"How to deepen and enhance the high-quality development of China's automobile industry?" In July this year, the state leaders inspected FAW Group, and put forward new requirements on the development of new energy vehicles, the application of intelligent network technology, high-end brand construction and other issues.

        On September 4, the 2020 Teda Forum with the theme of "Industrial consumption upgrading and Reconstruction of new ecological pattern" was launched in Tianjin. The forum discussed the current development status and future development plans of the automobile industry.

Crisis in China's auto industry

        The year 2020 will be a year of pressure for the whole industry. As a key stage of the industry transformation, the global automobile industry chain and supply chain are facing huge challenges due to the outbreak of the epidemic and the rise of protectionism and unilateralism.

        With the transformation of consumer subject mentioned the rapid development of science and technology, a new round of technological revolution and industrial revolution is happening, automobile and areas such as energy, transportation, information and communication is gradually fusion, Shared with electric drive, smart snatched, travel, and other technology are related to each other, energy consumption structure, mode of transportation, and great changes have taken place in social operation mode. Obviously, the development model of "market for low price" in the past decade is no longer in line with the development prospects of the current market.

       For the car market at this time, party secretary of China automotive technology research center co., LTD., chairman of the board of directors, general manager AnTieCheng pointed out that the auto industry to seek opportunities in the crisis, the first thing to strengthen the basic science research, comprehensively enhance the level of basic scientific research and want to continue to drive "new four modernizations" at the same time the high quality of the auto industry development.

        As we all know, the Chinese market is the world's largest automobile consumer market at present, and this situation will remain for a long time to come. However, it is both an advantage and a disadvantage for the Chinese automobile market. This shows on the one hand is that in the past for a long period, China's auto market to realize the rapid and sustained growth, but as China machinery industry federation, executive vice President Chen, China's automobile production and sales reached record levels in 2017, to 29.01 million, but in the context of the current situation, automobile products in short supply phase has ended.

        Data show that from January to July of 2020, China's automobile production and sales volume reached 12.3 million. Although the overall situation is better than expected, the intensity and effect of the government's policy measures to promote automobile consumption obviously cannot support the sustainable development of China's automobile market any longer.

        Chen bin said publicly: "Personally, I don't think China's car market will break the 30 million mark during the 14th five-year Plan period. Thirty million vehicles is a very difficult threshold for the auto industry to get over, not to say the ceiling, and even if we do get over it, it will fluctuate in this stage for a long time."

         In addition to the weakening impact of national policies, Chen bin believes that China's automobile industry has entered a stage of high-quality development, and the overall industry has entered a stage of structural adjustment, transformation and upgrading. The main feature of this stage is no longer the growth in quantity, but the improvement in quality. What is more important is that the current household consumption is in the stage of slow growth and renewal, and the environment for automobile consumption and use is becoming more and more demanding. If we do not upgrade to address this problem, the growth of automobile consumption and market expansion will inevitably be seriously hindered.

        In his opinion, in view of the current situation, "to keep the automobile market basically stable in the 14th five-year Plan and even for a period of time to come, and prevent drastic fluctuations, is the biggest challenge facing the development of the automobile industry. Local governments must be fully mobilized by means of reform to expand automobile consumption and service automobile consumption."

  How to seek opportunities in a crisis

  What are the opportunities for China's auto industry at a time of crisis?

         Chen Kelong, deputy director general of the First Equipment Industry Division of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, believes that the global auto industry is in a period of "great changes not seen in a century". Any change will bring opportunities. At present, the "new four forms" of automobiles are overlapping, converging and enabling each other. Automobiles have been transformed from a mobile tool into an energy storage unit and other products with various properties. Production modes are accelerating interconnection and collaboration, intelligent manufacturing evolution, and development and reform of new technologies, new models and new business forms are accelerating, he said.

       From the perspective of the current development of China's automobile industry, China's automobile industry has a certain advantage in electrification, and has a very strong development trend in the development of intelligence and network connectivity. This is the opportunity in the crisis for China's auto industry.

