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Since it was revealed that there was a lack of cores in the automobile industry in December last year, a number of overseas car companies are facing a reduction or suspension of production due to the supply of chips. According to the CCTV financial channel, there is a shortage in the international chip market, the automobile industry has been affected, Volkswagen, Ford, Toyota and other car companies have to take production cuts, capacity cuts and other ways to deal with the crisis.

It is understood that under the influence of the epidemic, consumer demand for home appliances and smartphone products has increased, and semiconductor chips have been used by manufacturers to take the lead in arranging for the production of household appliances and mobile phone chips with higher profitability, while the production plan for vehicle semiconductors with low profitability has been postponed. At the same time, the automobile industry gradually recovered in the second half of the year, and the shortage of on-board semiconductors became more and more serious, resulting in a number of car companies facing production cuts or suspension of production.

At present, a number of car companies, including Volkswagen, Toyota, Ford, Daimler and so on, have announced that they have to adjust their production plans because of the supply of semiconductor chips.

As early as December 2020, Volkswagen Group said that due to chip shortages, its plants in Europe, North America and China were expected to cut production by 100000 vehicles in the first quarter of this year. On January 7, Honda announced that it would cut production by 4000 vehicles in January due to a shortage of semiconductor chips in vehicle control systems. On January 8, Toyota announced that it would reduce production of Tundra pickup trucks produced at its Texas assembly plant by about 40%. On January 11, Ford announced that it would suspend production at its manufacturing plant in Louisville, Kentucky, for a week due to shortages of chips and related parts, and that Ford Richie and Lincoln adventurers would suspend production. In addition, the plant will temporarily cut about 3900 jobs; in addition, Nissan, FCA, Audi, BMW, Daimler and other car companies are also affected by chip shortages.

According to Bernstein Research, the global shortage of automotive chips in 2021 will result in a loss of production of as many as 4.5 million vehicles, equivalent to about 5 per cent of global annual car production. In addition, Inverto, a think-tank owned by Boston Consulting, predicts that the shortage of automotive semiconductor chips will affect the automotive industry for half a year or even three quarters.

For this reason, many car companies have adopted the decision of "abandoning the car to protect the handsome". Daimler will bring higher profit margins by providing a limited supply of chips to models such as the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Volkswagen has taken similar steps, giving priority to Porsche models and Skoda's new all-electric SUV model.

As for Chinese brands, the lack of core has little impact on Chinese independent brands and joint venture brands. GAC GROUP said a few days ago that due to the spread of novel coronavirus, the global economic situation has been affected. Individual enterprises of GAC GROUP have received early warning information from suppliers that the supply of parts and components of some models will be affected, and the relevant situation is still under rolling confirmation. SAIC Volkswagen has suspended production of some low-end models, but this is also in line with the company's strategy of moving to the high end of its overall product this year, according to people close to SAIC-Volkswagen.

Some industry insiders said that China is the world's largest automobile market and the first country in the world to recover from the epidemic, and the demand for semiconductor chips is greater than that of other countries, which will increase orders and reserves of semiconductor chips. therefore, there will not be a large-scale shutdown due to "lack of core" in the short term.

Data show that international semiconductor chip suppliers mainly include NXP, Infineon, Renesas, Italian and French semiconductors, etc. Relevant data show that in 2019, the import rate of China's on-board chips is more than 90%. The pre-installation market of automotive electronic chips is mainly dominated by international automotive chip manufacturers such as Infineon, and key system chips such as sensors, vehicle networks, three electric systems, chassis electronic control, ADAS, and self-driving are excessively dependent on imports.

Miao Wei, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese people's political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said at the 2021 China Electric vehicle 100 Forum that the United States will step in to curb countries and enterprises that are in the forefront of technology, and that the sanctions imposed on Huawei and ZTE should be vigilant to the automobile industry. make early preparations, "neck" parts should have at least one spare tire. Xiao Yaqing, minister of industry and information technology, also said that Chinese companies need to enhance the competitiveness of their supply chains and speed up the development of chips and operating systems.

On January 22nd, in response to the problem of semiconductor chip "neck jam", BYD responded that the company's IGBT chip has been used in various product lines, in addition to the brand's own use, it can also be exported, there is no "neck jam" problem. In addition, Zhixin Semiconductor Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Dongfeng Motor Group, said that the production line with an annual production capacity of 300000 sets of power chip modules will be put into mass production in April.

However, the "lack of core" has an impact on the production of automakers, and the supply of some models is limited, and terminal concessions are expected to be revised back. For those models that can only be bought with a price increase, the rate of increase is also expected to increase.

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