Car sales fell sharply in April, both compared to March this year and compared to the same period last year. Caambiz expects automotive sales of 1.171 million units in April, down 47.6% month-on-month and 48.1% year-on-year, and from January to April 2022, sales are expected to reach 7.68 million units, down 12.3% year-on-year.
Judging from the companies that have released the April sales data, most of the companies' sales volume is also month-on-month.
SAIC's new energy vehicle sales fell 49% month-on-month, GAC Group's sales fell 52% month-on-month, ideal car sales fell 62% month-on-month, NIO's sales fell 49% month-on-month, Xiaopeng Automobile's sales fell 27% month-on-month, and zero-run car sales fell 10% month-on-month.
Only BYD slightly increased by 1% among companies that have announced data, and BYD delivered 105,000 new energy passenger vehicles in April. In the context of the sharp decline in the industry as a whole, IT is also valuable to be able to stand alone, which is directly related to BYD's core components are controlled by itself, and BYD's rich product lineup also gives it a great advantage in the new energy vehicle market.
Although Tesla has not yet released production and sales data, its production will be reduced by at least two-thirds until April 19, when it stops production at the end of March.
The reason is that the epidemic is an important influencing factor.
Automobile sales in January-February this year increased by 7.5% year-on-year; automobile sales in January-March increased by 0.2% year-on-year; while production and sales in April are expected to decline by nearly 50% year-on-year, and cumulative sales in January-April will decline by 12.3% year-on-year.
It can be said that the epidemic in March caused a certain impact on the automobile industry, but in April, Shanghai was almost shut down for a month, which directly caused the automobile industry to fall to the bottom. The intuitive reflection of the data is that sales volume is showing a trend of waist cuts year-on-year.
According to the data, the overall output of mainland vehicles in 2021 will be 26.082 million units, and the output of new energy vehicles will be 3.545 million. Among them, Shanghai produced 2.833 million vehicles and 632,000 new energy vehicles. This means that for every six new energy vehicles produced in China, one comes from Shanghai.
The actual situation of Shanghai's automobile industry in April can also be seen from the data released by SAIC Motor.
SAIC motor's total vehicle production in April totaled 158,000 units, compared to 416,000 units in the same period last year, and production in April decreased by 258,000 units.
Saic-Volkswagen, SAIC-GM, SAIC Motor Passenger Vehicles and SAIC Maxus, whose main production bases are located in Shanghai, produced a total of 76,000 units in April, compared with 261,000 units in the same period last year, with April production down 71% year-on-year.
The same is true of Tesla, another giant in Shanghai, which shows that Tesla's Shanghai factory did not gradually resume production until April 19, and also faced a shortage of spare parts supply, even according to the annual production capacity of the Shanghai factory of 500,000 vehicles, even if it is fully produced in about 10 days, it can only produce 14,000 vehicles. Tesla sold 40,000 vehicles in April last year.
Production stagnation will have a direct impact on enterprises with local factories, but due to the control of the epidemic, car sales in Shanghai have also completely stagnated, which will have a more obvious impact on terminal sales.
According to the data of new car traffic insurance, the cumulative sales of new cars in Shanghai will reach 736,700 units in 2021, an increase of 11.5% year-on-year, ranking first in the country; Sales of new energy vehicles reached 254,000 units, and the cumulative number of promotions reached 677,000 units, ranking first among cities in China. From January to March this year, Shanghai's cumulative sales of new energy vehicles were 54,000 units, ranking first in the country. And the data for April could be close to zero.
Not only that, because Shanghai is the gathering place of core domestic auto parts enterprises, Shanghai's closure due to the epidemic will have an impact on the national automobile industry.
According to a research report by the China Automotive Technology and Research Center, among the key auto parts suppliers such as engines, transmissions, power batteries, drive motors, battery control systems, and reducers, enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta region with Shanghai as the core account for more than 50%.
And Bosch, ZF, Magna, Valeo, Continental, BorgWarner and other international parts giants headquarters or R & D and production bases are located in Shanghai, and these giants and domestic mainstream manufacturers almost all have parts and components supporting relationship, which will have a catastrophic impact on the national automotive industry.
According to SAIC Motor, it is expected that from late May, the resumption rate of spare parts supporting enterprises will exceed 80%, and the logistics pressure in the Yangtze River Delta will be further alleviated. Under the premise that the supply chain and logistics remain stable, SAIC Motor's vehicle enterprises are expected to gradually resume normal production in late May, and production and sales will strive to reach the same level as last year. That is to say, the impact of the epidemic on the automobile industry in Shanghai and even the whole country will continue for more than half a month.