On the weekend of January 13, 2019, after being ravaged by continuous rain for 12 days, the first ray of sunshine of the New Year finally came to Shanghai, and children joyfully stepped out of their homes and ran to their hearts' content in the grass and open space to welcome the sunshine.
On this day, 387 kilometers from Shanghai, Wenzhou Yueqing Hongqiao town, the children's uncle family, happy from Yueqing Baoxin Dongfeng Nissan store to take a Nissan Bluebird, because the cousin of the wedding is approaching, to buy a wedding car to welcome the new, is definitely a happy event. On this day, the Ministry of Public Security released data showing that the number of private cars in China for the first time exceeded 200 million, motorists reached 409 million people.
On this day, in Baoding, Hebei province, 1,149.5 kilometers from Shanghai, more than 1,000 people flocked to the "Haval 5 Million" ceremony, a remote city that, like 291 prefectural-level cities across the country, has become a leader in China's manufacturing and automotive civilization thanks to the rapid development of the automotive industry. Less than 50 kilometers away is Xiong'an New Area, a great city that is increasingly being reborn in the dust.
On this day, 11,445.9 kilometers from Shanghai, in Detroit, the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of Volkswagen, Dr. Herbert Diess, appeared for the first time as CEO of the North American Auto Show. On the way to the hotel at Wayne Airport, the accompanying CEO of Volkswagen North America whispered to Diess to inform him of the dinner itinerary with the Chairman of Ford Motor Company, Bill Ford, and the motorcade passed by Dilberman, where Ford is located, and passed by the caravan of vehicles on Highway 94. As the motorcade passed through Dearborn, where Ford is located, Deeds looked out and saw a row of flags in front of the Ford building with the blue "Ford" logo flying in the wind in the cold North American sunshine.
This day, coinciding with the lunar calendar, "Lapa Festival", the country has always had "after the Lapa is the year" said. This day, or Siddhartha Gautama Buddha "became the day".
On this day in 588 BC, Shakyamuni Buddha sat in meditation under the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya Vajra, and became enlightened on December 8 of the lunar calendar. 662 years on this day, the sixth ancestor of Zen Buddhism, Master Huineng, used the "Bodhi has no tree, the mirror is not a platform, there is nothing, where the dust. There is no such thing as a mirror, where is the dust" to explain the Buddha and the essence of Buddhism.
The first sunshine of the new year, the Bluebird, 200 million private cars, 5 million Havaliers, the Lunar New Year's Day, Ford, and Herbert Deeds, all come together on the Day of Attainment, which has a religious meaning.
Cause and effect, evil and good, false and real, positive and negative, annihilation and hope, in a subtle and orderly way, driving this noisy world forward.
China's auto market, which has been on the rise since 1990, peaked and went down in 2018, catching everyone off guard with a sudden cooling after 28 years of running wild. As a result, those flowers of sin planted in the peak season of the car market were transformed into pain of all shapes and sizes in the off-season and came to the surface.
Life goes on, will the car market tumble in 2019? Wicker, is there any poetry and distant future for this industry? The annual 2019∣Patterns and Trends reflects on the past and asks about the future.
For the upcoming 2019, we expect:
-- In 2019, after experiencing a precipitous fall in the second half of 2018, the first half of the year is still down year-on-year, but considering the clearing of the haze of the trade war and the stabilization of the economy, and with the base reference of 2018, starting from July Gradually pick up, the annual growth is expected to be between 2~3%, and the long-term growth is about half of the GDP growth;
--Maintaining the 2018 judgment on the medium-term trend, the total vehicle market increased to 35 million units in 2025, and new energy (including plug-in hybrid) will be the only source of growth;
-- Regardless of the outcome of the trade war between China and the United States, the leaders Volkswagen and General Motors in China will peak and go down in 2019, and the weaker, foreign brands that are highly substituted by local Chinese brands and refuse to adapt to change, Subaru and DS, are facing the exit of the Chinese market, and the share of local Chinese brands will further increase;
-- 2019 will be a big year for domestic and international mergers and acquisitions, including T3 (three central enterprises alliance), Geely-led BAIC hybridization, Volkswagen alliance Ford and other things will get a strong push in 2019, but Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance because of Ghosn's arrest, the alliance separation has become a probable event;
-- The capital winter is approaching, and the new car-making boom, which relies heavily on capital, is declining, with only 2~3 companies left after 2020.
