At the start of 2020, Chinese car companies are not traversing the cold winter of the car market, nor are they planning plans to launch new cars this year. Instead, they're looking around for a mouthpiece and grasping at straws to climb out of their production shutdown woes.
If oil is the blood of industry, then at this particular moment in the pneumonia epidemic, masks have become a more important strategic material than oil. At the moment, masks are the blood of China's economy.
Don't make cars to make masks
Car companies are "not doing their job"
"Masks beat pork and became the most sought-after annual goods in the Spring Festival."
New Crown pneumonia epidemic at the time, the masks on the market across the country gradually in short supply, but there is also a problem plagued many netizens: China as a manufacturing country, and during the Spring Festival is also in the rush to produce a large number of masks, why or not enough?
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's official microblogging @ Gongxin microblogging has forwarded a CCTV interview with Liu Jingzhen, chairman of China Pharmaceutical Group, in response to the great concern about the "masks are not enough" problem has been responded to.
Liu Jingzhen said that the demand for masks has risen sharply in recent days, and that the masks seem to be very simple to make, but in fact the production process is very complicated.
"For example, the middle of the pinch nose of that steel ring, it is not the mask factory own production, and have to be upstream of the production plant to give it supporting; and then for example, hanging hook ears of the rope, but also need to other synergistic manufacturers to supporting the production of this is equivalent to a chain."
In fact, China's production of masks has been very fast, only 0.5 seconds / only. However, after the masks are produced, they have to go through a process of parsing and sterilizing, which usually takes seven days to half a month. "That means the batch of masks produced overtime on the first day of the Chinese New Year may have just hit the market today!" Liu Jingzhen said.
Inside Tesla's Shanghai factory (Source: electrek)
Resumption of work is a big test for car companies when masks are a scarce resource.
According to Automotive Business Review, Guangzhou Automobile***, with 110,000 staff members, needs 200,000 masks per day; BYD Group, with 220,000 people resuming production, needs nearly 500,000 masks; and SAIC-GM-Wuling***, with 25,000 staff members, needs about 50,000 masks based on two per person per day.
Just to meet the needs of their own employees masks, relying on bulk purchases to maintain, obviously not an easy thing. But if there is a delay in starting work, the company will suffer huge losses.
Li Bin, founder of Azera Motors, said the safety of employees and users is our top priority during the epidemic. For his part, Feng Xingya, general manager of Guangzhou Automobile Group, said: "The country's masks are in a state of emergency, and the city of Guangzhou is also in urgent need of masks. Guangzhou Automobile can't just sit back and wait, it must contribute and act as much as it can."
In this case, as a traditional manufacturer of car companies, can only go to the "battlefield".
"3 days out of the drawings, 7 days out of the equipment, 10 days out of the product!" February 9, BYD Auto Sales Co., Ltd. general manager Zhao Changjiang, announced on microblogging BYD aid production masks and disinfectant.
And undertake this mask project is BYD Electronics, its business group ninth division, not only has its own plant and medical device system certification, but also a long-term agent to produce medical device products.
Web rumor BYD mask product manual
And "BYD mask", is expected to February 12 trial production, 17 mass production, the end of February to reach the planned 5 million / day capacity. BYD also said that the first batch of shortage materials will be directed to donate to a specific group of people, such as buses, cabs, online car drivers and volunteers, airports and aircrews and other groups. Subsequently, it will be combined with the situation, the external flat-rate supply.
In addition to BYD, SAIC-GM-Wuling also said on Feb. 6 that it will take the approach of joint upstream suppliers to produce masks through the alteration of production lines. According to the project construction plan, the mask professional production equipment will arrive on February 26, the workshop will be completed and put into use by the end of February, is expected to reach a daily production capacity of more than 1.7 million.
Shanghai Automobile General Motors (SAIC) Wuling to produce masks (Source: Wuling Automobile)
Additionally, on February 8, Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC) also said that it is studying to build a production line for masks, and that this work will be handed over to GAC Components Business Unit to be in charge of promoting the project.
If these three car companies put the masks into production as scheduled, according to their production capacity, it is not a problem to produce 10 million masks per day, which will largely solve the current emergency situation of the masks, and at the same time ensure that the production work is carried out normally.
Shadow looms over global automakers
"We can't produce without China"
"It's as if time has stopped, and in the last two weeks, sales, production and the supply chain have stopped."
Volvo Chief Executive Hakan Samuelsson showed a sense of helplessness when talking about the current state of the Chinese market, saying the company expects to lose at least two weeks of sales, production and supply deliveries in China due to the impact of a new coronavirus.
According to a report in the Economic Observer, Beijing Benz recently sent a letter to the Tianjin municipal government and the Wuqing district of Tianjin, requesting special approval for its 19 parts suppliers in Wuqing, Tianjin, to return to work ahead of schedule. The letter said that if they could not resume work on Feb. 10, their single-day losses would be as high as 400 million yuan.
It's not just Volvo and Mercedes-Benz, but global car companies that are under the shadow of the outbreak.
Two production lines at Nissan's Kyushu Island plant will be shut down on Feb. 14, and another production line at the plant, which mainly produces cars for export, will be shut down on Feb. 17, according to a report by the Nikkei Shimbun.
The company's car output will be affected on Friday and Feb. 17 due to a shortage of parts supply from China. The plant, which has an annual capacity of 530,000 vehicles, is also home to the Rogue?SUV?crossover, the best-selling car in the United States.
South Korea's Hyundai Motor announced a complete shutdown of most of its factories in South Korea starting Feb. 7 due to a shortage of wiring harnesses for parts purchased on a large scale in China, Reuters reported. Hyundai also became the first carmaker in the world to suspend production outside China due to the outbreak.
