Text | Dedee
Remember that at the end of 2019, the official "Annual Chinese Character" was officially released: "Stable" was elected as the annual domestic character, and "Difficult" was elected as the annual international character.
Almost at the same time, The New Weekly also released the annual Chinese character "Nan". Compared with the official international version of the "difficult" word, this "South" character with its own ridicule and harmonic stem, like the brother-in-law asking the sister-in-law to watch a movie, makes the duanzi who loves the essence of the country instantly come alive - they either throw out a "South Wind" to say "I am too difficult"; or stack two "South Wind" together "South On the South Plus"; or turn four "South Winds" upside down at the same time to "completely turn me south"...
For countless people, whether it is the word "difficult" or the word "south", it is the most deserved one since the annual Chinese character program appeared in China.
More than 2 years later, after the spring of 2022, we look back at the automotive industry that year - it is so interesting! It is true that there are sometimes "south" places, there are all kinds of chaos, but more is the vitality and change, as well as all kinds of wonderful dramas, which make people dizzy.
freshman
In 2019, the new forces of car manufacturing entered the "race point".
In early January, Musk took the lead in attacking — a tweet about the foundation of Tesla's Chinese gigafactory, which garnered 10,000 likes in just one hour.
Domestic special fans like The Big Pushen, because this means that the long-endurance all-wheel drive version of the Model 3 and the Performance high-performance all-wheel drive version of the model 3 that are being sold on the official website are just around the corner.
And the price reduction will reach more than 200,000, of which the long-endurance all-wheel drive version will drop from 499,000 to 299,400 once it is domestically produced; the Performance high-performance all-wheel drive version will fall from 560,000 to 336,000.
At the end of May, Li Bin Po took a selfie of himself at a Henan beef ramen restaurant and a photo with the owner of a ramen shop.
These two typical steel straight men's selfie styles made Weilai fans cry. Because on the same day, Weilai, which had suffered serious losses, finally succeeded in turning its fortune and got 10 billion yuan of financing from Beijing Yizhuang State Investment Corporation.
Just over 2 months later, NIO announced that the first car owners who purchased ES8 and ES6 can enjoy a lifetime free power exchange on the basis of enjoying a lifetime free warranty, and NIO has become the first car company to provide free power exchange services for individual users.
The launch of the free power exchange business has ushered in a new competition point for the car-making industry.
Although at that time, this business was definitely a laborious and unflattering thing in the eyes of the government or other companies - coupled with the fact that Weilai's new car sales data in July was only 1502 units, it was difficult to achieve the annual sales target. For countless people who look down on Weilai and the new domestic car-making forces, Weilai's move is simply a "double kitchen ecstasy", which is a toad hard-dressed little frog, ugly and playful.
The outside world has set up a countdown to Weilai, some say half a year, and some say that the funds will be exhausted in two or three months.
In October, an article titled "Weilai Li Bin, the Most Miserable Man of 2019" came out. Although the manuscript jokingly calls Li Bin the most miserable person in 2019, it is saying good things about Li Bin throughout. Pointing out that Li Bin is a great prodigy who not only adheres to idealism, but also knows how to do things, Li Bin's Weilai will definitely have a future.
It is also true that Weilai has realized where the money should be spent, and sales should not be the only criterion for considering whether a new car-making force can survive. If the power exchange business is done well, he may be able to become the first Qin Shi Huang in the car circle to touch the wire, sooner or later.
With the official launch of ES6, NIO's products and services finally began to meet market expectations after the third quarter.
On December 4, on the eve of the third NIO Day, NIO U.S. stocks began to spree upwards, rising more than 7% at one point, after which the stock price fell. The second day opened at $2.35 per share, and after hours the stock price was pulled up again, as of the close of $2.44 per share, an increase of 7.49%. Compared with the previous worst $1.19 / share, the increase reached 105%.