When growth comes too easily, the hidden dangers behind are easy to be ignored; when the decline comes too quickly, hope is in this vast land, waiting for the spring breeze to take root and sprout.
There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.
Fear the market and enjoy the prosperity
January 14, China Automobile Manufacturers Association announced data: in 2018, automobile production and sales of 27,809,200 and 28,806,000 units, down 4.16% and 2.76% year-on-year. Among them, passenger car production and sales of 23,529,400 units and 23,709,800 units, down 5.15% and 4.08% year-on-year; commercial vehicle production and sales of 4,279,800 units and 4,370,800 units, up 1.69% and 5.05% year-on-year.
The last decline in the auto market goes back to 1990, when more than half of our colleagues were not born. These young people who didn't experience the cold snap of the car market, and everyone who was used to growth, could easily use hyperbole to portray the car market's descent, and their inner panic.
Words and actions are the truest expression of the heart, and any result is due to the buds planted at the beginning. According to the principle of economics, the relationship between supply and demand determines the price of the product, but the automotive industry is characterized by: the supply side of the production capacity of the input cycle is longer, input costs and exit costs are huge. Therefore, the relationship between supply and demand not only determines the price of the product, but also determines the overall health of the industry.
As early as 2013, the industry has entered a micro-growth cycle, but the purchase tax incentives to stimulate growth, as well as the SUV all the way to the high song, the original stable fall back to about 5% growth was quickly replaced by double-digit growth.
By the end of 2017, the annual production capacity of Chinese car companies, including capacity under construction, totaled ****64 million units, and in the second half of 2017, new forces to build cars joined, further expanding production capacity, resulting in the supply side and the demand cycle of automobiles running counter to each other.The surge in real estate demand in the first half of 2018 in the third and fourth tier markets pumped up the source of growth in Chinese automobiles, and in the second half of the year, the start of the U.S.-China trade war curbed the growth momentum of first-tier and second-tier markets. The trade war between the U.S. and China started in the second half of the year, curbing the consumption power of the first and second-tier markets. The contradiction between supply and demand that has been covered up has completely erupted
The 2018 decline is closely related to China's economic slowdown and pressure. 1988 global stock market crash, the 1998 Asian financial turmoil, the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis hit the world until the 2018 global important market generalized downturn, the once-in-a-decade pan-economics quagmire more to the car market slippage has brought a rather mysterious environment, and part of the explanation or even near fatalism. The explanation even borders on fatalism or materialistic cycle theory.
But don't forget that the U.S. car market has entered a recovery cycle since the first month of 2009, and the Chinese car market has even resumed growth since September 2008, with an increase of up to 30% or more in 2009. So, "The pomp and circumstance of prosperity breeds a number of cowards in vain, and hardship is always the mother of strength." Shakespeare's exhortation is one we must keep in mind.
"After experiencing a free-fall-like decline in 2018, on the supply side, all manufacturers will return to rationality when making production and sales plans for 2019, and on the demand side, there will not be a particularly large reversal in 2019, but with the stabilization of the economy and the end of the trade war, zero or slightly negative growth will become the **** knowledge of the majority of people. " At the beginning of 2019, Jingdong Auto CEO Li Harbor summarized inside the op-ed "Winter Call" to the Journal.
2019 where are you?
China's auto industry, which has been hit hard, will usher in a new era with a lot of scars. At this point, Mr. Xu Changming, the deputy director of the China Information Center, who has been advocating the "R-value theory" and promoting "China's automobile strides towards 40 million units", should go to the desert river for a vacation to completely wake up.
The companies that believe in "40 million units of annual production and sales" have all fallen in 2018. Changan, BAIC and FAW are all involved to varying degrees. The more rational Guangzhou Automobile, SAIC in the clamor to stay awake, cautious and pragmatic to help them through the difficult 2018.
In the multinational companies, represented by Hyundai Kia Group and Ford Motor, both of them doubled their new production capacity from 2014 to 2017, and the former's total production capacity of seven factories has exceeded 2.5 million vehicles, of which Beijing Hyundai's production capacity is 1.65 million, Dongfeng Hyundai Kia's production capacity has exceeded 880,000, and Changan Ford's total production capacity in Chongqing, Hangzhou, and Northeast China has also More than 1.6 million vehicles.
