Author: Xing Shubo
Changzhou, a rising automobile city.
At present, major automobile manufacturers such as BYD, BAIC, Dongfeng Nissan, and Li Auto have been put into production in Changzhou, and in 2023, the production capacity of BYD's Changzhou plant will exceed 400,000 units, with an output value of more than 60 billion yuan. BAIC also produced 80,000 new energy heavy-duty trucks in Changzhou.
But a few are happy and a few are sad. In May, Li Auto's layoffs affected the Changzhou plant, and in June, Nissan was reported to have shut down the Changzhou plant.
However, according to Nikkei, in 2023, Nissan's Changzhou plant will be operating at less than half of the rate, and the plant will be closed. Subsequently, Dongfeng Nissan responded to Securities Daily and other media that the Changzhou plant was not closed, and only suspended production at present. According to an interview with the Observer Network, it is rumored that "300 people are facing unemployment", and the real situation is that "normal business adjustment, the company has prepared 600 transfer positions for employees to choose from." ”
Changzhou Factory Culture Festival
It is reported that Dongfeng Nissan's Changzhou plant used to mainly produce commercial pickup trucks and commercial goods, such as Navarra and Paladin, which belonged to Zhengzhou Nissan Commercial Vehicle. In June this year, in the face of drought in many places in Shanxi, Henan Province, Zhengzhou Nissan also renovated 60 artificial rain enhancement vehicles to support the disaster area, reflecting the responsibility of the joint venture state-owned enterprise.
It is understood that after the reorganization of the Changzhou plant in 2018, it is positioned to produce passenger cars, mainly Nissan's hot-selling SUV Qashqai model at that time, and Dongfeng's own models Dongfeng Fengdu MX6 and Dongfeng Fengshen AX5, with an annual output of 120,000 passenger cars.
However, due to the cold market, the Qashqai is no longer in the limelight, and in 2020, the annual sales exceeded 180,000 units to win the compact SUV sales championship, and in 2023, only 45,000 units will be sold, falling out of the top ten in the sales list. Dongfeng Fengdu MX6 and Dongfeng Fengshen AX5 will be discontinued in 2019 and 2020 due to the cold market response. Qashqai alone cannot support the entire Changzhou factory capacity.
In May's report on Nissan China's sales results, Shohei Yamazaki, president of Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., expressed concern: "From January to May 2024, the situation in the Chinese market is still complicated, and in order to better adapt to the rapid changes in the market and consumer demand, Nissan Motor has accelerated the transformation of intelligent and electric drive in the Chinese market. ”
The turmoil at the Changzhou plant may be the throes of Nissan's electrification transformation. With Guangqi Honda laying off 2,300 employees, Toyota's four factories suspending production, and six Japanese companies involved in the collective counterfeiting of 5 million vehicles, there are still more challenges to be solved in the transformation of Japanese cars, including Nissan.
"Dongfeng Nissan's response was too slow." Lao Wang, the owner of the five-year Qashqai, eagerly hopes that the official response to Nissan's shutdown will affect the vehicle warranty after the factory shutdown, and the accessories are not easy to buy. However, Dongfeng Nissan's official micro has been lottery to send JD cards in the past few days, and no announcement was made to reassure car owners, but only refuted rumors through third-party media.
The former Nissan duo Qashqai and X-Trail are in full swing, and they have also created a lot of hot stalks. For example, "three-cylinder play desert", "mobile can". According to Lao Wang, the old Nissan SUV, pickup truck and other models used to be used as work vehicles in the power system and municipal engineering, and the leather was durable and fuel-efficient, and even a box cargo NV200 without airbags has become a god-like existence in the hearts of car players. Off-road models such as Patrol and Loulan are comparable to Prado, and are mostly used as long-distance crossing vehicles and support vehicles, with stable and reliable horsepower. It has a very high status in the minds of the older generation.
With a good reputation, Lao Wang chose Qashqai. Who knows it's the beginning of a bad day.