Li Xiang's ideal ONE finally started delivery in the same month, a little later than the original November – of course, there was also a windfall, that is, the delivery of models directly changed from 2019 models to 2020 models.
On December 30, 15 domestically produced Model 3 Chinese versions were officially delivered to internal employees in the Shanghai Gigafactory, which can be described as creating a milestone "legend" in the automotive manufacturing industry in China - the super factory took only one year from the official foundation laying, starting construction, completion and production to official delivery.
By the way, just one day before Weilai's U.S. stocks went crazy upwards, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" (Draft for Comments), mentioned: Although the new energy market share in 2019 is only about 5%, it is expected that by 2025, the proportion of new energy vehicle sales will reach about 25%.
Helpless
In 2019, there is also a "refreshing" car-making idea.
In April, in order to obtain automobile production qualifications, Byton Automobile acquired 100% of the equity of Tianjin FAW Huali Automobile, a wholly-owned subsidiary of FAW Xiali, for 1 yuan.
In fact, while obtaining equity and car-making qualifications, Byton also undertook the 800 million yuan of debt previously owed by Huali Automobile, as well as more than 50 million yuan of employee compensation - that is, 1 yuan was exchanged for 850 million yuan of debt.
Not long after, founder and president Bi Fukang suddenly announced that he would leave Bytengrun and go to Econnik to become CEO.
On July 20, Sai Lin Automobile spent 300 million yuan to hold an unprecedented grand "Sai Lin Night" at the Beijing Bird's Nest, inviting Guo Da Statham, who could still speak, and Wu Yifan, who once thought he was very big, to stand on the platform to cheer.
However, the real protagonist of the party is an electric car called "Sai Lin Mai Mai". According to the official introduction, this Maimai has been personally adjusted by Steve Sailin, the founder of True Sailin in the United States, and is an urban micro-electric vehicle with "sports car-level control" priced at 180,000 yuan.
Wang Xiaolin, chairman of Sailin Automobile, said with great confidence at the ceremony: "If a car, the performance of porsche 718, is even higher than the 718, but the price is half of the 718, or even more than one-third, I believe that this market size will show ten times and twenty times growth." ”
In August, Evergrande officially released its new energy vehicle brand "Hengchi".
Along with the birth, there is also a news broadcast advertisement, which is as eye-catching as the Hermès belt of Chairman Xu Jiayin. The high emotional intelligence statement is serious, regular, atmospheric, powerful, and the tall tone is unforgettable; the low emotional intelligence statement is that the earthy taste of 20 years ago makes people unable to look at it directly...
A month later, Evergrande held a brand mission church that shocked the world and cried ghosts. Xu Jiayin took off the script for more than 20 minutes, and officially shouted out the development route of Evergrande Automobile - "buy, buy, buy, circle, big, good".
In addition to setting a magnificent development route, the suppliers of the world's TOP60 also arrived at the meeting and sat together on an unprecedented ultra-long table to collectively sign a strategic cooperation agreement with Evergrande.
In less than 2 months, Evergrande acquired Guoneng Automobile, battery companies Carnex New Energy, Tate Electromechanical and British Protean; invested in the Swedish supercar manufacturing Koenigsec, a joint venture to establish a company that aims to produce the world's top new energy vehicles; and signed a contract with 15 world-renowned automotive designers from Germany, Italy, the United States, France, Japan and other countries, requiring them to make design reserves for the launch of a number of models in the next few years.
In November, Evergrande released Hengchi's investment budget of 45 billion yuan in three years: 20 billion yuan in 2019, 15 billion yuan in 2020, 10 billion yuan in 2021, and 5 million vehicles in 10 to 15 years. If you include the investment in the vehicle production and manufacturing base, Evergrande's established investment is expected to reach 300 billion yuan.
What is this concept? Saic-Volkswagen, which ranked first in domestic sales in 2018, had a revenue of only 259.301 billion yuan a year...