Toyota, with a production capacity of 1.25 million units, achieved 1.3 million units of production and sales in 2018, with a capacity utilization rate of 104%. There is no comparison, there is no harm, more pragmatic, cautious Toyota became the biggest winner in the Chinese car market in 2018, while Ford Motor straight-line decline of nearly 50%, Hyundai Kia barely stabilized, but earnings fell sharply.
For China's cars in 2019, controversy and disagreement pervade, pessimism and optimism go together. But most organizations are cautious while remaining optimistic.
On December 20, 2018, Xu Haidong, assistant secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), predicted: this year's sales are expected to be the same as in 2018, and the overall demand will be about 28 million; the Development Research Center of the State Council predicted: sales will increase by about 2% this year; the China Automotive Technology Research Center predicted that the growth of automobiles will increase by 0.7% in 2019; and the Passenger Federation of China predicted that the new energy automobile sales this year will be 1.6 million vehicles, an increase of 33%.
Which segments are more desirable in 2019? Which companies will continue to outperform the market? Opportunity no longer favors all, it just prefers the hard, persistent and more correct few.
At the beginning of last year, "2018 pattern and trend ∣ (on) glory and dream" judged that the SUV market in 2018 is not worth looking forward to. Facts have proved that SUVs have become a strong push to push down the dominoes of the car market in 2018. So will SUVs continue to go down in 2019, or will they stop falling and rebound?
We predict that with the gradual exit of a large number of low-end SUVs, local brand SUVs will still lead the decline in the first half of the year, but with the recovery of consumer confidence and the entry of many new products of joint venture SUVs into the market, SUVs will lead the market recovery in the second half of the year, and this year, joint venture SUVs will continue to counterattack the independent.
Another segment worth looking forward to is the medium-sized MPV in the 100,000 to 150,000 yuan range, with BYD Song MAX, Transfar GM6 and Geely Jiaji as the mainstay, which will gradually activate the space and multifunctionality demand that has been neglected for many years.
In addition, with the entry of Volkswagen SUVs such as Tango and Touyue, the imminent replacement of Honda's Colorado and XR-V brothers, the Tucson and Prowler, and the C-HR and Ezekiel to stimulate demand for personalization, compact SUVs are expected to turn the corner this year. The bad news: the Civic, Sprinter, and Golf are brutally facing pressure to replace them.
In addition, in addition to the joint-venture midsize cars will be replaced with SUVs, because the product can not keep up with consumer demand, low-end MPVs continue to decline significantly.
Finally, the luxury car market will continue to move forward on top of the 10% growth rate maintained in 2018, and is expected to cross the 3 million mark in 2019 historically. Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi unquestionably continue to expand their share, Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover are still difficult to get rid of the passive situation, Cadillac's strategy of seeking volume at a price has been difficult to continue, Infiniti and Acura, will be hovering painfully on the edge of life and death. By the way, the eye of the tiger Lexus will finalize the domestic production, hand in hand with a strong partner, officially declared war on ABB.
This means that the pattern of 2019 will continue to continue the trend of last year's shock. First of all, the weak independent brands to speed up the departure, JAC, Pentium, Dongfeng and Zotye continue to struggle to survive, Lifan, Cheetah, Huatai, Hanteng and Lu Feng, the exit into the countdown.
Among the joint venture companies, Ford Motor and Shenlong Automobile still can't see hope; Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors, which stopped falling in 2018, can't withstand the double pinch of independent brands and Japanese rivals, the first half of the year will be crucial; the three brothers of Toyota/Honda/Nissan will continue to move forward steadily, but the future of Mazda is worrying. The first-tier camp will be under tremendous pressure in 2019, SAIC-GM struggled to retain growth in 2018, but a drop in sales in 2019 has been unavoidable. 2019 will be the starting point of the downward cycle for Volkswagen.
Sibling rivalry
"Originally I wanted to buy a Golf, but the discounted price of the Tango in the store attracted me." On January 1, a young man from Chengdu, whose screen name is "Gao Bu Shuai", happily showed off his orange Tango in Jieyin.
Volkswagen's most feared thing finally happened, although in 2018 successively launched the Tango, Tang Yue and Tou Yue three strong SUV, but this did not help Volkswagen share the last dividend of the SUV, but also let the consumer stupid, SUV to the same brand sedan replacement, North and South Volkswagen each other's substitution, the strong Volkswagen trouble came.
