The auto industry hit the pause button again.

　　Lockdown, shortage of supplies... When Shanghai became another city that was hit with the pause button after Changchun, after more than 20 days, its pressure on the auto industry gradually emerged.

　　As an important automobile town, Shanghai’s status is beyond doubt. On this 6,340-square-kilometer land, the north is occupied by many OEMs and component giants, the south is the upstart Lingang driven by Tesla, the west has key suppliers such as TSMC, and the east is Shanghai General Motors Co., Ltd. A mature industrial area in the center.

　　These large and small car companies and parts companies are driving the development of the auto industry in Shanghai and even the whole country. The "black swan" of the epidemic has flown by. As for each enterprise, although they are trying to ensure production and minimize the negative impact, the shutdown of the city still sets up layers of difficulties for this production chain involving multiple links.

　　People's lives have also undergone uncontrollable deviations. As a practitioner in the auto industry, Su Qiuyang's daily routine starts at 6 o'clock in the morning by participating in the online grabbing of food. Although he has tried various methods, it is still difficult to achieve anything. The original work can be solved online, and the biggest difficulty every day has become how to solve the most basic problem of food and clothing.

　　In his opinion, because his department does not need to visit or meet offline, it "has little impact". However, many factories have closed-loop production, the production rhythm has been disrupted, and 4S stores are all under closed control. Auto guys in production, channel network development, supplier, and logistics positions are not so lucky.

　　In order to ensure production, thousands of employees sleep in factories

　　Twenty-three days ago, when she was about to get off work, Wang Lili, an employee of SAIC Volkswagen, suddenly received a notice to work overtime. To her surprise, as time progressed, the half-hour in the original notice became directly enclosed in the factory.

　　Eating and living in a factory is a never-before-seen experience for many people, including Wang Lili. In the sudden change, people's perception of the environment is inseparable from three meals a day. Recalling this period, Wang Lili remembered that she didn't eat well at the beginning, but soon, the food was adjusted.

　　SAIC has prepared camp beds, tents and yoga mats for production line workers. At night, "everyone sleeps in neatly."

　　Source: SAIC Employee Home

　　As the home base of SAIC Volkswagen, Shanghai is responsible for most of SAIC Volkswagen's production capacity. According to public information, SAIC Volkswagen has 6 production bases and 9 OEMs. Among them, the Shanghai base has a total of 1, 2, 3 and new energy vehicle factories, and the four factories are located in Anting Town, Jiading District.

　　The new energy vehicle factory will be completed and put into operation in 2020, with an annual production capacity of about 300,000 vehicles; the other three factories in Anting have an annual production capacity of more than 820,000 vehicles. This means that the Shanghai base is responsible for the production capacity of SAIC Volkswagen of more than 1.12 million vehicles. Based on these numbers alone, it is not difficult to see that the shutdown will have a great impact on the manufacturing side.

　　Wang Lili told Future Auto Daily that, including the Qingming holiday, the company stopped production for 4 days. "For most of the time, we did not stop production." SAIC Volkswagen insiders revealed that SAIC Volkswagen's Anting plant has thousands of employees in closed-loop production. .

　　Even if car companies work hard to maintain production, they can normally carry out morning and evening shifts. "Everyone works for about 10 hours, and can produce about 20-30 vehicles per hour." However, due to the closure of employees, the production speed under the closed loop is still difficult to catch up with the normal production rhythm.

　　The Shanghai Gigafactory, which shoulders Tesla's domestic market and the main export center, has also been affected a lot. According to Bloomberg, the Shanghai factory has been suspended since March 29 and has not yet resumed work.

　　One source said that the Shanghai Gigafactory produces more than 6,000 Model 3s and 10,000 Model Ys a week for Tesla's Chinese and European markets, and a one-week shutdown means that "the factory has missed at least 16,000 electric vehicles." .

　　Affected by this, it may have an impact on Tesla's second-quarter performance. In 2021, the production volume of the Shanghai factory will account for half of Tesla's production and deliveries. "It was an exceptionally difficult quarter due to supply chain disruptions and China's epidemic policy," said Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

　　For Zhiji, its first model L7 has just been launched, and it is currently at a critical juncture for production and delivery. The sudden epidemic also disrupted its production rhythm. "Time is very urgent for us." On March 30, Liu Tao, co-CEO of Zhiji Automobile, said with emotion.

　　In order to ensure the progress of product research and development, Zhiji Automobile divided the team into 4 teams. Employees lived in different hotels with computers and testing equipment. The conference room of the hotel was temporarily changed to an office, and the basement of the hotel also became a vehicle. A place for joint reconciliation and testing.

　　The impact of the epidemic on the auto market seems to be far greater than expected. On March 30, a report released by the Passenger Car Association showed that the retail sales of the overall narrow passenger car market in the fourth week of March reached an average of 39,000 vehicles per day, a year-on-year decrease of 29%. The performance is relatively abnormal.

　　The supply of spare parts is difficult, and car companies are facing "running out of food"

　　In contrast, car companies headquartered in Shanghai with production bases elsewhere have been relatively lucky.

　　"Our factory is in Changsha, and the cars we produce can also come to Shanghai smoothly," said Wang Zimo, an employee of a car company headquartered in Shanghai. Although on the sales side, people cannot go offline to see the cars and test-drive them, and the front-line sales staff are not It can convert potential customers by law, but other than Changchun and Shanghai, other cities "do not have a significant impact in theory."

　　However, for the auto industry with a long industrial chain and a high degree of correlation, Shanghai's influence goes far beyond the auto companies themselves. "The difficulty is the supply of parts from Shanghai." Wang Zimo sighed.

