if the OEM is not only occupied with production capacity, but also has no jingling benefits, and there is no background worth boasting and showing off ... such cooperation will be difficult to go far.
Text/"Autobots" Wu Yu
At the "Ministerial Channel" of the two sessions, Miao Wei, Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the "streamline administration, delegate power, strengthen regulation and improve services" reform will be further intensified and the OEM production of new energy vehicles will be released in an orderly manner.
Although this statement is only a few words, it expresses the concern of the China government for the healthy development of the new energy industry, reveals its support for the "OEM" mode, emphasizes the importance and caution of the supply-side reform of automobile production, and advocates the automobile industry to further emancipate its mind and break the imprisonment.
"Orderly releasing the OEM production of new energy vehicles" seems to be directed at the "new forces" that have not formed production capacity, but at the practical level, the groups that benefit must be enterprises with system power, brand power and R&D power.
upfront cost makes OEM out
When it comes to "OEM production", many people will subconsciously think of "the new force of making cars".
To build a car in China, the access standard of the National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry Order No.39 of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology are two "thresholds" that cannot be bypassed. The former is the Regulations on the Administration of Newly Built Pure Electric Passenger Cars (implemented on July 1, 2115), and the latter is the Regulations on the Administration of New Energy Vehicle Manufacturers and Products Access (implemented on July 1, 2117).
some people may say that since these two regulations are aimed at new energy vehicle projects, let's build fuel vehicles. Not to mention whether the new entrants' technical reserves and brand call can compete with traditional car companies, Article 11 of the Regulations on Investment Management in Automobile Industry (NDRC) explicitly prohibits "building new independent fuel car companies" and "existing car companies building fuel car production capacity across passenger cars and commercial vehicles".
even if an automobile company applies to expand the production capacity of fuel vehicles, it should fully meet the five conditions of "the utilization rate of automobile production capacity is higher than the industry average of the same product category", "the proportion of new energy vehicles production is higher than the industry average" and "the proportion of R&D expenses in the main business income is higher than 3%" in the last two years.
after closing the door and throwing away the key, the new entrants have only one way, namely, new energy vehicles, and they return to the "starting point" before the access standards and Ministry Order No.39-to build new energy vehicles, they still have to meet the above two provisions before they can obtain the qualification to build cars. Baiteng invested in the acquisition of FAW Huali for that scarce qualification.
just getting the qualification, Baiteng paid 851 million yuan, in addition to buying land and building factories, buying equipment for debugging, laying the foundation for the R&D system, and rationalizing the supply chain ... It will cost at least 5 billion yuan. Why are you so sure? Because someone just did it.
Volkswagen-JAC joint venture project, with an annual output of 11111 pure electric passenger cars: use JAC's existing construction land without cash payment; Only the stamping workshop, welding workshop, painting workshop, assembly workshop, battery pack workshop, research and development center, public power and office facilities will be newly built. The total investment of the project is about 5.16 billion yuan, including 2.95 billion yuan for construction and 2.119 billion yuan for working capital.
the car looks simple, but "you don't make the car, you can make it". Therefore, when Minister Miao talked about "OEM", everyone naturally thought that this was a crack in the door for the "new forces" under the regulations that were originally difficult to mediate.
Short-term benefits for those whose production capacity is exhausted
Objectively speaking, "OEM" provides a "temporary thirst quenching" scheme for those who lack funds and whose production capacity is exhausted.
first of all, the "orderly release of OEM production of new energy vehicles" really came into being.
On the one hand, Luckin Coffee's fraud made the investment bank lose all confidence in the "China Stock Exchange". Wall Street won't pay for fake companies, so the capital market environment faced by "China Stock Exchange" and a large number of listed companies in China can be imagined. There may be new technologies, new concepts and new models, but trust is gone and confidence is gone.
