Last week's key news: the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) proposed to modify the access to new energy vehicles, lowering the technical threshold; nearly 50 automobile dealers group's 4S stores resumed work at a rate of 19.8%; Geely and Volvo Cars proposed to merge into a global group.
Industry policy
February 10, the official website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released "on the modification of the new energy automobile production enterprises and product access management regulations" decision (draft). The draft mainly in 10 parts of the original provisions of the deletion and modification, of which the most significant change is the deletion of the provisions of the annex "new energy vehicle manufacturer access review requirements" in the first item, involving "design and development capabilities" of the eight requirements; to change to two "technical support capabilities Instead, there are two requirements of "technical support capability".
On February 12, the China Automobile Dealers Association (CADA) submitted to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) a "Report on the Impact of the New Crown Pneumonia Epidemic on the Automobile Dealers Industry and Policy Recommendations" (the "Report"). The Report noted that as of February 11, of the 2,895 4S stores of nearly 50 automobile dealer groups*** monitored and researched by the Association, only 573 had resumed work, a resumption rate of 19.8%. In addition, the Report puts forward a number of policy recommendations to the government authorities, mainly including: liberalizing the policy of restricting purchasing and driving, improving the policy environment for facilitating the trading of second-hand vehicles, alleviating the operating difficulties of automobile dealers in a timely manner, and further boosting and expanding the consumption of automobiles.
On February 13, the China Automobile Circulation Association Automobile Market Research Branch (Passenger Vehicle Market Information Joint Committee) released national passenger car market production and sales data for January 2020, and analyzed the current industry policies, consumer demand trends, prices, used cars, imported cars, and new energy vehicles.1.699 million units of retail sales were sold in the nation's passenger car market in January 2020, a Down 21.5% year-on-year in January 2019, this is the lowest growth rate since the 2005 Passenger Car Association retail statistics. In addition, January was down 20.8 percent from December 2019, the lowest growth rate ever.
Automotive News
On Feb. 10, Volvo Car Group and Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. announced that they are planning to integrate their businesses to form a stronger global conglomerate. The strong alliance aims to promote deeper cooperation between the two companies and more effective synergy in technology development, cost control and finance. Through the business reorganization, both parties will have stronger professional capabilities and resources; at the same time, the reorganized new business group will realize the connection with the global capital market through the listing body of Geely Automobile in Hong Kong, and will consider listing in Stockholm as the next step.
News broke on Feb. 10 that Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler is increasing the scale of existing cost-cutting measures, with plans to cut up to 15,000 jobs. The company had said last November that it planned to cut at least 10,000 jobs in a bid to slash labor costs by about 1.4 billion euros by the end of 2022. But German newspaper Handelsblatt, citing sources inside the company, said the final layoff figure would be well over 10,000 workers. The report said Daimler plans to announce the scale of the expanded cost-cutting program at its annual press conference on Tuesday, and will announce reduced investment in loss-making projects in non-core businesses.
February 10, according to the U.S. media Automotive?News reported, the U.S. HAAH Automotive Holdings and China's Chery Automobile Co. have reached a North American distribution agreement to introduce Chery's premium brand EXEED Xingtu in the second half of 2021, although it will be marketed in the U.S. under the VANTAS brand name. It's worth noting that the project code name for the StarTour's arrival in the U.S. is Buffalo, and it's being handled by CTCS (Chery's Shanghai R&D center), with the first U.S. models being the StarTour TX (internal code name M31T).
On Feb. 14, the company announced that it had completed another $100 million in convertible bond financing, with two Asian investment funds, both of which are "non-affiliated," as investors. Azera said that other financing projects are still underway and have made positive progress, and at this stage, Azera is focusing on financing projects that can bring strategic value to its business development and efficiency improvement in China. In the latest sales results previously announced by Azalea, the overall delivery of 1,598 units in January 2020, Azalea's average daily delivery of 100 units in January, an increase of 22% year-on-year, sales efficiency has improved.
On Feb. 11, GAC's first mask production equipment has begun installation and debugging, and it is expected to complete 12 units of homemade equipment on Feb. 22 and 30 units by the end of this month. GAC will produce 30 to 50 sets of mask production equipment on its own, and the first set of equipment has been installed and debugged. To support the fight against the new crown pneumonia, GAC Chairman Zeng Qinghong personally supervised the development of mask production equipment and production lines. Some of them are used for Guangzhou Automobile's own production, and some will be provided to other state-owned enterprises in Guangzhou for mask production.
On February 13, SAIC-GM-Wuling announced that it had shipped its own masks, as the first automobile company to obtain a medical device license and pass a professional inspection. It is reported that SAIC-GM-Wuling's production of some of the products, is being used in the production of acoustic cotton can be medical high-specification material polypropylene, transforming the production line can be quickly start production, with the mask R & D production and operation of the relevant qualifications. Therefore, SAIC-GM-Wuling quickly combined with its sound insulation cotton supplier Guangxi DeFuTe to switch to the production of masks.
This article comes from the author of the automobile home car family number, does not represent the views of the automobile home position.