"This car landed 180,000 yuan that year, and the interior was a bunch of big plastics, and it was framed when it walked." Lao Wang complained that the plastic smell of this car was very strong, and he was dizzy from exposure to the sun. The suspension is also very soft, the shaking is very serious when cornering, and it is also very noisy, "My friend's 60,000 Buick Yinglang's car glass is double-layered adhesive strips." You (Qashqai) are three times more expensive, give me a single layer of adhesive strips. ”
For Lao Wang, the worst thing is not the peculiar smell, abnormal noise and poor sound insulation, but the value retention rate has fallen too much. "I've been driving for more than four years, and now the price of a second-hand car is only 70,000 yuan." Lao Wang said that he only drove for another year before changing the car, "Now for 180,000 I can buy a tank 300, a real off-road vehicle with a girder." ”
It is understood that the Tank 300 Challenger is 30 cm larger than the Nissan Qashqai, with 73 horsepower, double wishbones instead of the Qashqai single-arm MacPherson suspension, and a more advanced 8AT automatic transmission. The most critical point, as Lao Wang mentioned, is that this is an off-road SUV with girders with a non-load-bearing body, while the Qashqai is only an urban SUV with a sedan chassis modification. In the current Chinese market, their prices are almost the same, and if you take into account the subsidies for new cars and car finance in various places, the Tank 300 may be cheaper.
Large quantity, advanced technology, and fashionable styling are the three magic weapons for independent car companies to seize the Japanese car market in the SUV field. There is no reason for consumers to take the money of a hardcover house and buy a rough house. The only advantage left for Japanese cars is the traditional reliability and durability. Chinese automakers are gradually improving durability issues by comprehensively learning their production management methods.
"Toyota has two students in China, one is BYD and the other is Great Wall." Analyst Gu Xiaotu told the author that the reliable durability of automobile quality does not mean that whoever has a thick steel plate is good, but through a series of quality management processes to ensure that the car finally delivered to consumers does not have problems. "The counter-example is that there are many small problems with French cars, but French cars are used by big-name suppliers such as Valeo and Bosch. The materials are good, but the quality is poor, because the quality management in the middle is not as good as the Japanese system. Japanese cars, on the contrary, the materials and processes used in their cars are not the most advanced, such as one-piece molding technology and laser welding Japanese cars are rarely used, but the quality management is advanced, and the car will not be broken. ”
Toyota's lean manufacturing has two major characteristics; On-time production, full participation in improvement. It's all about people, especially frontline workers. Toyota will invest a lot of money and time to train skilled industrial workers, and let employees be responsible for each screw through systems, training, control, assessment, etc. The annual merit sequence and the employee suggestion system are all focused on improving the production efficiency and production quality of employees. The price is that Toyota needs to pay high salaries, high benefits, and long-term training time.
In other words, lean manufacturing reduces material costs and waste, but it also drives up labor costs. European and American car companies, on the contrary, ensure quality through automation, big-name supply chains, and huge waste, but minimize labor.
One of the most classic cases is that if an engine falls to the ground on the production line and is slightly worn, German car companies will choose to scrap the engine directly, because it is more expensive to build a new one. Japanese car companies will ask a 30-year-old master to rub a file for a week to smooth out this flaw.
Gu Xiaotu believes that Great Wall ranks high in quality among domestic independent car companies because they have learned the core of Toyota's lean production, have their own ideas on quality management, and will use more advanced materials than Toyota in terms of workmanship. BYD learned the essence of Toyota's whole industry chain layout, through its own industrial chain to reduce costs and increase efficiency, through the mixing of non-vehicle parts to reduce costs, and finally achieved a single car profit of nearly 10,000 yuan, which is an extremely rare profit margin in domestic automobiles.
In comparison, the profit of the Great Wall bicycle, which is better used, is only 5,700 yuan. The profit of GAC's own brand bicycle, which completely copied Toyota's quality management system, was only more than 2,300 yuan. "It costs money to use better materials and to use a better quality management system.
"The former is high procurement costs, and the latter is high labor costs. BYD has its own supply chain, low procurement costs, low labor costs, so high profits. The Great Wall has high procurement costs, low labor costs, and average profits. GAC uses Toyota's supply chain, Toyota's quality management system, and the higher the procurement cost and labor cost, the lower the profit. ”
In summary, both Great Wall and BYD, although they both learned from Toyota, did not completely copy Japanese companies. If it is simply thought that the Great Wall H9 replicates the shape of the Prado, and BYD Han reverse-engineered the chassis of the Camry, and then wins by cutting prices, it is just a simplification of the complex problem. Behind the rise of Chinese car companies is a deeper change in the production system, management methods, and technological progress. The decline of Japanese car companies in China is also due to problems in production, management, and technology.