Even more troublesome is that the new generation of Passat's listing not only quickly reduce the price to seek volume, and sales were surpassed by the Accord, representing the brand's high ground of more than 200,000 yuan models were replaced by the Camry. The new Rangyi is not good, the old and the new join hands still can't beat the Nissan Xuanyi, Touguan by CR-V and Qijun from time to time rear-end. January 16, SAIC-Volkswagen by its own Jiangsu dealers to report the inventory of the "warehouse", hidden for a long time, the crisis, fermentation, spread. 2019, FAW-Volkswagen also has a few SUVs to be able to "Taking off the cage for birds" to stabilize the market, has been overdrawn SAIC-Volkswagen, big trouble.
Statistics show that the average selling price of the Volkswagen brand in the Chinese market has fallen for four consecutive years, which means that the brand value of Volkswagen is slowly declining in 2018 because of the market downturn in the outbreak of the north and south of the Volkswagen "sibling rivalry" if not contained in a timely manner, after a long period of seven years of growth, 2019 will be the year of Volkswagen. The automobile is the turning point of the decline of the prosperity of the car.
In the fall of 2018, Herbert Diess condescended to take over as head of China as Group CEO, which on the one hand shows that the Chinese market is irreplaceable, and more importantly: the good old Prof. Heizmann, who is no longer able to check and balance the internal conflict between the north and south of the Volkswagen from the product to the brand, and from the price to the value of the bottomless line.
History always repeats itself over and over again, and on November 17, 2009, in Guangzhou, FAW-Volkswagen's then general manager An Tiecheng, Volkswagen China's chairman Van Andersen, and SAIC Volkswagen's then general manager Liu Jian, the three hands were tightly clasped together, and behind them, on the huge map of China, a black dot landed in Guangzhou. The launch of the "South China Strategy" became the starting point for Volkswagen to return to the top in China.
Because of pride and refusal to change, Volkswagen suffered from the market punishment from the summer of 2004, until the emergence of Van Andel, with the launch of the "Olympic Program" in 2005, to the "TSI + DSG" powertrain strategy in 2008, the launch of the "TSI + DSG" powertrain strategy, the "TSI + DSG" powertrain strategy, the "TSI + DSG" powertrain strategy.
At this stage, under the impetus of the strong Van Andel, y reflecting on the products, costs, and the internal conflict between the North and South Joint Venture Company, the North and South Volkswagen joined forces, and with the listing of the new Maeteng and Passat in 2011, Volkswagen started the brilliant streak that has continued until 2018.
Market competition from the incremental era to the stock era, product and brand positioning close to the North and South Volkswagen, will have to face the fact that the brutal competition from the same brothers. In addition, because of the impact of the price war between ABB, brand power more vulnerable Audi in order to regain the first, take the initiative to provoke a price war with BMW and Mercedes-Benz, which directly allows Audi's Q5, A4L, Q3 and A3 main models priced at more than 23 ~ 350,000 yuan range down to 18 ~ 320,000 yuan or so, a direct impact on the Volkswagen Passat / Maittens, the Tougans and the Sprint where the market.
In addition, the strong rise of the Japanese in the SUV market and the mid-size car market, but also shook the Touguan, Sprint and Rangyi in their respective segments of the market before the "dominant" advantage. After the replacement of the new generation of Rangyi is unable to move forward, Tangge was forced to reduce the price of two months after the listing, Tangge, Touguan, Tang Yue snatched away the potential customers of the Sprint, Lingduo, Azure collar, Golf, Touguan / Touguan / Tangge of the internal friction, Touguan and Touguan L eat each other, Volkswagen's huge product layout, the incremental age of the multi-point attack advantage, completely transformed into the age of the stock of competition to tread on the competitive disadvantage.
Van Anders has retired early to enjoy his days, ten years later, February 27, 2019, FAW-Volkswagen's "Jetta" new brand, will be announced in the hometown of Germany, the landing; in the summer of 2019, SAIC Volkswagen's SAIC Audi Division will be officially listed.
The cruel reality is: FAW-Volkswagen's third brand will compete directly with the Jetta, Santana, Rangyi and Bora, whose annual sales are already as high as 1.2 million; SAIC Audi has not yet operated, and is starting to look north to FAW Audi. Smiling Dies, how to completely smooth out these thorny conflicts? Perhaps the determination to lift the group's efforts to bet on electric cars, is to maintain the dominance of Volkswagen in China's hope?
