Half a month ago, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei intelligent automobile Bu, and he Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng automobile, complained one after another. They said that if Shanghai and other places could not resume work and production in time, the whole automobile industry might be shut down after May. The latest delivery data supports their concerns. On May 1, several new energy vehicle enterprises such as ideal automobile, Weilai automobile and Xiaopeng automobile announced their delivery results in April. Affected by the epidemic, the delivery volume of these car enterprises decreased significantly month on month, and none of them exceeded 10000. Among them, the ideal car decreased by more than 60%, and Weilai car almost halved.
In the face of anti epidemic, how to ensure the normal operation of enterprise supply chain is also an urgent problem to be solved. Driven by various factors, 1854 "white list" enterprises have resumed work and production in Shanghai. Most of these enterprises focus on leading enterprises such as SAIC Group, Tesla, SMIC international and related supporting enterprises.
On the whole, although it is difficult to resume work, the supply and production of the automobile industry chain have begun to operate gradually.
Tire supplier: applying for resumption of work
Xu Ke (a pseudonym) works for a large tire manufacturer. Its customers include Tesla, Weilai automobile, FAW and many other automobile enterprises. Affected by the epidemic, the company's production and orders have experienced stagnation to varying degrees.
The first to shut down was the production plant in Changchun, Jilin Province. In early March, COVID-19 broke out in Jilin Province, and the whole city shut down production. As a result, the local production plants and warehouses of XuKe company were affected.
Due to the similar experience before and the normal operation of factories and warehouses in other regions such as Shanghai, the situation was still controllable at that time.
Just before long, Shanghai also joined the camp of shutdown. In mid March, because of the close connection found in her office building, Xu Ke began to work at home. At that time, she was quite optimistic about the epidemic, "she may be able to work normally in a week or two".
At the same time, because the scale of the factory and warehouse in Shanghai is much larger than that in Changchun, most of the orders of the company's customers can be delivered on schedule. Therefore, Xu Ke's work rhythm was not disturbed at that time. She saved her commuting time and even slept an extra hour a day.
However, with the severity of the epidemic situation and the extension of the sealing time, everything began to be different.
On the evening of March 27, Shanghai announced that it would take the Huangpu River as the boundary to seal and control Puxi in Pudong in batches; On April 11, the city of Shanghai began to implement zoning, classification and differentiation prevention and control. In the continuous upgrading of sealing control management, the production plant and warehouse of XuKe company in Shanghai were pressed the pause key. So far, the company's two important strategic areas have been "occupied", and its business has been greatly impacted.
She told the international finance news that the production stagnation caused by the closure is not the only reason why the company's business cannot operate normally. The interruption of transportation logistics is also an important factor. "Many places are closed, and our transportation cannot start normally".
During that time, when Xu Ke held a meeting, he often saw that the management frowned and looked sad. The anxious mood was quickly transmitted to downstream customers. A large number of orders were piled up and couldn't be sent out. There were more and more customer complaints, and she took longer and longer to deal with her work.
The customer's dissatisfaction mainly stems from the failure to deliver the order on time. In order to ensure their needs, Xu Ke can only try to apply to her superior for cross warehouse delivery. Therefore, she needs to communicate with multiple departments and customers almost every day to coordinate delivery. She is often too busy to eat.
Xu Ke couldn't bear the high-intensity work for several days in a row. She joked that her body had been hollowed out by the order and needed to "return blood".
Fortunately, with the implementation of epidemic prevention and control in Jilin Province, the local government sounded the horn of returning to work and production. On April 21, all five main engine plants of FAW in Changchun resumed work, which actively promoted the restart of the automobile industry chain in Jilin Province.
Now, the factory and warehouse of XuKe company in Changchun have also resumed work, which greatly alleviates the business pressure of the company. "Except for Shanghai, which is applying, other regions have basically resumed work now".
The resumption of work and production in Shanghai is also in full swing. On April 16, Shanghai launched the first batch of 666 "white list" enterprises, which can be the first to resume production after meeting the epidemic prevention requirements. By the end of April, the resumption rate of the first batch of "white list" enterprises had exceeded 80%, and all vehicle factories of SAIC Group and Tesla had stably realized the offline of vehicle batches.
Chip industry: the blocking point lies in the manufacturing end
Unlike leading enterprises, the pace of resumption of work and production of small and micro companies is not so fast.
For example, Zhang Liang (a pseudonym) is the head of a new energy power battery company in Shenyang. The company's business mainly focuses on the research and development of graphene materials and produces graphene lithium silicon batteries and other products. Shanghai Volkswagen, FAW new energy and other enterprises are its downstream customers.