The next month, Sai Lin, which received more than 6 billion yuan in investment, shyly released the total sales volume of 11 months before Mai Mai - 12 vehicles. At the same time, there is also the production of the whole year of 2019 - about 1800 vehicles.
Many people have already regarded Sai Lin Mai Mai as a courier who fell into the sewers - pit goods, and Wang Xiaolin, who hung up his mouth at every turn, "I was on Wall Street..." at every turn, as a "wall Street white-eyed wolf" with no coin number.
Byton's first loading car, M-Byte, is finally officially off the production line, and it is like the last piece of tissue in the toilet, becoming Byton's rolling work and a huge exclamation point!
Whether it is Byton or Sailin, they all use practical actions to support the new car-making ideas of "burning money is the most glorious, mass production is not worth it", and also let countless investors have a kind of "car-making useless" despair and understanding.
Exit
In 2019, in addition to the official retirement of Daimler Global President Zetsche, who is familiar to us, there are also two well-known automakers in China who have turned around and left the market.
In April, Zheng Jie, the first Chinese female executive to become the top executive of a global automotive group, left the Jeep brand and the automotive industry to join the hospitality industry.
Before she left, the Cumulative Number of Jeep brands in China exceeded one million.
In September, An Tiecheng, who was named "Savior of the Dragon" and "Captain of the Fire Brigade" by the media, left Dongfeng Shenlong and was transferred to the China Automobile Center.
Six months after Zheng Jie left Jeep and An Tiecheng left DPCA, the auto industry suddenly exposed a big news: Jeep's FCA Group and PSA, the base of French cars, announced a merger.
In December, the merger was officially confirmed – the world's fourth-largest automotive group with annual sales of 8.7 million units was born.
At the same time, the wave of layoffs in car companies around the world is like a mountain rain coming, stirring people's fears.
Audi announced that it will lay off 9,500 jobs by 2025, and Daimler will lay off at least 10,000 jobs in the next two years. Previously, international first-tier car companies including BMW, GM, Nissan and other international first-line car companies have issued layoff plans.
There is also an old qualified car company in a safe corner, which finally failed to survive the winter of 2019.
On December 23, FAW Xiali issued 14 consecutive announcements announcing that its asset restructuring plan with China Railway Wusheng Technology Development Co., Ltd. was approved by the board of directors and the board of supervisors.
FAW Xiali, which has not produced new cars for several consecutive years and has been relying on "selling and selling" shells to continue its life, has finally withdrawn from the stage of A shares and metabolized the curtain to this time that no longer belongs to itself.
Compared with the Beetle, Xiali's complete withdrawal is more worthy of Chinese sigh, it carries the past generation of Chinese real car plot and era memories - once was the national sales champion for 18 consecutive years, the first domestic car exported to the United States, Xiali's past fame is great, there is a national "god car" reputation, and Santana, Jetta and Fukang This "old three" and called "four King Kongs".
Many people still remember the "Huaxia Deli" advertisement, and remember that in the workshop of the Xiali factory in Tianjin in 1986, the first red two-cylinder car rolled off the production line, and Li Ruihuan, then the mayor of Tianjin, gave it a good name.
In addition to Xiali, Lifan, Cheetah, Haima, Zotye and many other local car companies in a safe corner have actually repeatedly tried at the red line of bankruptcy, relying on the sale of qualifications to sell land or the forced blood transfusion of local governments.
Rout
In 2019, more than 90% of the new domestic car-making forces have found cheap land, generous policies, and a lot of financial support in second- to fourth-tier cities.
But many new car-making forces that once had land and money and held a lot of preferential policies also fell in 2019. The names of many brands were not slightly known to the world until the capital chain was broken and repeatedly cursed by investors and employees at all levels on various websites.
On January 1, Ifcuit Motors took the lead in blowing up trucks.