On the other hand, the epidemic in COVID-19 has disturbed the total social consumption demand in a short period of time, and the industries facing consumers, such as tourism, catering and transportation, have suffered the greatest impact. The industrial chain with horizontal division of labor structure (global) shows the defects of high logistics cost and long transportation time under the epidemic situation; Under the global crises such as natural disasters, social unrest and COVID-19 epidemic, the risk of industrial chain breakage is also increasing.
In today's automobile industry in China, the production capacity emptying is no longer a hidden danger circulating in the market, but a bloody reality.
In addition to the strict prohibition in the Regulations on Investment Management of Automobile Industry, the Notice on Issuing the Catalogue of Government-Approved Investment Projects (2116 edition) issued by the State Council in 2116 has already stated: "Strictly control the production capacity of new traditional fuel vehicles, and in principle, no new traditional fuel vehicle manufacturers will be approved."
by 2118, the planned annual production capacity of China's automobile industry has exceeded 61 million vehicles, of which the planned production capacity of new energy vehicles (in 2121) will exceed 21 million vehicles, which is 11 times the sales target of the Medium and Long-term Development Plan for Automobile Industry. According to the data of China Automobile Industry Association, the national automobile production and sales in 2119 were 25.72 million and 25.769 million respectively, and the production and sales of new energy vehicles were 1.242 million and 1.216 million respectively.
By the time Changan Ford Harbin factory was completed and Fox rolled off the production line (in 2117), the planning of Changan Ford's five factories was perfectly realized, and the total production capacity climbed to 1.6 million vehicles. In 2119, its sales volume was only 183,911 vehicles, which was only 11.5% of the total production capacity. At the same time, there is also Shenlong Automobile. The total production capacity of the four factories is nearly one million, and the capacity utilization rate in 2119 was 11.16%.
Take Baiteng as an example. Although it is possible to acquire FAW Huali at the price of 1 yuan, it may not be possible to turn the open space with three links and one leveling into a production line that meets the needs of modern manufacturing with an investment of 3 billion yuan, not to mention the experience of workers, the operation of supply chain, the guarantee of quality control, and the standard of environmental protection ... And if there is a well-established OEM cooperation, all problems can be found with relatively simple and efficient solutions.
It can be seen that the orderly liberalization of "OEM" can really promote the complementarity and mutual assistance between "capacity emptiers" and "new forces to build cars".
production capacity * * * or trend
From the perspective of open development, Minister Miao's talk about "OEM production" is warming up ahead of time for "restructuring the industrial chain with electrification and intelligence".
After the Dragon Spaceship successfully launched with two astronauts, the control platforms of Apollo 4, the space shuttle and the Dragon Spaceship also appeared simultaneously. Apollo 4 has a maze of buttons on the control panel; The space shuttle reduced the number of buttons and added nine monochrome displays; The Dragon Spacecraft replaces more than 2,111 circuit breakers such as buttons, toggle switches and joysticks with three 17-inch touch screens, just like Tesla's autonomous driving, which is more intelligent and easier to operate.
it should be emphasized that replacing physical manipulation switches such as buttons and knobs with touch screens is not only to show off the sense of science and technology and bring better experience to users, but also to help reduce the self-weight of the control system and improve the efficiency of system installation. The huge touch screen assembled on Tesla car is also to reduce self-weight and improve efficiency.
Since the first Tesla car rolled off the assembly line, Musk has never stopped his efforts to optimize the process and improve the production efficiency, and even some voices criticized him for pursuing automation, which led to the decline of the production efficiency of the whole production line. According to the data from Tesla, the electrification degree of the latest model, Model Y, has jumped, and the length of the sensor harness in the car has been reduced from the original generation of 3111 meters to 111 meters!
in microeconomics, the cost of unit output decreases with the increase of scale, so enterprises gain cost advantage. In modern manufacturing industry, the direction of cost optimization is no longer limited to scale increase and supply chain shortening, but is accelerating in the direction of pursuing modularization and integration.