　　In Shanghai, in addition to the international auto supplier giants such as Bosch, ZF, and Aptiv, around the Tesla factory, Lingang has introduced many supporting enterprises in the industrial chain. In just two years, more than 100 companies such as CATL, Joyson Electronics, Horizon, and Yiqing have been gathered, covering the fields of engines, power batteries, chips, body interior and exterior decoration, etc.

　　On March 29, Aptiv notified the workers of its Shanghai factory to start working from home. Aptiv is the largest supplier of automotive wiring harnesses in China. It has multiple production bases in Jiading District, Shanghai, and is a supplier to vehicle manufacturers such as Tesla, Volkswagen, GM, Ford, Geely, and Toyota. According to a recent research report by CICC, Aptiv occupies 17% of the automotive wiring harness market, ranking third in the world.

　　Bosch, another auto parts supplier from Germany, said that its two factories in Shanghai are reducing working hours for workers. "We are doing everything we can to maintain the supply chain to meet the needs of our customers as much as possible."

　　Source: Bosch China official

　　However, due to the city's closure and control, the circulation of the industrial chain was first stuck in logistics.

　　Tong Xin, who works in an auto safety parts company, told Future Auto Daily that the most difficult problem at hand is finding a driver. "The city's entry and exit control is strictly controlled, and drivers must be isolated when they go out." In addition to the superposition of factors such as high-speed traffic jams, even if they pay double wages, it is still difficult to find logistics drivers.

　　In addition to Shanghai, as a gathering place for parts companies, the closure and control of Changchun, an important automobile town, has also made the supply of parts worse.

　　Liu Liang, a logistics engineer of FAW Group, told Future Auto Daily that as usual, among the joint venture brands of FAW Group, there are more than 100 logistics vehicles every day, loaded with spare parts for repairing vehicles, and sent to dealer stores across the country. , "Only less than ten cars a day".

　　Due to the implementation of the blockade and control, the conditions for entering and leaving the city have become more stringent. Liu Liang said, "Nowadays, logistics vehicles in Changchun have to obtain a pass when they leave the city." Since the whole vehicle and its parts are the key production and living materials, its logistics can be limited. Plus open.

　　Spare parts cannot be delivered, and after-sales can only be supported. "20% of FAW-Volkswagen dealerships have been affected and closed down." What's more difficult is that "there is no recovery trend yet."

　　In order to avoid the "food shortage" crisis, tracking the supply of parts and logistics has become a top priority for car companies.

　　In order to ensure that each component can arrive at the factory on time, SAIC Volkswagen said that the purchasing department has contacted more than 500 core suppliers, established a 14-day parts inventory + 14-day finished product inventory, and also established a "logistics guarantee and supply commando", 24 Track logistics information hourly, and build a bridge for online security through hundreds of WeChat groups, hundreds of phone calls, and thousands of messages every day. Feifan also dispatched specialized technicians to the supplier factories in advance to advance the delivery status of the parts.

　　Wei Xiaoli postponed the new launch and avoided April

　　In Wang Zimo's opinion, although it will affect production in the short term, "but in the long run, the losses should be recovered. After all, it is a traditional off-season, and it is estimated that the impact on the whole year will not be too great." However, compared with the direct impact on the production and sales ends, As the impact time is prolonged, it will also slow down the research and development work of car companies.

　　"Affected by the epidemic, both the crash test and the R&D test have been challenged, and it is expected that the R&D work will not be able to proceed smoothly in 1-2 months." Zhang Liang, deputy general manager of SAIC's data business department and chief digital officer (CDO) of SAIC Passenger Vehicle, accepted. said in an interview with the media. When a product is launched two months later, there will be a big gap.

　　In order to catch up with the research and development progress, a new car researcher told Future Auto Daily that at present, software research and development can still work from home, but when R&D personnel related to automobile manufacturing encounter such an emergency, "either rent a house near the factory, or live in In the hotel, the equipment also needs to be fully transferred.”

　　And April was originally an important new node for car companies. The announcement of the postponement of the Beijing Auto Show originally scheduled to be held in April means that the annual important communication plan of car companies has also been disrupted, and the release of many blockbuster new products has also been postponed.

　　On the evening of April 6, Li Auto officially announced that due to the impact of force majeure, the Li Li L9 conference originally scheduled to be held on April 16, 2022 will be postponed, and the specific time is to be determined. On the same day, Xiaopeng Motors released a promotional poster saying, "I look forward to September, we will see you in June". In addition, Weilai ES7 was originally planned to be launched in mid-April, and then the release time was postponed to the end of May.

　　Source: Xiaopeng official

　　"Affected by the general environment, many car companies' offline activities have been affected, and it may not be the best time to release new models at this time." Some people in the industry commented.

　　A person in charge of the supply chain of an OEM said that according to the original schedule, many car companies plan to launch new models during the auto show at the end of April. Before that, considering inventory handling, the stocking of parts for old products will be reduced. "The auto show cannot be held as scheduled, and the launch date of new products can only be postponed. If the old products continue to be sold, the supply of spare parts will face some challenges."

　　Facing new challenges, many car companies took out Plan B and began to move new car listing activities online. On March 31, SAIC Volkswagen held a press conference online for the new Lingdu L new car. SAIC MG has also successively launched the MG ONE β online and pre-sold the MG5 Scorpio.

　　"We can't afford to wait for products, and we can't wait for sales. It is estimated that more and more new cars will be released online." Wang Zimo sighed, "It is optimistic that it can be restored by the end of April."