Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Original title: "going out to sea, a dawn that penetrates the gloomy clouds | variable 2022"

In 2022, China's automobile industry seems to be in flames of war, with core shortages, supply cuts, price increases, work stoppages, and expensive electricity. In retrospect, this year has not been easy.

Even so, Chinese cars have unleashed full optimism. On the one hand, new energy vehicles maintained rapid growth, with production and sales doubling in the first 11 months, with a share of 25%, accounting for 33.8% of November production and sales. In addition, another more noteworthy and anticipated trend is the surge in exports.

In the first 11 months, China exported 2.785 million cars, an increase of 55.3 per cent. In October, China overtook Germany to become the world's second-largest car exporter after Japan, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs in October, an achievement that is likely to last until the end of this year, given the still fast-growing export volume.

Coming from the China Automobile Association, it has become the dawn of China's automobile industry to penetrate the gloomy clouds in the not-so-optimistic year 2022.

The second wave of Chinese car exports took place between 2004 and 2008, reaching the 1 million mark in 2012, and then began to decline until it rebounded in 2016, returning to millions in 2018 and lasting for three years. The second round of growth began last year, first surpassing South Korea to become the world's third largest car exporter, and then surpassing Germany to become the world's second largest car exporter this year.

For more than 10 years, Chinese cars have experienced not only quantitative changes, but also qualitative changes: from commercial vehicles to passenger vehicles, from performance-to-price ratio to quality, from Asia, Africa and Latin America to Europe (Europe accounts for more than 30% of exports). From fuel vehicles to new energy.

In October this year, BYD and the Great Wall landed at the Paris Motor Show and held a press conference in Berlin, Germany, announcing their official entry into the European market. After entering Norway last year, BYD and the Great Wall provided new services to four markets in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.

11 months before Li Bin posted a selfie on NIO House in Frankfurt on Xilai App, China's new energy vehicle exports grew by 593000.

Looking back at 2016, when China's auto exports rebounded, it can be said to be the first year of our country's new energy vehicles. In that year, the global automobile market entered a period of change, Model 3 was released, and Tesla ushered in his own "iPhone 4 moment". Our country quickly joined the trend of change. Lulai, ideal and other new car-building companies were frequently exposed and entered the public eye in that year.

Taking Europe as the starting point and accelerating the transformation of the global market to new energy has become the most powerful prerequisite for Chinese cars to set sail for the second time, while the drastic change in the competitive environment has brought great opportunities for breakthrough.

There is a huge product fit between Europe and China. Popular cars in Europe provide a broad space for a large number of local entry-level EV, there is no big gap between luxury brands and mainstream brands, and it is quite friendly to newly built car brands such as Lulai, which focuses on the market of more than 300000 or even 400000 yuan.

The bigger opportunity comes from the huge space of the competitive environment. At present, the pace of new energy transformation of European, Japanese and South Korean car companies is slow, Volkswagen ID. The series is almost the only native EV product; Tesla's layout in Europe has been repeatedly blocked, and since the end of last year, he has repeatedly fallen into negative public opinion such as sexual harassment scandals and Twitter farce, and the market is not as dynamic as expected.

From market potential to competitive space, there is no doubt that there is a great opportunity to go to sea. But the initial premise of all this is whether the aspirations of these companies are strong enough.

Back to the comfort zone? November is an interesting node. In the same month, China's car exports dropped 2.5% from the previous month. This is the second time since April, and the last time it happened in September, but domestic car sales rose nearly 10% month-on-month that month. Domestic sales and exports fell month-on-month for the first time in November.

A more direct comparison occurs in the news field, where reports of cars going out to sea reached a peak in October this year, with a wave of data analysis and industry reviews. By November, such reports began to decline.

What happened in November? On the 11th of that month, the government issued "20 articles" for epidemic prevention and began to relax control measures.

Another interesting set of comparisons is that among the soaring car exports this year, the best performing car companies are SAIC, Chery, Tesla China, Changan, Dongfeng, Geely, Great Wall and so on, except BYD, which has a clean ride in its home market this year, and Guangzhou Auto, which has a good performance and is expected to complete its annual KPI. In the new car camp, the most active ones to go to sea are Aichi, which began to be laid out in 2019, Xiaopeng, which began to be laid out in 2020, and Weilai, which began to be laid out last year, while the most outstanding ideal of sales has not gone out to sea for a long time.