Lao Li's iron pot stew business has been okay recently, and he decided to replace his old Haval H9 with a new H9. But he was angry with the Great Wall customer service.
"I called and said that I wanted to replace, and only gave me a subsidy of 80,000 yuan for the car that landed 400,000 yuan that year. The Prado that my comrades-in-arms bought together at that time was about the same, and the replacement of H9 could subsidize 180,000. The customer service laughed at me directly. She said that our Great Wall brand is not hard enough, so it can only be at this price. When I bought the car, why didn't you say that your brand was not hard? ”
Hardcore off-road, but the brand is not hard. This may be the problem of value retention rate currently faced by domestic independence. It is understood that the three-year value retention rate of Harvard H9 is 63%, and the three-year value retention rate of Prado is 96%.
In order to maintain the value of BYD, BYD has also recently revised its three-electric lifetime warranty policy. In the past, BYD car owners wanted a lifetime warranty, and BYD officially issued 8 restrictions, one of which was that "only the first owner can enjoy a lifetime warranty". This has greatly affected the value retention rate of BYD's used cars. Now this restriction has been loosened. BYD officials said that as long as the owner of the officially certified second-hand car is purchased, he can also enjoy the lifetime warranty policy.
"BYD Qin, who buys 79,800, may not care about the value retention rate, but this policy is still very important for millions of luxury cars to look up to U9." Xiao Liu, who works in a wedding company, said. The company recently purchased a second-hand Yangwang U9 as a wedding car, and the market price is more than 100,000 yuan more expensive than last month. "If I wanted to buy it last year, it was very cheap. But there is no warranty, and I dare not buy it. Although it is expensive now, I dare to buy it. ”
See the big in the small. After making up for the shortcomings of exterior and interior design, production management, and three-electric technology, domestic cars are gradually solving the problem of low value retention. This means that the myth of the only value retention rate of Japanese cars in China will also be equaled by independent companies in the future.
The reliability behind the value retention rate has gradually been exposed as Japanese cars gradually use new technologies.
In 2020, Toyota switched from an old self-aspirated engine to a hybrid dual-engine, followed by an oil emulsification problem. Toyota's BZ3 electric vehicle, which claims to be the most safe, also had a spontaneous combustion accident. What's even more sad is that the million-dollar luxury car Toyota Alpha can't open the train door at high speed. Honda replaced the turbocharged engine and used a particle trap in order to comply with emission standards, but it was complained about the blockage of the particle trap, and the new Civic without a particle trap was released in 2024. Nissan CVT transmission steel belt breakage, three-cylinder engine, cold start protection and other problems also made car owners complain, and Nissan fully substituted into the downward channel.
Only then did people discover that the myth of the reliability of Japanese cars had been shattered. In the context of new technology testing, new emission standard compliance, and new energy lane change overtaking, the quality of Japanese cars is not much better than that of other car companies, and there are also problems. Without the aura of durability, the quality problems such as poor materials, low configuration, sound insulation, and abnormal noise, which were already criticized by people, are also magnified. As a commodity, if there is a problem with the quality, it is inevitable that the value retention rate will decline.
According to the Autohome Research Institute's value retention rate ranking in May, the Honda Civic fell by 2.98%, the Ya Excellency fell by 2.81%, and even the Nissan Sylphy, whose new car price fell to 60,000 yuan, also fell by 2.68%.
In addition, according to the report of the China Market Circulation Association, although the overall value retention rate of independent brands declined in May, FAW Hongqi and Besturn achieved a slight growth. At the same time, Geely surpasses Haval, Chery surpasses BYD, and Baojun surpasses ideal.
The retention rate is the most intuitive reflection of the quality of the car and the ranking of the brand premium in the minds of consumers. But now, with the price reduction of new cars, the increase in models, and the increase in the frequency of people changing cars, the consumption method of passing on one car for three generations and people walking away in the past has gradually been replaced by the consumption method of changing after three or five years of driving after the warranty period.
