Will European car companies lie flat before the stringent emission reduction targets?
Author | Home scale from the planet Magnesia
Affected by the epidemic and other factors, domestic car companies encountered a "spring cold" in April, and the sales of each company were more and more dismal. So in overseas countries where the epidemic prevention policy is relatively relaxed, what are the achievements of foreign car companies?
Recently, many European countries have successively announced the sales of new energy vehicles in April. The data shows that the major European countries have experienced a month-on-month decline in sales, of which Norway, which has the highest penetration rate of new energy vehicles, has a year-on-year decline compared with the same period last year.
An auto crisis has arrived?
Under the "cold winter", the supply chain suffered setbacks
In April, the domestic new force Ideal Car delivered only 4,167 vehicles, a month-on-month decline of more than 60% compared with the data of breaking 10,000 in March. For data fluctuations, Shen Yanan, president of Ideal Auto, mentioned "supply chain problems".
Although Ideal Auto's production base is located in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, far from Shanghai and Suzhou, which are controlled by sealing and control, more than 80% of its parts suppliers are located in the Yangtze River Delta region. This creates a situation where there are "no cars to build". The situation of other car companies is roughly similar, in the Yangtze River Delta, northeast china epidemic at the same time raging uncontrollable background, most car companies have been affected by the supply chain.
And just as the "butterfly" in Shanghai flapped its wings, it inadvertently set off a hurricane that swept the auto industry in Europe.
Long before the Shanghai epidemic, European industry was already affected by the supply chain. The first is the "lack of core tide" that has lasted for a long time, of course, car companies facing this problem have gritted their teeth and survived, and Tier 1 is more willing to give priority to chip supply to BBA, Volkswagen and other first-line brands. But after entering 2022, car companies are worried about more than chips.
Tensions between Russia and Ukraine have made commodities such as nickel, aluminum and palladium "doubling in value" and becoming "scarce products". Some analysts said that with the intensification of the "supply chain crisis" rhetoric, some companies began to over-order raw materials to ensure timely supply, and the order time was much earlier than usual, which in turn exacerbated the problem of supply chain disruption.
As the war continued to advance, the "wiring harness supply problem" began to give European car companies a headache. As the "blood vessel" of the car, the wiring harness is closely related to the automobile chip, and with the improvement of the requirements of automobile intelligence, the proportion of the use of the vehicle high-voltage wiring harness has greatly increased.
According to Colin Langan, an automotive analyst at Wells Fargo, Ukraine is a key producer of automotive wiring harnesses, with the loss of up to 700,000 units in Europe in the first and second quarters due to the closure of several factories. Previously, Volkswagen And BMW had announced the suspension of production at some European plants, and mercedes-Benz group had cut production at one Plant in Germany.
Leoni, a German auto parts supplier, lines bundles at two factories in western Ukraine and employs about 7,000 people. But in March, the company announced it couldn't make up for lost production this year, and even if production at other regional plants doubled, it would take at least two to three months to adjust.
Under the influence of geographical factors, some car companies turned their attention to Chinese companies, but in the same period, domestic wire harness companies were forced to suspend production due to the impact of the epidemic.
In early April, Aptiv, a well-known auto parts manufacturer, announced that production would be partially suspended at its Shanghai plant and that workers would be quarantined at home. Founded in 1995, the company is currently the largest supplier of wire harnesses in China, including Tesla, SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC-GM, FAW-Volkswagen and many other car companies are their partners. Although Aptiv can continue to produce under a closed-loop situation, for European car companies, "far water cannot save the near fire".
Can Tesla save the European car market?
Some insiders said that from the supply side, the main reason for the decline in sales of new energy vehicles in Europe is still from Tesla's "absence". Although Tesla's Berlin plant was officially put into operation at the end of March, the production capacity has not been full, and the supply of the European market will depend on other gigafactories. With the outbreak of the epidemic, the suspension of production of the Shanghai Gigafactory affected the delivery of the European market, which naturally affected the entire market.