On Feb. 6, FCA Chief Executive Mike?Manley similarly said FCA could be forced to close a European plant if parts from China don't arrive within the next two to four weeks.
The Center for Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany predicted in its latest report that German car companies are losing at least 72 million euros ($548 million) a day due to plant shutdowns. If one-fifth of China is quarantined due to the epidemic, German car companies will lose 2.5 billion euros (about 19.044 billion yuan) in February.
Hyundai factory in South Korea (Source: The New York Times)
Perhaps it was only at this point that the world realized the importance of China.
Wuhan is one of China's four major passenger car bases, bringing together five major car lines - American, Japanese, French, British and domestic - making it the city with the most complete car lineup in the country's automotive industry layout.Hubei's automotive production in 2019 reached 2.24 million units, accounting for 8.8 percent of the country's total.
In addition, Hubei is also an important auto parts production base, there are statistics, in Hubei registered capital of more than 10 million yuan of automobile and parts enterprises **** more than 1,700, including 19 listed companies.
And the global automotive supply chain is highly dependent on the Chinese market. Currently, there are more than 100,000 local auto parts enterprises in China***, and more than 80% of global auto parts are related to Chinese manufacturing.
Honda's joint-venture plant in Wuhan (Source: KYODONEWS)
Webasto, which owns more than 60 patents on sunroofs and currently has a market share of more than 65 percent in the automotive sunroof sector, has the world's largest production base located in Wuhan, the epicenter of this outbreak.
It is understood that seven of the company's employees have already been sickened, and for that reason, Webasto's headquarters will remain closed until Feb. 11, with employees shifting to completing work from home as much as possible. As of now, no details have been revealed on when its Wuhan plant will return to work.
The outbreak is still at an incalculable stage, and there's still a lot of uncertainty about when factories around China will resume work. Previously, BYD told VentureBond that the epidemic does have an impact on the company, but it can still be overcome.
For example, a large number of lack of epidemic prevention and management supplies: masks, temperature guns, alcohol disinfectant, 84 disinfectant, etc. Procurement is very difficult. At the same time, the logistics of shipment is greatly affected by traffic control.
On the supplier side, Hubei suppliers to the enterprise internal debugging equipment, need to be isolated in the hotel for 14 days, affecting the production schedule. Hubei and Zhejiang suppliers failed to start work and could not supply normally.
And the closure of some ports in Hong Kong is feared to affect the import and export of some raw materials, which in turn affects production and the normal operation of the factory floor on a large scale. In addition, BYD also said its main core components are homemade, the overall impact has a certain degree, but can still be overcome.
Research and development of car masks
Car companies "war epidemic" counterattack
When everyone grabbed the masks, the earliest to come up with 100 million yuan to support Wuhan Geely, ready to take the initiative.
On Feb. 4, Geely announced that it would invest 370 million yuan in research and development of an "all-round healthy car" with virus-prevention functions.
"Attacking the first real N95-level vehicle purification technology in China, striving to reach mass production standards in 20 days, and preemptively mounted on 150 Jiaji, put into the front line of the anti-epidemic!" Geely even gave itself a "military order".
Geely's Cao Cao travel drivers (source: Cao Cao travel)
It is understood that the "all-round health car" not only has Geely automobile products have the isolation of hazardous substances in the external air, fast and efficient purification of the interior of the car air and other functions, but also focus on the breakthrough of the car to prevent the function of viruses and technology, effectively inhibit and reduce viruses against human beings. The company will also focus on breaking through the virus prevention function and technology in the car to effectively inhibit and reduce the infringement of viruses on the human body.
At the same time, all materials in the car will not only have high environmental protection, low emissions, but also through the addition of antibacterial, antimicrobial substances, with the ability to inhibit bacteria or surface sterilization, to achieve a more practical value of the "all-round health".
The same concept of a healthy car is also proposed by T3 Travel.
Drivers in the vehicle disinfection (source: T3 travel)
By the FAW, Dongfeng, Chang'an three car companies *** with the initiation of Suning, Tencent, Alibaba and other *** with the participation of the creation of the T3 travel, has recently announced that it will be its Wuhan special operations fleet of prevention and control standards and models, and gradually pushed to the country's all operating cities, and the launch of "" T3 travel health car "". T3 traveling health car".
It is reported that, at the beginning of the outbreak, T3 Travel first set up the Wuhan special action fleet, equipped with drivers with protective clothing, disposable medical gloves, goggles, masks, disinfectant, medical disinfectant tablets and other full set of compliant protective equipment and disinfection equipment.
These include: vehicle-side: full vehicle disinfection and ventilation; driver-side: full driver protection; and platform-side: full-time trip monitoring.
It is also understood that T3 Travel will also cooperate with domestic well-known research institutions, *** with the research and development and testing of in-vehicle fogging disinfection module. After passing the test, the module will be applied to every vehicle operated by T3 Travel.
Additionally, GAC Chuanqi has also recently proposed to develop a "health car", and will add anti-fouling and anti-pollution requirements to its seat fabrics, and models equipped with in-vehicle anti-allergy, anti-bacteria and anti-virus technologies are also under development.
Writing in the end
On February 10, the day of the resumption of work, the founder of Xiaopeng car He Xiaopeng wrote - "This passage is very apt for us at the present time: the sky will be a great task in the people, but must first suffer their will, labor their muscles and bones, starve their bodies and skin, empty their bodies, line whisking what they do. for, so move the heart to endure, had benefited its can not."
Go for it, Made in China!
This article comes from the author of the automobile home car family number, does not represent the views of the automobile home position.