Thoughts on the development of Wuhan automobile industry after the epidemic

Known as "the automobile capital of China", Wuhan has a huge automobile industry cluster. There are seven automobile enterprises, two automobile assembly plants 12 and more than 500 automobile parts enterprises in Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone, which has gathered five automobile departments of China, France, the United States, Britain and Japan, and is known as one of the six passenger car bases in China.

Hubei Province has formed two automobile industry corridors, both of which were handed over to Wuhan. One starts from Wuhan, connects Xiaogan, Suizhou, Xiangyang and Shiyan, inclines to the northwest of Hubei along the Han River, and gathers many heavyweight car companies such as Dongfeng Passenger Car, Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle, Dongfeng Honda, Shenlong Automobile and SAIC-GM. The other one extends from Wuhan along the Yangtze River, connecting Yichang-Jingmen-Jingzhou-Wuhan-Huanggang-Huangshi, and gathers many complete vehicle and parts enterprises such as Guangzhou Automobile Passenger Car, Cheetah and Xinghui Electric Vehicle.

Dongfeng Avenue, located in Wuhan Economic Development Zone, is also known as the "Ridge of Car Capital", with a total length of 13 km and more than 20,000 enterprises distributed along it, which is one of the axes with the highest density in the global automobile industry.

Diversified automobile capital

In more than two months after the outbreak of COVID-19, Wuhan automobile industry, centered on Dongfeng Avenue, came to a standstill. Although the outbreak of the epidemic has put Wuhan automobile industry in trouble, it also highlights the importance of Wuhan automobile industry to the whole country and even the whole world.

Automobile has always been a pillar industry in Wuhan. With its unique industrial chain advantages, Wuhan has developed into the most inclusive and diverse automobile capital. 1992, Dongfeng Motor and French Peugeot Citroen formally established Shenlong Company, with its headquarters in Wuhan, which opened the prelude to the rapid development of Wuhan's automobile industry.

After Shenlong, a number of automobile and parts enterprises followed closely. In 2003, Dongfeng Honda settled in Wuhan Development Zone; In the same year, the headquarters of Dongfeng Company moved from Shiyan to Wuhan. Subsequently, the headquarters of Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., a joint venture with Nissan, also settled in Wuhan; In 2008, Dongfeng Passenger Car Co., Ltd. was built in Wuhan; The first phase of 20 16 Dongfeng Renault Project was completed and put into operation in Huangjinkou, Hanyang.

In addition to the "Dongfeng Department", the complete automobile industry chain has also attracted other automobile groups to set up factories in Wuhan. 20 12 SAIC-GM Wuhan production base laid the foundation stone in Jiangxia Jinkou to produce some Chevrolet and Buick brands. In 20 18, Geely Automobile built an annual output of15,000 passenger cars in Wuhan; In 20 19, the British luxury car brand Lotus Automobile Factory started construction in Wuhan Development Zone. So far, the automobile brands produced in Wuhan have covered the five major automobile series of the United States, Japan, France, Britain and China.

In addition, Wuhan also has a high position in the special purpose vehicle industry, including Hubei Sanhuan Hanyang Special Purpose Vehicle Co., Ltd. (formerly Hanyang Special Purpose Vehicle Factory) and Hanyang Special Purpose Vehicle Research Institute. With the rapid development of new energy vehicles, BYD, Weilai, Dongfeng Yunfeng, Jinlong Kaiwo and many other new energy vehicle manufacturers have also settled in Wuhan, making Wuhan an automobile manufacturing city with the richest automobile series, the most comprehensive brands and the most diverse categories.

The data shows that about 80% of Hubei's automobile production is concentrated in Wuhan. In terms of production capacity distribution, Dongfeng Honda, Dongfeng Passenger Car and Dongfeng Renault 100% of the production capacity of Dongfeng Motor Group are in Wuhan, while more than 70% of the production capacity of Shenlong Automobile and more than 20% of the production capacity of SAIC-GM are in Wuhan. According to statistics, more than 5,000 cars get off the assembly line every day in Wuhan. During the epidemic period, the market will reduce the supply of 35,000 vehicles for every stop of production 1 week, which will further affect the national logistics, dealers, financial services, aftermarket and other enterprises.