From the perspective of the new energy vehicle market in the United States and China, Tesla is different from other car companies and is almost unaffected by competitors. In the European market dominated by hybrid models, Tesla single-handedly supported the share of pure electric vehicle models in Europe.
In 2021, Tesla will sell about 168,000 units in the European market, the third largest market outside the United States and China, accounting for 13% of the local market share.
In contrast, the Volkswagen Group has a 25% market share in the European electric vehicle market. Although Tesla's market share is only half of Volkswagen's, as a "foreign company", it should be known that it is facing a traditional car giant in Europe that has been local for a hundred years, and the completion of the Berlin factory is undoubtedly a sharp knife inserted in Europe, the birthplace of the automobile industry.
Compared with other Car companies in Europe, Tesla's advantage lies in its excellent supply chain system. Since the beginning of the lack of cores, Tesla has not been greatly affected, but has repeatedly broken records at both ends of production and sales. At present, the Berlin factory has completed the construction of supporting parts factories, and will continue to build new power battery factories after the localization of battery and parts production, the price of the German version of Tesla cars will still have room to explore.
In addition, the Shanghai Gigafactory is also gradually restoring production capacity. If all goes well, Tesla may have a new climax in May. It is undoubtedly a win-win result for Europe and Tesla.
The pain of pure electric transformation?
In the statistics of Automotive Electronic Design, we find a very interesting phenomenon: plug-in hybrid models (PHEV) in European countries have seen a sharp decline in April, but the impact of pure electric models (BEVs) has not been large.
Looking at the latest strategies and products of several European car companies in the past year, it can be found that "pure electrification" has been put on the agenda. Similarly, Mercedes-Benz announced that it will release three pure electric model architecture platforms in 2025, and from 2025, all newly released model architectures will be pure electric platforms. At the same time, it plans to build eight battery cell factories to achieve a battery cell production capacity of more than 200 gigawatt hours.
You know, one in every four cars in Europe is a hybrid. Despite the momentum of pure electric vehicles, European consumers prefer to spend money on hybrid vehicles. According to statistics, in addition to the Penetration Rate of Pure Electric Vehicles in the Norwegian market, which can exceed 70%, other countries are hovering around 10%.
The first headache for European car companies is the EU's almost harsh "no-fire order": to achieve the goal of reducing emissions by 55% of passenger cars by 2030, and to basically ban the use of internal combustion engine vehicles in 2035.
With the attractive support and subsidies of governments corresponding to the policy, in the early stage of the development of new energy vehicles in Europe, plug-in hybrid vehicles are undoubtedly the most cost-effective models. On the one hand, you can pay for the plug-in hybrid through a fuel card, and only need a small amount of electricity. This kind of model, which can enjoy both the new energy vehicle policy and maintain the performance of fuel vehicles, is naturally very popular in Europe.
However, the hybrid model is essentially a "transition technology", which seems to popularize new energy vehicles, but in fact ignores the construction of charging infrastructure. According to statistics, in Germany, there are currently more than 60,000 charging points in total, but these charging points are not evenly distributed, which has been complained about by consumers. As a result, some car owners have been forced to abandon the purchase plan of pure electric cars and buy hybrid cars or fuel vehicles with larger emissions.
This is actually a "vicious circle": on the one hand, the backward construction of charging facilities has led to a "hybrid wave", and on the other hand, it is difficult for car companies to achieve emission reduction targets in the face of harsh policies. According to the European Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the current emission reduction level of car companies is up to 37.5%.
The good news is that European car companies have chosen "short pain" and directly stepped on the "acceleration pedal" to accelerate the rhythm of pure electric transformation. In addition to Mercedes-Benz, Tesla's old friend Volkswagen Group also released the "2030 NEW AUTO" strategy last year, aiming to make the Volkswagen Group fully develop into the electric vehicle market.
In addition to the transformation of car companies, governments have also begun to reduce subsidies for hybrid vehicles.
Against this backdrop, the decline in sales in the European market may only be a "temporary phenomenon".