The future car not only has the characteristics of platform, but also its manufacturing will be as simple as inserting Lego: "Three Electricity" will become the foundation of the car, software will become the soul of the car, and the rest will only be vassals. In the design and development of vehicles, software engineers become the protagonists, and hardware engineers "retreat" to the second line. The former is not very persistent about the improvement of the code. As long as there are no bugs when leaving the factory, the subsequent problems can be completed through online upgrades and instant patches.
in the future, the automobile manufacturing will be reconstructed on the basis of software: users can open the App, log in the account and follow the instructions to input their needs, not to mention the color and form of the car body, the material and friction coefficient of the seat, and whether the water cup holder wants Tetra Pak fresh milk or soda water.
the performance can be preset, and the freight needs to be paid by itself. Why not choose a factory nearby for production? Why let SF and JD.COM harvest wool again? OEM production has become the mainstream-Wuhan manufacturing has the advantage of natural cost, and the people who have laid out in Xinjiang in advance can "monopolize the blue ocean", but the manufacturing bases in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta need to "bid out" ...
OEM is not a panacea
In OEM production, there are OEM and ODM.
OEM refers to the original equipment manufacturer, which is usually a strong brand that grasps the core technology and controls the sales channels. It entrusts the production task to "others" and only buys it at a low price and sells it under the brand name. Foxconn, which is commissioned by Apple, is an OEM.
ODM refers to the original design manufacturer who gets the production order (the design may be slightly modified) because the new design and new function of the product are favored by other brands. The entrusting party sells by OEM to save design resources and shorten the research and development cycle. Many products of Xiaomi have such attributes.
OEM does not have design, brand and channels, and relies on the entrusting party to send process and quality control specialists to help improve production and process capabilities, thus ensuring product quality. Foxconn does OEM work for Apple, which not only includes OEM fee, endorsement by "Apple manufacturer", but also cooperation with Apple to develop molds and other work to improve experience ... But these are all based on the premise of Apple's brand advantage and leading technology.
ODM has the ability of R&D, design and process support, but the product quality depends entirely on its own guarantee, and the OEM can only start the mode of "spelling character". In the home appliance industry, there are many similar OEM productions, especially in the field of small household appliances. Because of the transmission of economies of scale, although the profit is meager, all parties in the industrial chain can benefit from it.
the automobile industry is a different world, which not only emphasizes the cost advantage brought by economies of scale, but also pays more attention to the control of the process quality, the improvement of production efficiency and even the rhythm of market response by the entrusting party.
During the time when Changan Ford OEM Volvo S81 L and S41 cars, Volvo's "Four Dealers" only gave "painful" comments on the product supply. Some Volvo dealers recalled that Volvo had no "right to speak" in Chang 'an factory, which led to the slow response of production to the market: if "black S81 L sells well" in the market, it would be several months before the factory began to adjust its production capacity and increase the supply of black body-the market may already have another "new love".
there are also various uncertainties in offshore outsourcing. Ander, who is in charge of CKD factory in Southeast Asia, said that its complexity lies in language and cultural differences. Different countries have different understandings of the same thing. For example, organizing staff team building, climbing mountains in the morning and having a barbecue at noon will make China people feel happy, and weekends are not a problem. The local people will ask me if I want to work overtime. In addition, travel distance, working day/time zone mismatch, and building trust and long-term relationships all require greater efforts.
from the perspective of production capacity, it seems that the "new forces" in the "capacity hunger" are the inevitable beneficiaries of OEM production. However, from the essence of OEM production, only enterprises with comparative advantages in brand, technology and system can safely "outsource" production and focus their limited resources on the good and high-value industrial chain.
in terms of strength, the "new power" has just entered the market, and the brand has not yet formed a cognition and the product has not formed a reputation, so it is difficult to throw out an attractive supply contract. For the OEM, it has not only occupied the production capacity, but also has no jingling benefits, and there is no background worth boasting and showing off ... Such cooperation will be difficult to go far. (Text/"Autobot" Wu Yu, part of the picture source network) Copyright statement This article is the exclusive original manuscript of "Autobot", and the copyright belongs to "Autobot".
This article comes from the author of Chejia, car home, and does not represent car home's standpoint.