They issued an announcement saying that since January 2, 2019, all employees of the manufacturing company have taken a holiday, with no year-end bonus and no benefits, and will resume work until March 15, 2019. At the same time, the company began to pay wages in arrears, and a large number of IFC employees chose to leave the company while letting the company go to the wall.
In the same month, Luchi Motors, which had already defaulted on the 27 million euros of project funds for the Italian I.DE.A company, the vehicle design supplier, forced employees to take two months off. Employees actually only get paid in January, and some people want to ask more about the relevant wage arrears, either kicked out of the work group by the executives or the related problems are not heard.
Yundu Automobile, with no business to do, began to force employees to take two months off. Previously, the factory had about 700 to 1,000 employees, and it wasn't long before only 200 to 300 people insisted on working.
In February, Future Auto, which was in arrears with payments from various suppliers, suspended paying salaries to employees.
In May, Bo County Automobile was hung up because of unpaid wages, setting off a lot of waves. Some employees complained: I know that the year-end bonus mentioned above is actually not a year-end bonus at all, but a salary that the company promised to make up... They will only say that they are in the same boat, but the sailors can't eat enough, how can they help you in the same boat?
In June, data showed that the total sales of the car in the first five months of the future were only 12. After producing less than thirty cars, IFC Automobile began to implement shift shifts, and there was no clear production task.
In July, Huatai Automobile employees pasted the four big characters of "pay me back" on the office door of the chairman of Huatai Automobile. Because as of January 2019, the Group has owed more than 1,000 employees a total of four months' monthly salaries from September to December of the previous year.
Youth cars also began to give the vast majority of people a holiday. The latter's only basic salary is also deducted for various reasons.
In November, Hangzhou Youth Automobile Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the Youth Automobile Group, which once caused a huge social controversy over the "hydrogen-powered vehicle", declared bankruptcy.
According to the information of the People's Court Announcement Network, in addition to the repayment of the project funds and other preferential claims, Hangzhou Youth Automobile only has 214 million yuan left for bankruptcy distribution, and then excluding debts, employee wages, taxes, etc., the amount of repayment for ordinary bankruptcy claims is only 205 million yuan, and the repayment rate is 28.47%.
In addition to the above pure local new forces, there are also independent brands such as Yinxiang, Bisu, Phantom Speed, Hanteng, etc., which have once relied on some unconventional means to flourish in a trance, and all of them have collapsed in 2019.
reform
In 2019, more traditional independent brands that want to survive began to look for their own inflection point.
In August, AIWAYS Automobile, Changan Automobile and Jiangling Group completed the three-party mixed reform, and the new Jiangling Holdings was officially established.
Different from the previous Borgward return to Shenzhou, Qoros returned to Baoneng, which is the first time that a state-owned car company has completed the mixed reform of privatization of the controlling party. Although it seems to be a small project acquisition, the production qualification of AIWAYS has finally been settled, and more independent brands have seen hope.
In December, Chery fired the first shot of "mixed passenger car reform".
On the 4th, Chery Holding Group Co., Ltd. and Chery Automobile Co., Ltd. successfully completed the capital increase and share expansion project, and Qingdao Wudaokou New Energy Automobile Industry Fund Enterprise became the new shareholder of Chery Holdings and Chery Automobile.
More than 10 days later, the operating body of Chery Automobile was officially changed, 29 executives collectively withdrew, and 10 new investor executives were added. Yin Tongyue still serves as chairman of Chery.
This year-long mixed reform has finally brought the "Whampoa Military Academy of Chinese car companies" back on track, which has been repeatedly tested on the edge of crisis. Yin Tongyue finally obtained a large amount of funds in the non-system, as well as more room to play, and can give it a go, deeply affect Chery's governance structure, and establish a top-down efficient operation system.
Since then, Yin Tongyue's long-hidden entrepreneurial attributes have slowly returned with ambition, sense of responsibility and desire to win: "The success of Chery's capital increase and share expansion project is a milestone on Chery's road to building a world-class brand." ”
spallation
In 2019, the share of independent brands repeatedly "hit" a new low, once reduced to 36%.