Koyanagi wants to change cars, he likes Changan Auchan, and the stylish atmosphere is equipped with more power. The family asked her to buy a Corolla double engine, which is durable, worry-free, and has low fuel consumption. This may be the contradiction of most families buying a car. Koyanagi believes that now the car is not expensive, and the technology is getting more and more advanced, and if you change it every few years, the old car can still be worth a little money, and you can also enjoy the newer technology. The family believes that the joint venture car is more worry-free and can be driven for a longer time. Driving a car long enough and short enough in a lifetime to drive as many cars as possible and enjoy different pleasures is not so much a shift in consumption patterns as a lifestyle shift.
In the process of this shift, consumers' perceptions of value retention have become different. Koyanagi calculated that Chang'an's three-year value retention rate was half lower than Toyota's, but Toyota's eight-year value retention rate was not high. In fact, it's time to change any car after 8 to 10 years. The difference is that if you sell Changan after 6 years of driving, and sell Toyota after 10 years, the price is about the same. In the past ten years, I have been able to drive two new cars that are exempt from inspection during the 6-year warranty period. But if you drive a Toyota, it can only be a car, and in the next four years, it will still be an old and dilapidated car with a comprehensive backward power configuration in the exterior and interior. And Changan Auchan and Corolla Shuangqing, their new car prices are the same.
In summary, for young consumers who change cars within a few years, the value retention rate of Japanese cars has no impact on them. For middle-aged and elderly consumers who believe in the quality of joint venture cars, the recent series of quality problems, counterfeiting and excessively high prices of Japanese cars have also affected their car purchase choices.
The only counter-example is that Baojun's value retention rate exceeds ideal. This may be because Baojun, as the first choice for online car-hailing, has more commercial attributes, has a higher second-hand turnover rate, a more prosperous market, and active buying and selling, so the value retention rate is relatively high. The ideal is mainly for household use, and the short-term demand for car replacement is not strong, and there are fewer cars flowing into the second-hand market, which affects the value retention rate.
Problems with the quality of Japanese cars have led to a decline in the value retention rate. The consumption habits of the younger generation of consumers have changed, and the reliability and durability of the old Japanese are no longer useful. The number of domestic cars is large, the power configuration of the exterior and interior is fully crushed by Japanese cars, and the value retention rate is slowly increasing, but the price is only half. Take the Great Wall H9 as an example, the configuration power is better than the Prado of the same size, the value retention rate is only two-thirds of the Prado, but the price is only half of the latter, and it also pursues Toyota's lean production and quality management system, so it is clear how consumers will choose.
Another example is the Nissan Qashqai and the Tank 300, the same price, the power configuration is fully crushed, the urban SUV with fists and legs and the hard-core off-road with girders, how will consumers choose, who cares about the value retention rate?
Great Wall single-handedly single-handedly took on Toyota, Nissan and Wrangler, and became the star company of the hard-core off-road track. In the field of traditional fuel vehicles, he gave Japanese car companies an arithmetic problem: how to calculate the cost and price, so as to give consumers enough power and configuration on the basis of such a low price, as well as body materials that are far better than those of Japanese cars? This is also the reason why Japanese companies can't build Wuling Hongguang even if they dismantle a Wuling Hongguang mini: we are professional in price wars, especially Hebei merchants.
Baoding, Hebei Province is the capital of e-commerce in the north, and last winter, Baoding e-commerce hit the military coat of 300 yuan in Yiwu to 50 yuan, and it became popular all of a sudden: "No one can fight a price war with Hebei people." Others do e-commerce without losing or losing less money, or play differentiation. Hebei e-commerce is on the market: a pre-loss of 200,000. ”
Great Wall Motors is rooted in Baoding and is well versed in the way of Hebei e-commerce.