Wuhan is also an important gathering place for auto parts factories, and the adaptability of auto parts is extremely high, so it is difficult to find substitutes in a short time. Once the key parts are missing, the whole vehicle production will face stagnation. According to Hubei Automobile Industry Association, there are more than 300 auto parts enterprises above designated size/KLOC-0, including overseas famous auto parts giants such as Bosch, Delphi, Valeo, Webasto, Honeywell, Getrag, ZF and Denso, as well as local auto parts manufacturers such as Daye Hanlong Engine, Sanhuan Group, Sheng Jun Electronics and Fuyao Glass, and most of them are concentrated in Wuhan.

Wuhan's auto parts industry supports the operation of national and many international mainstream auto companies. During the epidemic, the air hose supply of a by-product brake system from Wuhan was cut off, which directly led Japanese automobile manufacturer Nissan to issue shutdown warnings to its global factories in Malaysia, the United States, Britain, Spain, Russia and India. Many multinational companies such as Volkswagen, BMW and Hyundai also pointed out that if some parts produced in Wuhan cannot be supplied in time, enterprises will face the dilemma of stopping production.

Many international parts giants have their own production capacity in Wuhan. Valeo's lighting system, Bosch Huayu's steering system, Borg Warner's driving system ... Among the steering wheels, steering columns and steering boxes, more than 20% of the steering systems exported from China to the United States come from Wuhan, and the interruption of supply in any factory may have a huge chain reaction to North American automakers. After years of rapid development, Wuhan automobile industry not only affects the whole country, but also becomes an important link in the global automobile industry chain.

Source: Wuhan Automobile Distribution Industry Association.

The vitality of the automobile market after the epidemic

Recently, the growth of Wuhan automobile market has slowed down for many reasons. In recent 10 years, automobile consumption in Wuhan has increased rapidly. During the six years from 20 13 to 20 18, 2188,000 vehicles were added, which exceeded two-thirds of Wuhan's car ownership. In 20 18, the number of cars in Wuhan exceeded 3 10/00000, and the demand for new cars was replaced by used cars. Secondly, the automobile circulation system in the province and surrounding cities was gradually improved, and most residents in the province and surrounding cities could buy cars locally without going to Wuhan. In addition, Wuhan's urban transportation hub and network car service are more perfect. The subway construction has completed seven operating lines, and a high-quality network car platform such as T3 travel has been added, making it more convenient for residents to travel.

In the face of the auto market after the epidemic, the Wuhan municipal government sacrificed a big killer and issued the "Detailed Rules for the Implementation of Financial Subsidies for Automobile Consumption in Wuhan" in May. Provisions from now until 65438+ February this year? On 3 1, consumers who locally purchase fuel passenger cars produced in Wuhan and settle in this city will be given a subsidy of 3% of the sales price (uniform invoice price for motor vehicle sales), with an upper limit of 5,000 yuan; New energy vehicles, each subsidy 10000 yuan. Following the introduction of the car subsidy policy in Wuhan, Jiangxia District and Development Zone also quickly followed suit. In addition to the implementation of the Wuhan policy, consumers can also get additional subsidies for buying passenger cars produced by local car companies.

Under the strong stimulus of the policy, Wuhan auto market has also shown a long-lost vitality. In May, the number of passenger cars in Wuhan exceeded 24,000, achieving a positive growth of 1.9% year-on-year. As a leading car company in Wuhan, Dongfeng Motor started a V-shaped reversal in April, with a sales volume of 244,200 vehicles in April, an increase of 8.3% year-on-year; In May, the sales volume was 3,654.38+0.76 million vehicles, up by 65,438+06.6% year-on-year; In June, the sales volume was 322,200 units, a year-on-year increase of 9.77%; In July, it sold 296,400 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 65,438+00.8%; In August, the sales volume was 293,700 vehicles, up 4.2% year-on-year. Since the resumption of production, production and sales have increased "five times in a row", and the cumulative sales volume from June to August reached 6,543,800+0.99 million vehicles.

