Shanghai, the former epidemic prevention "excellent student", suddenly became "sick", which I believe makes no one think. In 2020, when the new crown epidemic has just reared its head, Shanghai will do a good job in the first time, and it is not easy for an international metropolis with huge cargo throughput and frequent flow of people to effectively control the global epidemic in 2 years. However, the wise will have a mistake, the mutation of the Omicron is more spreadable, Shanghai in order to win this arduous dynamic zero clearance "battle", the suspension of work and production, regional closed management, and comprehensively reduce the mobility of personnel. In such a situation, the automobile industry naturally can not be left alone, logistics shutdown, parts supply suspension, vehicle manufacturing is also in the shadow of suspension of production.
According to the march car market sales data of the Association, the auto retail market fell by more than 10% in the month due to the signs of the spread of the epidemic across the country in late March. In particular, the intensification of the epidemic in northeast China has caused a sharp decline in sales of car companies such as FAW-Volkswagen, BMW Brilliance, and FAW Hongqi.
Since then, the epidemic in Shanghai has also been like a flood, which is out of control. On March 14, before Shanghai tightened its control, SAIC Volkswagen's Anting plant received a 48-hour closed-loop quarantine notice. Originally, the workers only worked ordinary overtime as usual, but as the epidemic worsened, the workers were told to stay in the factory, sleep in tents or camp beds at night, and live in the same sealed area as the people of Shanghai.
On March 28, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory stopped production; on March 31, SAIC Volkswagen closed some factory production; on April 9, WEILAI Automobile announced the suspension of vehicle production; on April 13, the Great Wall Tank brand issued a notice saying 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 stopped operation...
Judging from the first list of three districts released by Shanghai Municipality, in Pudong New Area, where the automobile industry is concentrated, the sealing and control areas and control areas account for nearly 54% of the whole district. Although Jiading District is not the hardest hit area of the epidemic, it is also under strict control. In the absence of employees, even if the factory meets the conditions for resuming work and production, the reality is that it is still difficult to return to the production progress before the outbreak.
In addition to the sharp decline in production efficiency caused by the lack of personnel, the suspension of the city and the closure of the road have also brought the entire logistics system to a standstill, which makes the originally well-connected automobile supporting supply chain become an industrial "island" because of the loss of circulation capacity. Supporting parts can not come in, the product can not be assembled and produced, so that the entire production line fell into the "difficult to cook without rice" bad situation.
According to statistics, in this round of the epidemic, more than 1,000 automotive industry chain enterprises in Shanghai have stopped production and reduced production to varying degrees. The unstable supply of the industrial chain has also led to the suspension of production by vehicle companies. Among them, there are many "star car companies" such as Tesla, SAIC, FAW, Nippon, Great Wall Motor, and Dongfeng Nissan. Under the influence of news such as suspension of production and suspension of work, the performance of the automobile industry in the capital market has also begun to continue to decline, and the stock prices of some car companies have even appeared to be "falling and falling".
In this anxious and helpless situation, on the evening of April 14, He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng Motors, first of all, could not stop and wrote an "early warning" text in his 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." On April 15, Huawei's managing director and CEO of the intelligent car solution BU, "big mouth" Yu Chengdong also said in the circle of friends that if Shanghai continues to fail to resume work and production, after May, all technology and industrial industries involving Shanghai's supply chain will be completely shut down, especially the automobile industry.
With He Xiaopeng and Yu Chengdong speaking out on social platforms, the dilemma of the automobile industry has attracted more attention. It is understood that some vehicle manufacturing plants and parts manufacturing plants that have not completely stopped production still adopt the "closed-loop system" to operate hard, but like most factories that have stopped production, raw materials have actually been cut off, how long can the existing inventory be supported, and whether the subsequent upstream supply chains can keep up, in the case of interlocking industrial chains, the prospects in the short term are still not optimistic.
In the face of the current difficulties, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also sent a working group to Shanghai in time to investigate, and concentrated resources to promote the resumption of work and production of 666 enterprises in key industries such as integrated circuits and automobiles. The Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology announced the first batch of key enterprises "white list" on the 16th, of which more than 250 are related to automobiles, such as Tesla, SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC-GM and so on.
However, the damage caused by the epidemic is not something that can be repaired in the short term. Production and sales data show that SAIC motor produced 419721 new cars in March, down 16% year-on-year. However, this is only the data for March, SAIC Volkswagen only closed some factories on March 31, and SAIC-GM and SAIC Passenger Vehicles have adopted closed management measures to ensure normal operation. That said, the real data downturn will not be apparent until April. According to the statistical analysis of the Federation of Automobile Manufacturers, the automobile-related production in Shanghai accounts for about 20% of the country, and the automobile production state in Shanghai is full before the suspension of production, so after the suspension of production, this part of the loss cannot be repaired in the short term.
Write at the end:
Compared with the Lockdown in Wuhan in 2020, Shanghai and Jilin, which suffered the impact, surpassed Wuhan in terms of the scale of the automobile industry, concentrating China's top automobile manufacturing and research and development centers. In theory, a month-long lockdown in Shanghai and Jilin province would result in the loss of 400,000 vehicles, and both Jilin and Shanghai have a large number of upstream parts suppliers. The uncertainty of the epidemic has brought unprecedented challenges to the automobile industry, superimposed on a series of difficulties such as the previous rise in raw material prices and the shortage of chip supply, perhaps car companies will face a new round of industry reshuffle and mergers and acquisitions.