On March 3, CCTV's "Dialogue" program caused an uproar in the automotive industry.
Program guest Dong Mingzhu spoke out on China's automobile manufacturing industry: the precision of Chinese cars is not enough, there is no accurate mold, it cannot be so exquisitely run-in, and there is a gap in the cooperation, so China's cars are a little shoddily made.
Countless people in the industry feel full of arrogance and malice.
The so-called shoddy manufacturing is actually caused by the shrinkage of the overall market for low-cost cars - yinxiang, bisu, phantom speed, Hanteng, Siwei and other low-cost and low-quality car companies, indeed have long been mourning.
Several old independent brands such as Great Wall, BYD, Geely, and SAIC have opened up different paths in 2019 and showed great endurance.
At 12:06 on June 5, the Long March 11 carrier rocket CZ-11 WEY was launched from a rocket launch platform in the Yellow Sea, successfully sending seven satellites into a predetermined orbit of 600 kilometers. This move not only created a precedent for the successful launch of China's first maritime launch vehicle, but also created a precedent for cooperation between Chinese automobile companies and China's aerospace industry.
On the same day, Great Wall Motor's overseas wholly-owned manufacturing plant, Tula Plant in Russia, was officially completed and put into operation, which covers four major production processes of stamping, welding, painting and final assembly, with a total investment of 500 million US dollars and a planned annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles. At the same time that the factory was officially completed and put into operation, the brand's most important SUV, the Haval F7, also rolled off the production line in the factory.
Of course, this factory has a more important significance - it is the first vehicle factory for a Chinese brand to start production overseas. Prior to this, chery, JAC, Geely and other brands that have been working overseas for so many years also have factories, but they are mainly assembled by KD parts.
Within a day, Great Wall Motors reached a new stage that had not been touched by its own brands in the past in terms of height and distance.
On the 24th of the same month, BYD's global design center was officially completed in Shenzhen, the global headquarters of the brand, and released the beautiful e-SEED GT concept car. Since taking in Egger in 2016, BYD has finally completely got rid of the middle school yazi who was too black in the past and joined the team of high-value car companies.
Wang Chuanfu said: "This is a new starting point for Chinese culture to interpret electric aesthetics, and it is also a turning point for BYD products to change from 'technology' single-wheel drive to 'technology + design' two-wheel drive. ”
In mid-July, BYD signed a contract with Toyota to jointly develop all-electric models for cars and low-chassis SUVs, as well as power batteries required for these products. The model uses the Toyota brand and is scheduled to be launched in the Chinese market by 2025.
On September 10, FAW's Hongqi brand brought two of the latest concept models, the Hongqi S9 and The Faw-Hongqi E115, to the 68th Frankfurt Motor Show, which was also the first time that the eldest son of the Republic landed on the Banks of the Main River.
Hongqi seems to be about to smash the chest blocks that have been accumulated for 60 years – not only in smart technology, brand building, but also in sales – although it has not completed the small sales target of 110,000 set that year, it has achieved nearly 200% growth.
In December, the final leg of the 2019 WTCR Touring Car World Cup officially came to an end.
Despite the severe limitations of BoP and the low qualifying results, the Lynk & Co team still won the 2019 WTCR Touring Car World Cup annual championship with an advantage of 628 points, 34 points ahead of the second place.
There is also an independent brand worth mentioning, that is, SAIC.
It was Wang Xiaoqiu of SAIC who shouted out a sentence that affected the trend of its own brand in March: "Now, it is more important to live than anything else." As a result, sachine's entire range of models almost fell in response. Among them, MG MG HS fell by 40%, and roewe Marvel's related projects were also temporarily shelved.
But that's just a part of the data we see.