With the release of demand for car purchase, the demand for replacement of used cars has been further stimulated. Judging from the second-hand car transaction data in Wuhan in the first half of the year, the replacement cycle of second-hand cars has been accelerated. The data shows that among the vehicles sold in the first half of 2020, vehicles less than three years old accounted for 18.22%, up 0.79% year-on-year; 3-5 years old vehicles accounted for 23. 14%, up 1.92% year-on-year. The habit of buying new cars and scrapping them in the past has changed, and changing cars within five years has become a new trend.

While the demand for second-hand car replacement is rising, the demand for second-hand car purchase is also rising. The epidemic has given people a new impetus to buy cars. According to the survey of Hengnuo Market Research, after the epidemic, 46.9 1% people have a clear desire to buy a car, but many people's economic income is affected, and the car purchase budget is reduced, so used cars become a good choice.

Stimulated by the rapid recovery of market demand and favorable policies, Wuhan's new and used car markets both showed a V-shaped reversal trend, which also led to the rapid recovery of the entire automobile industry chain. Although the COVID-19 epidemic had a great impact on automobile consumption, it also gave birth to some new purchase demands. With the effective control of the epidemic, the suppressed demand was gradually released, and the overall automobile market in Wuhan improved.

Three potentials to be stimulated

In the short term, the government's policy of promoting consumption is one of the reasons why the auto market bottomed out. Car companies should actively pay attention to industrial policies, seize policy opportunities from tax reduction and exemption, industry subsidies and other aspects, promote enterprise development, and minimize enterprise losses.

In the long run, there is still a lot of room for the further development of Wuhan automobile industry. We should further tap the potential of the city and realize comprehensive transformation and upgrading to maintain our leading position in the automobile field.

From the perspective of manufacturing potential, there is still room for further improvement in Wu Hanyou. 20 19, 1- 19 February, Guangdong province ranked first in automobile production, with a cumulative output of 3 1 16900. Jilin and Shanghai, both major automobile provinces, produced 2,889,200 vehicles and 2,749,000 vehicles respectively, ranking second and third. The output of Hubei is 2,239,600 vehicles, accounting for about 8% of the national total output. Compared with Shanghai, which is also located in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, there is a gap of 500,000 vehicles, and compared with Jilin, which is also an established automobile manufacturing base, there is a gap of 650,000 vehicles. It can be seen that there is still room for improvement in the manufacturing potential of Hubei and Wuhan.

Wu Hanyou has great service potential. At present, there are 30 complete vehicle enterprises (including special vehicles and special vehicles), 1400 automobile sales enterprises, more than 300 authorized 4S shops and 25 tangible automobile markets (including used car markets) in Wuhan. It is reasonable to look at this set of data alone. Another set of data is that there are over 460,000 automobile employees, including 200,000 automobile enterprises, 6.5438+0.5 million sales enterprises, 6.5438+0 million maintenance enterprises, and nearly 6.5438+0 million automobile e-commerce and media employees, showing an obvious inverted pyramid pattern of more manufacturing and less services. The biggest feature of the automobile industry is the obvious radiation effect. The proportion of manufacturing, service and related industries, whether employees or output value, should be a positive pyramid. Therefore, Wuhan, as a unique regional central city in the thoroughfare of nine provinces in China, will provide great services around automobiles, which will bring huge new growth points to the automobile industry.

From the perspective of consumption potential, Wuhan is also full of room for growth. Before the outbreak of the 20 19 epidemic, the annual automobile sales in Wuhan was 367,500, which was lower than the national average. From the perspective of urban car ownership, in 20 19, the number of cars in Wuhan was 3.368 million, ranking ninth in the country, lower than Chengdu, Chongqing, Suzhou and Shanghai, which are also located in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Compared with Chengdu's 5 1.95 million vehicles, the gap is more than 6.5438+0.8 million vehicles. The urban resident population of Chengdu and Wuhan is1233,790 and 9,024,500 respectively, and the gap between urban population and car ownership is not so big, which also shows that there is still huge room for growth of local car consumption potential in Wuhan.

Car ownership in major cities (10,000 vehicles)

Concentrate on building new advantages

The automobile industry is undergoing unprecedented industrial transformation, and the second half of the transformation and upgrading faces fierce regional competition. Wuhan should actively promote the transformation of local automobile enterprises and parts enterprises to key areas such as new energy and intelligent network connection, attract the next generation of emerging automobile industries to gather, and promote cross-border integration of automobile industries with new formats such as big data and cloud computing.