      According to the data, in July this year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China were 100,000 and 98,000 respectively, with year-on-year growth of 15.6% and 19.3%, showing a relatively stable development trend. Wu Zhixin, deputy general manager of the China Automotive Industry Center, said that China still maintains a comparative advantage in the development of new energy vehicles, with the sales volume of new energy vehicles ranking first in the world for five consecutive years. Policies and measures, standards and regulations, infrastructure construction and other aspects are gradually improving.

         This coincides with the thinking of Lei Ping, deputy general manager of China FaW Group Co LTD, who believes that in the future, the new opportunities brought by electric, intelligent, Internet connection and sharing will become the next high-growth new power for self-owned brands. At the same time, he said, the new four Modernizations have brought new opportunities for the transformation and upgrading of China's auto industry. Meanwhile, new network infrastructure such as big data, artificial intelligence, 5G and charging and changing facilities have also laid a foundation for network upgrading. As long as we seize the opportunities and accelerate the transformation and development, Chinese auto companies will have the opportunity to catch up with global auto companies.

        However, it is undeniable that there are still some problems in China's new energy vehicles, such as weak basic ability, weak brand competitiveness, large but not superior. At the same time, in the context of the increasing downward pressure of new energy vehicles, the external competition is intensified, and the world's strong enterprises such as Volkswagen and Toyota also join in the competition of intelligent network. How to build and develop new advantages on the basis of the original advantages is an urgent problem for China's automobile industry at present.

        Chen Kelong believes that China has the institutional advantages of concentrating resources to accomplish big things, and the regional advantages of cross-field and cross-department promotion. Under the current background, the whole industry is required to actively adapt to the new situation, meet new challenges and adhere to new development concepts.

        In the past more than ten years, joint venture brands have always been dominant in the Chinese market. BMW, Benz, Volkswagen and other brands have entered the Chinese market one after another. On the one hand, they have occupied a favorable position in the Chinese market for themselves; on the other hand, they have also created considerable profits for Chinese enterprises. But that is about to end.

        Starting in 2018, the policy calls for the abolition of the foreign share limit on special purpose vehicles and new energy vehicles. By 2020, the policy will remove the foreign share limit on commercial vehicles. It is expected that the foreign share limit on passenger vehicles will be abolished in 2022, and the limit of no more than two joint ventures will be abolished. This means that China's manufacturing industry has been basically opened up, and after the transition period, it will be fully opened up, which means that the competition in China's auto industry will be more intense, especially the living space for independent brands will be narrower.

       In Chen bin's opinion, the shareholding ratio of automobile joint ventures is actually a matter of decision-making power and leading power, and the absence of the requirement of shareholding ratio under the constraints of the national industry is the true portrayal of a car company's ability to verify.

        One way to look at it is the end of the profit-making, brand-upgrading phase of joint ventures, making it harder for Chinese auto companies to survive. In the long run, if the automobile enterprises want to grasp their own development right and decision-making right, they must have a strong independent sector, which is an effective means to promote the development of China's automobile industry. Recently, FAW, Changan, Dongfeng and other brands have made great efforts to develop their own segment, and their independently developed models have made new breakthroughs in design, quality and intelligent design.

        As for the challenge of current transformation, Zhu Yanfeng, chairman of Dongfeng Company and Secretary of the Party Committee, believes that industrial transformation and upgrading are not only technology-driven, but also need to have insight into customer changes and respect customer participation. It is no longer just a competition relationship between car companies, but a win-win cooperation.

        Li Wei, executive vice President of Changan Automobile, believes that China's auto market is currently facing multi-dimensional reconstruction and needs to grasp the benefits related to economy, industry, people and technology. He said, now the consumer group is changing, the post-90s, post-95, post-00s users are becoming the main force, consumer demand from functional to personalized satisfaction transformation. Compared with the European and American markets, Chinese consumers have a shorter time to exchange and purchase, and automobile technologies and products must be updated at a faster pace.

        As for the development of new energy vehicles, Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NexteV, said that the development of new energy vehicles should start from user experience, focus on systematic solutions, and use pain points for users of intelligent electric vehicles in different scenarios, so as to spread electric vehicles more quickly.