai, Jilin, Hubei, Chongqing, Guangxi, Anhui, Beijing, Hebei and Shandong.
Compared with 2017, the production of more than 1 million vehicles is also 10 provinces, but the members have changed slightly - Jiangsu's annual automobile production has dropped from 1.1985 million units in 2017 to 775,700 units, falling out of the top ten in the country; Shandong has increased production from 915,600 units to 1.0729 million units, succeeding Jiangsu among the top ten.
From the perspective of the change in the national share of automobile production from 2017 to 2021, the automobile production of Guangdong, Anhui and Zhejiang has increased considerably in the past five years, accounting for 1.8%, 1.7% and 1.2% of the national proportion respectively; the share of Beijing, Hubei, Guangxi, Jiangsu, Chongqing and other places has decreased by more than 1%.
It is not difficult to find that a key variable lies in the strong rise of new energy vehicles.
Taking Guangdong as an example, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that the output of new energy vehicles in mainland China in 2021 will be 3.545 million units; of which Guangdong's output will reach 535,000 units, an increase of 155.6% year-on-year, accounting for 15.1% of the country.
Among the top ten domestic new energy automobile enterprises in terms of production and sales, there are 3 Guangdong enterprises (BYD, GAC Aegean, Xiaopeng Automobile). In addition, Anhui and Zhejiang, which have seen rapid growth in the share of automobile production in the past five years, are also provinces that have made greater efforts in the field of new energy vehicles.
At present, the layout around this new track is still accelerating. At the same time, the mainland automobile industry has accelerated its transformation from traditional industries to digitalization and intelligence, and is in a critical period of reshaping the overall pattern. Under the change, many important cities in the automobile industry will also usher in a new inflection point of fate.
Text | Cheng Xiaoling
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