At present, the scale of new energy passenger cars in Wuhan is gradually growing. Dongfeng Honda, SAIC-GM, Dongfeng Passenger Car and Shenlong Automobile will all put into production new energy vehicles. It is understood that Dongfeng Yunfeng, a project under construction, will be the production place of Ariya, a new energy star model of Dongfeng Nissan, and the transformed factory of Dongfeng Renault will become the future site of Lan Tu. In addition, the industrial chain of Wuhan fuel cell vehicles has been continuously improved. The city has gathered fuel cell vehicles and parts enterprises such as Wuhan Kaiwo, Wuhan Hydrogen Bear and Wuhan Hydrogen Yang, and the demonstration lines of fuel cell buses have been opened in Donghu Development Zone and Wuhan Development Zone respectively.

From a national perspective, before the introduction of the new regulations on investment management in the automobile industry, the National Development and Reform Commission released 17 photos of the production qualification of new energy vehicles. Seven enterprises choose to set up production bases, headquarters or R&D centers in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, and automobile enterprises in major automobile provinces and cities such as Chongqing and Guangdong also choose to settle down. Judging from the existing resources, although there are many "new car-making forces" similar to the blues in Wu Hanyou, the introduction of real "new car-making forces" needs to be accelerated.

In terms of intelligent networking, the National Intelligent Networking Automobile (Wuhan) Test Demonstration Zone is the core platform for building the next generation automobile industry. The 28km open test road of the first phase of Smart Eco-city in Wuhan Development Zone was completed, which is the first large-scale intelligent networked vehicle test demonstration zone with full coverage of 5G and V2X in China. Shanghai demonstration zone started construction in 20 15, and officially opened in June 20 16. Chongqing I-VISTA demonstration zone officially opened at the end of 20 16. Compared with the latter two, Wuhan Intelligent Networked Automobile Test Demonstration Zone is not dominant in the time of establishment and operation, but it is similar to the development speed of Intelligent Networked Automobile Technology, and the progress of infrastructure is also changing with each passing day. Wuhan should make full use of the advantages of backwardness and quickly apply the most advanced technology to infrastructure construction.

In terms of scale, the Wuhan test demonstration zone will be further expanded. The total mileage of open test roads based on 5G coordinated autonomous driving will exceed 100 km during the year, making it the largest demonstration zone of 5G coordinated autonomous driving in China. At the same time, Wuhan should learn from other excellent demonstration areas. From 2065438 to 2009, several major cities in East China signed a cooperation agreement on mutual recognition of intelligent networked automobile road testing in the Yangtze River Delta region. The gradual connection of scattered points and lines will be more conducive to the development of intelligent networked automobile industry in the region. Wuhan should take a similar approach with neighboring cities and jointly carry out cross-regional road tests with Changsha Demonstration Zone.

In terms of enterprises entering the park, in addition to the blessing of local car company Dongfeng and technology giant Baidu, Wuhan Demonstration Zone also attracted self-driving enterprises such as Liang Hai Technology, Deep Blue Technology, Rong Yuan Qihang and AutoX to enter the park for testing. In order to continue to expand its advantages, Wuhan should increase the introduction of star technology companies, make full use of the industrial clusters in Optics Valley, fully cooperate with the automobile industry, give full play to its advantages in the fields of 5G communication and Beidou navigation, and accelerate the coordination between vehicles and roads through the construction of smart cities and intelligent transportation, so as to build Wuhan into a city more suitable for the development of intelligent networked vehicles. In addition, we should fully stimulate the cross-border potential of technology companies such as Huawei, Xiaomi and Lenovo, and introduce their layout in the automobile industry to Wuhan, thus attracting more technology companies and start-ups to settle in Wuhan.

On the whole, Wuhan automobile industry is facing great transformation pressure, but its advantages and opportunities are also obvious. On the one hand, we should grasp the transformation and upgrading of the traditional automobile industry, on the other hand, we should give full play to the synergy effect in the communication field, embrace new forces and emerging technology companies more actively, and inject new creativity into Wuhan's automobile industry in a multi-pronged manner, so that Wuhan can continue to maintain the advantages of the traditional automobile industry cluster and gain new advantages in the wave of "new four modernizations".

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.