Still MG MG, with a total sales volume of 298,000 units in 2019, it has been the number one sports car brand for three consecutive years. In addition, overseas sales totaled 139,000 units in the whole year, a sharp increase of 90% year-on-year, making it the first single automobile brand exported by China. In 2019, SAIC's vehicle exports and overseas sales reached 350,000 units, accounting for 33% of the total overseas sales of Chinese car companies, with a significant growth rate.
In the past, the overseas business of Chinese car companies generally showed small scale and dispersion, and they loved to join the local auto industry in the Middle East, South America, Africa and other markets with weak foundations in the local automobile industry - but in 2019, the independent brands led by SAIC began to enter the Asian and European markets such as Thailand, India, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Germany, especially new energy vehicles, and the annual sales volume in Europe exceeded 14,000 units, and the average price of bicycles climbed significantly.
Lone wolf car companies have begun to enter a new stage of battle with the joint venture brand.
black swan
Taking it as the last paragraph of the main text is really because these two "little things" in 2019 cannot be forgotten.
In April, in the Xi'an Lixing 4S store, a female car owner sat on the roof of the car and the sales staff theorized because of an oil leak in the new car.
In the rights protection recording, the female car owner's questioning of the merchant is logical and clear, and the words are conclusive: I am a person who has received cultural education, I am a graduate student, this matter has made my decades of education a great shame", "660,000 cars bought, a kilometer did not drive, let me change the engine, but also forced to accept this three packs"...
In addition, the recording also exposed the "financial service fee": for example, in the sales link, Xi'an "Lixing" strongly recommended installment loans, privately collected financial service fees without prior explanation, required only to transfer money through WeChat, and did not issue invoices.
In the end, the 4S shop replaced a new car for her, returned an additional fee of 15575 yuan, and Xi'an Lixing Automobile Co., Ltd. was fined 1 million yuan according to law. More importantly, the unspoken rules of arbitrary charges in the entire automotive industry have been put on the table, and the State Administration of Market Supervision, together with relevant departments, has carried out special rectification of the domestic automobile sales industry and begun to investigate relevant illegal acts that infringe on the rights and interests of consumers.
In October, Luckin Coffee launched a promotion, as long as through the Luckin APP or Mini Program, the same mobile phone user consumes 3 products per day, you can get 1 turntable lottery opportunity, one of the prizes, is the right to use Borgward BX5.
In December, the most typical "Chinese-style advertising" in recent years, Borgward "Good, Expensive" was launched on various advertising screens of Focus Media.
With the "magic brainwashing" of Lang Yongchun and Tiger Brother, Borgward made "good, expensive" the last internet celebrity body in the 2019 car circle video, and strongly entered the public eye. The two leading big brothers repeat "good" and "expensive" infinitely, "good is expensive, expensive is good", just like planting an ear worm in your ear, allowing countless viewers to automatically open the three-day intracranial circulation.
In parallel with the crazy marketing, there are also high-density promotional subsidies, which once made people think that Borgward and Luckin seemed to have endless money.
What happened after that, everyone should still remember it.
End
In September 2019, Mr. Ma, who was 55 years old at the time, officially retired.
On December 21, he lamented at the annual meeting of the Zhejiang Chamber of Commerce held in Modu: "Yesterday, I received five phone calls to borrow money, and in the past week, there were more than ten friends who wanted to sell the building, which was really not easy. ”
Chinese know that Teacher Ma's speeches generally come with buff, and the intensity has made the emotional management of CCTV celebrities get out of control in an instant, but if this passage is put into the spring of 2022, no one should suspect Teacher Ma, an old comrade.
Looking back at the 2019 that Wang Xing praised as "probably the worst in the past decade, but the best in the next decade" - indeed, the overall share of independent brands fell by one-third, more than a dozen new car-making forces ran out of the final circle, the joint venture brand gradually lost its advantage, and industry-related personnel began to worry about their livelihoods... However, it still deserves the commemoration and applause of China's auto industry.