With the slight relaxation of the epidemic prevention policy of the China Automobile Association in November, car exports fluctuated; exports soared throughout the year, but the car companies with the highest match between actual sales and expectations showed little performance. This phenomenon bluntly shows a fact that cannot be ignored:

A large part of the sea craze in the past two years is due to the impact of the epidemic and the failure to fully release the local market, and car companies seek to digest redundant production in the market. As a result, the export volume decreased month-on-month in November when the epidemic prevention policy was loosened. It can also be seen that the local sales of a small number of car companies that meet and exceed expectations are not willing to go out to sea for the time being.

With the full liberalization of the epidemic prevention policy, China's economic activities are bound to gradually return to the normal state. Whether the economic environment can return or not is unknown, but it is certain that it will be in a state of recovery, at least in the short term. So, with the gradual recovery of economic activity and the general optimism of the local market, will the car companies be firm in their strategy of going to sea? The answer may not be as definite as we thought.

After all, "going out to sea" and its symbolic significance all fall on the theme of China's automobile industry, and will certainly benefit from going to sea, there is and only China's automobile industry. For enterprises, going out to sea means definite investment and uncertain returns, and as long as the local market develops as expected, they will naturally be happy to lie in their comfort zone.

Who will rank the multinational car companies, taking the 2021 sales ranking as an example.

Toyota, the biggest monster, ranks in the top 3 in China, the United States and Europe, with the United States ranked No. 1; Volkswagen ranks No. 1 in Europe and China, and the United States ranks in the top 15. These two are the top car companies in the absolute sense.

The second echelon includes Honda, Nissan, Ford, General Motors and Hyundai, and at least two of the world's three largest markets are in the top 10. Compared with Toyota and Volkswagen, these car companies obviously owe a point of soundness and sense of security.

As for the third echelon, Peugeot ranked No. 2 in Europe, Jeep and Dodge were both in the top 10 in the United States. Only the PSA of the European market and the FCA of the American market have no competitiveness in the world, so merging into Stellantis Group to keep warm is the only choice. Only Renault in the European single market is in the same situation as PSA and FCA, which is the source of the contradiction between Renault and Nissan for a long time.

From China, the United States and Europe, the three major markets in the world, car companies that have only achieved success in a single market are not enough to become multinational car companies with full competitiveness and sense of security. Even Tesla, a new energy car company that looks set to become the number one car company in the world in the future, did not really hold on to the position of a company with a market capitalization of hundreds of billions of dollars until the Chinese and American markets exploded.

China is the largest single market in the world, which is much larger than that of the United States and Europe, which gives local car companies a sufficient and secure growth and survival environment, but the anti-risk ability of the single market is lacking after all, as evidenced by the sharp rise in exports affected by the epidemic in the past two years. As for the international influence beyond the anti-risk ability, the degree of participation in the international automobile industry and the derived pricing power and industrial influence, it is simply impossible to stop at home.

This is also the reason why Lailai is one of the most powerful companies going out to sea. If it is the mainstream price car companies, the huge capacity of the Chinese market is enough to meet their development, but located in the luxury market, the living space is much narrower, to seek a larger market space, is the necessity of continuous expansion.

The revelation of the World Cup as a representative of domestic excellent Mesozoic footballers, Wei Shihao once talked about his career abroad in a football talk show. He was expected to enter the Portuguese Super League at a young age, but when he could not get a chance to play, he easily gave up the opportunity to continue to work overseas and returned to China, because the Chinese Super League, which was popular with Jinyuan football at that time, was full of gold. When you return home, you can get a salary that far exceeds that of overseas.

The most talented post-90s player in the country disappeared from the crowd.

Even if the Chinese team took advantage of the remaining temperature of Jinyuan football and planned a group of excellent Brazilian players to train for a long time at the expense of league consistency, they still failed to enter the World Cup match. The same is true of the host Qatar, which has established a scientific mechanism for selecting talents, and has only become the weakest host in history through training and training.

Qatar in the World Cup | from FIFA, let's take a look at Japan and South Korea, which have reached the last 16 in several consecutive World Cups. A large number of overseas players is the key to their success. It is true that "studying abroad" is more the result than the reason-if you can't get out of it, you can't get out at all-- but the law it reflects is obvious. Only by competing in a more fierce environment can you become a truly powerful participant.

The epidemic has promoted Chinese car companies to go out to sea, and they have made achievements that can not be ignored in just two years, which need to be remembered and internalized into confidence and belief. If we return to the mainland to enjoy the dividends of the largest market, the end result will only be another PSA and FCA that can not stand the wind and rain.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: autocarweekly (ID:autocarweekly), article: plums from West Asia

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