Affected by the epidemic, Zhang Liang's company began to stop production on March 12. During this period, the company's design team worked at home and promoted work normally, but the production workers in the factory were equivalent to a holiday.
In mid April, Shenyang districts began to promote the resumption of work and production of enterprises and projects, but their companies have not yet returned to normal operation. "We were allowed to leave the community a few days ago, and it will take a few days to resume work and production".
In Zhang Liang's view, the main impact of shutdown lies in the manufacturing end. Liu Hao (pseudonym), who works for a global top 10 semiconductor company, also holds a similar view.
He told reporters that from the perspective of the chip industry, the products of the design and development team will not appear in the market until a few years later, and most of the popular products on the market were studied many years ago. Therefore, the impact of the Shanghai epidemic on this part of the business is actually very limited. The real impact is on the product processing manufacturers of "waiting for rice to be cooked", and "to put it bluntly, the blocking point is still at the processing and manufacturing end and import and export logistics".
In addition to some domestic wafer factories, the processing and production of most chips in the industry are imported from abroad. Even domestic chip companies do not mean that their products will be processed in China. "It can be understood that it is just a drawing, but the production may still rely on TSMC or Japanese and Korean Enterprises".
Therefore, the impact of the epidemic on chip production capacity mainly lies in the overseas manual manufacturing and customs clearance. However, the blocking point in this link has appeared as early as the beginning of the COVID-19 in 2020, and has nothing to do with this round of Shanghai epidemic.
Therefore, compared with before the epidemic, the daily work of Liu Hao, who worked at home for nearly 50 days, has not changed greatly, and the impact on the company's business is not large. However, he stressed that the amount of chips required for new energy vehicles is very large, and the new factories of many enterprises can only be completed in a few years. The chip production capacity is in short supply, "our company's orders are at least until the end of next year".
The shortage of production capacity has promoted the rise of chip prices. Data show that the 32-bit MCU sak-tc277tp-64f200n DC led by Infineon sak has been fried from the price of tens of yuan to three or four thousand, and the price of sak-tc265d-40f200w BB / BC has also risen to more than 6000.
Liu Hao pointed out that these two products are actually products from many years ago and can not be replaced, which may also be the reason for their soaring prices. In addition, the price difference in the chip market is very large now, "just like selling Maotai, consumers can't buy it, and it's all in the hands of liquor dealers". It is expected that the "core shortage" of the automotive industry may improve in two years.
The rise in the price of upstream raw materials and the tension in the supply chain are also directly reflected in the price of automobile products.
On April 30, SAIC Roewe released specific price adjustment plans for some models. Among them, the price of Rongwei i6max EV 500 after price adjustment is 146800 yuan - 157800 yuan, and the price of Rongwei ei5 after price adjustment is 144800 yuan - 158800 yuan, with an overall price adjustment range of 3000 yuan - 5000 yuan.
Marketing outlet: waiting for resumption notice
The epidemic affects not only the supply chain, but also marketing.
Qiu Wan (a pseudonym), as the after-sales service director of SAIC's 4S store in Jinshan District, told the reporter of the international finance news that the impact of the epidemic on work is not only home office, but also the impact of wages, performance and other aspects.
Since the closure of Shanghai, Qiu Wan has been living at home. To be precise, she is studying at home.
Qiu Wan said that SAIC will organize online learning for front-line sales staff every week, distribute learning materials and introduce technology related teachers. In the past, there were many working hours and some new automobile knowledge reserves were ignored. This epidemic just gave an opportunity to learn knowledge. According to Qiu Wan, after studying at home, the time management is different from that at work. In the past, there were many off-duty hours. After staying at home, you can rest only from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. during the day. Usually, you will participate in volunteers in the community.
As the after-sales service director, the company also gave her tasks other than learning. Qiu Wan said that SAIC used almost all of the company's car battery chargers to transport the chargers to the homes of some employees, and Qiu Wan received chargers issued by many companies. The purpose of this is to prevent the car from generating electricity after a long time of failure to start. The chargers are for those who turn off due to power failure, Or a car that cannot be started due to power failure. "At present, the area we are responsible for is only the community where the employees are located. I also have many friends who turn off the car as soon as I start it, all because the battery is dead.".
At present, the epidemic situation in Shanghai has improved. With the release of the two white lists, some enterprises have begun to resume work and production. Qiu Wan said that the company has not issued a notice of resumption, but employees are basically ready to resume work. At the same time, because its 4S store is located in the industrial zone, it also needs to follow the arrangement and deployment of the industrial zone.