"The tank 700 Hi4-T released by Great Wall this year, a limited edition of 70 units, was all sold out in 55 seconds after the first release. This car is benchmarked against the Mercedes-Benz big G, and the cost of materials alone is more than 700,000. Mercedes-Benz wants to do it according to this configuration, and the cost is at least 1.5 million to make a foundation. The bargaining power of domestic cars is too strong. A Mercedes-Benz salesman told the author that the price of domestic cars is now a bit "crazy". If the price of the joint venture car is reduced, it will not sell the car at a price lower than the cost price, and the domestic car will dare to sell the car at a loss. In the past, it was only the new forces that lost money to sell cars, but this year, the old traditional car companies have also begun to sell cars at a loss. ”。 What he didn't know was that the price of the production version of the tank 700 was nearly half cheaper than the initial price, 420,000.
"Behind the simple and crude price war is the disorderly competition of cutting corners, counterfeiting and selling, and non-compliance." At this year's Chongqing forum, Geely founder Li Shufu said.
Xu Daquan, President of Bosch China, pointed out that the price reduction of new energy vehicles has also dragged traditional diesel locomotives into the water. "Many customers asked us to reduce prices, and we negotiated step by step, and even said in some places, 'If you don't agree, we won't pay'."
The fact that Bosch in the automotive supply chain T1 is still so humble shows how far the price war has forced car companies. According to some data, after 17 months of price war, the losses caused by the national car companies will not be able to make up for the 20% layoffs.
A classic case of EMBA is the Southeast Asian motorcycle trap. In the 90s, domestic motorcycles entered the Southeast Asian market in a big way, and they were popular for their low prices and low maintenance costs. But nowadays, almost all of the top five in markets such as Vietnam and Thailand are Japanese manufacturers. The reason is that from 2000 to 2010, domestic motorcycles fought a ten-year price war in Southeast Asia, resulting in the supply chain not making money and only shoddy, the quality of the vehicle declined rapidly, the value retention rate plummeted, and the failure rate rose sharply. In the end, motorcycles were unsalable, the profitability of car companies declined, research and development was stopped, and key components such as engines relied on purchasing Japanese car manufacturers to survive. After the cost rise, the price war was unsustainable, and the price in the end market had no advantage over Japanese manufacturers, and finally collapsed.
The Asian market was the first to develop two-wheelers. The endless price war led to the demise of domestic motorcycles. At the same time, Japan Motorcycle still adheres to lean production and its own industrial chain, actively develops new technologies, and does not fight a price war. Now it seems that if the domestic auto industry continues the endless price war, will it also repeat the mistakes of the past and enter the next motorcycle trap? This requires the wisdom of domestic manufacturers.
Fortunately, some car companies have now taken the initiative to jump out of the price war competition.
BYD, which is invincible in the sedan and SUV field by relying on price wars, has doubled its prices instead of waging a price war in its weak off-road vehicle field. The Equation Leopard, released last year, is benchmarked against the Tank 300, but is much more expensive than the Tank 300.
The reason is that Formula Leopard did not choose to develop off-road vehicles in the field of fuel vehicles, but found another way to develop an electric off-road DM-O chassis, and the same technology was also used by BYD's pickup trucks released overseas. The era of homogenization and price war has passed, and now BYD plans to use its leading three-electric technology to start a new track. There are not many players in this track, it is a blue ocean, with first-mover advantages, technical advantages, brand endorsements, and the whole industry chain model that BYD learned from Toyota, and agile development that Silicon Valley learned.
With a new track, epoch-making products, and world-leading technology, BYD has no reason to lose money and sell or fight a price war? The result? The BYD Formula Leopard achieved the second best sales in the hardcore off-road segment, second only to the Tank 300.
But do you say how good the Equation Leopard quality is? Not necessarily. Many car owners reported that the half shaft of the equation leopard is easy to break. In May, BYD announced that it would replace the reinforced half-axle for car owners free of charge. But why is everyone so tolerant of Leopard 5? Because it's new and needs to grow. The Tesla modelS that was just released 10 years ago also has a bunch of problems, but so what? It's a brand new track, and it's understandable that there are problems.
Jiang Wen went to Beiying to attend the symposium at that time. Chen Jianbin was still a student at the time, and he stood up and said I will surpass you one day.
Jiang Wen said, you don't want to surpass me, you want another mountain.
There are still too few Chinese car companies that dare to start anew.