Slow down, go out and get stronger
The conservative and robust sales target of just 10,000 more units in 2019 than in 2018 suggests that the aggressive Geely decided to slow down in its home market from the first day of the new year. But the pace of Geely Auto's globalization, from the production of Proton and the restart of Lutz's European plans, has instead accelerated.
"As a leader of Chinese auto brands, Geely Automobile not only wants to be a leader in the Chinese market, but also to go out with fearless national self-confidence, participate in the global competition in a comprehensive manner, and enter the first camp of the global auto market." On June 7, 2018, in the "China-EU quality line" London closing station, Geely Holdings President An Conghui showed the global media Geely's vision of globalization.
The Great Wall Automobile, which is at the end of the adjustment cycle, is ready to do a big job in the New Year. on the evening of January 13, 2019, 5 million Haval rolled out of the production line in Baoding, and Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Automobile, released the globalization strategy of 5-2-1, which will take five years to achieve an annual growth rate of 1.5 percent, and will be used to achieve an annual growth rate of 1.5 percent. It will take five years to realize annual sales of 2 million vehicles and become the world's No. 1 brand of professional SUVs, a tribute to former FCA President Marchionne, who passed away, and a demonstration to his successor, Mike Manley.
"Whether it's Starbucks, McDonald's or the products of America's automotive triumvirate, Chinese consumers have benefited from our interconnectedness. Now, we're eager to share another high-quality automotive brand across the transatlantic ocean, BAIC, with American consumers in the future as well." Yu Jun, General Manager of GAC Passenger Vehicles, gave an eight-minute speech to the global media at 2:00 p.m. on January 14th, in English throughout.
There is no more shelved parts and components exhibit when it first landed in 2015, and no more nervousness when it first appeared on the scene, this time showing confidence, determination and courage, has become China's automotive leader of the GAC people, in this warm Detroit winter, the top of the haze of the U.S.-China trade war, to show the direction of the way forward.
From Geely to Chuanqi, China's homegrown brands have not given up expanding because of the stagnant growth of China's auto market, a choice that only the brave would make. It's a choice that only the brave would make. Just like 50 years ago, Toyota decided to go to the United States and expand strongly in order to escape the difficulties of the Japanese domestic market.
In the 1960s, Toyota's annual domestic sales just gained a foothold, but only a mere 350,000 units, but with the support of then-president Eiji Toyoda, it was prepared to enter the United States on an ambitious plan, and lasted 20 years, and tasted thousands of hardships, before it began to bear fruit in the late 80s.
Fast and slow, offense and defense, caution and optimism, all danced out in the winter sunrise. Three of the country's best local automobile companies, at the beginning of the new year, have taken the initiative to seek change. Since the huge domestic production capacity of 60 million units can no longer be digested domestically, it is an inevitable choice to face the international market. This means that although the pace of domestic development has gradually shifted from incremental competition to stock competition, but the expansion of the international market has just begun.
The most likely mode of globalization of the growing Chinese automobile will be in line with the national "One Belt, One Road" strategy in the direction of the development of the short-term trade in Southeast Asia and Central Asia and CKD export model for the test, medium-term joint ventures in Africa, the Middle East and South America for the development of long-term developed markets in Europe, the United States and Japan as a high point. Localization as the high point.
This is not only the export of production capacity, but also the new thinking of China's automobile industry at a new stage of development. An example of this is the hollowing out of the Brazilian and Argentinean industries, represented by automobiles, from the 1990s onwards, which flourished and then declined, and is now in deep trouble. Their manufacturing, energy and chemical industries have been strangled in the name of trade globalization, with their lifeblood being controlled by the industrial trusts of the United States and Europe, and their indigenous basic manufacturing capacity and automotive industry being strangled in their infancy. This pattern reminds us once again that we must establish a complete industrial system and strengthen the basic industries and core components manufacturing capacity.
In 2018, with the start of the trade war between China and the United States, globalization entered a new phase, and Western civilization began to treat China from "contact" to "full containment". Huawei, the outstanding representative of China's manufacturing, has been subjected to constraints everywhere in 2018. Huawei, which occupies the commanding heights of artificial intelligence and future communication technology, will take 5G technology as an opportunity to guide China to take the lead in the future competition of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Everything, and quantum communication. And as an important level of future manufacturing, the depth of the automotive industry and the future, has been so closely linked.
This is not a trade conflict, it is a new starting point for East and West civilizations to compete for the high ground of the future.
By Wei Jinqiao
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