AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)06/14 Report--

The deadlock of the "global chip shortage", which has lasted for nearly two years, has not yet been completely resolved. According to the latest data released by the automotive industry data forecasting company AFS, as of June 12, due to the chip shortage, the global automobile market has lost about 2.2304 million vehicles this year, of which 107300 vehicles have been reduced in China, while Europe and North America are the two regions with the largest cumulative production reduction in the world, and it is expected that production will be reduced by more than 1 million vehicles this year.

Specifically, affected by the global chip shortage, global automakers cut production by about 234200 vehicles last week, particularly in North America, where AFS estimates show that production fell by 205200 vehicles in North America last week, 25200 in South America, and 4200 in other parts of Asia. China, the Middle East and Africa did not further cut production due to lack of cores. From the overall data, the cumulative production reduction in China's automobile market is not large and shows a decreasing trend. Sam Fiorani, vice president of global automotive forecasting at AFS, said the new forecasts provided included revised European car production cuts, which AFS cut by about 500 to 794100 vehicles. AFS expects cumulative production cuts in the global car market to climb to about 3.04 million vehicles this year.

In fact, since the outbreak of COVID-19 's epidemic in 2020, the shortage of chip supply chain has been restricting the development of the global automobile industry. due to the influence of lack of core, the global automobile industry is generally faced with the pressure of stopping production and reducing production, at the same time, the lack of core also directly led to some car companies have to reduce or delay the delivery date of new cars. After entering 2022, the problem of global chip shortage is better than that of the previous year, but it is still more serious. Pat Kissinger, CEO of Intel, has previously said that "the global chip supply shortage may last for another two years", in other words, the chip shortage will not improve until 2023. Recently, however, people in the industry have pointed out that the core shortage problem has improved faster than previously expected. Among them, the problem of core shortage has improved in part because multi-car companies have suffered severe production shutdowns due to the impact of the general environment, and the poor economic outlook and inflation have led consumers to reduce demand for consumer electronics products that also need chips. A number of automakers, including Mercedes-Benz and BMW, have said that the supply of chips has improved. A BMW spokesman said: "the chip supply situation is slightly more stable at the moment," but stressed that it would not rule out the possibility of new disruptions in the coming weeks and months. A Volkswagen spokesman also pointed out that the company has received a stable supply, but he still has a lot of uncertainty in the coming months, and it is estimated that the chip crisis will begin to ease in the second half of this year. From this point of view, the lack of core problem has indeed been significantly improved, but the lack of core is a global problem, so a number of car companies are still facing a serious "lack of core" problem.

Take May this year as an example, in the past May, there are still a number of car companies CEO openly said that they are facing "lack of core" trouble. On May 26th, he Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng Automobile, borrowed the video of "Koda Duck urgently for chips" to point out the current distress of lack of chips in his supply chain team, saying that although the automobile supply chain has gradually recovered, the shortage of automotive chips is still a major problem at present. At the same time, he Xiaopeng stressed: in fact, most of the missing chips are cheap chips, not those that are concerned by many people to start a business or are very expensive. At the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area International Automobile Expo, he Xiaopeng also directly expressed the problem of skyrocketing chip prices. cheap chips with an original purchase cost of only a few yuan were fried to several thousand yuan, such as chips quoted at 3000, 2700, and 2500 yuan. but the actual purchase cost is only 3.50 yuan, 7 yuan, in this environment, there is no way to do procurement.

In addition, several media reported that Bosch, one of the world's largest car suppliers, is renegotiating contracts with car companies because of rising cost pressures such as logistics, raw materials and energy. However, Bosch did not respond to the news at that time. But Shen Hui, CEO of Weimar, said: "Bosch's price increase is not a rumor." Shen Hui, CEO of Weimar, pointed out on his personal Weibo on May 31 that there had been another round of price increases in car chips recently, saying: "Bosch's price increase is not a rumor, there are other Tier1. The price increases are all essential chips, and we have made a simple estimate that the chip cost of smart electric vehicles has exceeded that of battery packs. In this context, it is difficult for a single 10,000-yuan lidar to stay hot. It also means that the electric car industry track has shifted from batteries to chips. Enterprises should still do a good job in lean management to avoid price increases in end products. Chen Yudong, president of Bosch China, once said in an interview with the media: "this year has been a year of sharp price increases in the auto industry, mainly caused by batteries, but other auto parts such as chips have also risen."

Volvo trucks also said the supply of chips was still limited and production was expected to be affected in the second quarter. In addition, in May this year, due to the epidemic and parts supply shortages, the global car company Toyota even issued two notices to stop production and cut production within a week, which directly reduced Toyota's production capacity by 150000 vehicles in June.

In early June, CCTV reported that Russia's Ministry of Industry and Trade said Russia would restrict the export of inert gases such as neon by the end of this year in response to previous EU restrictions on the country's semiconductor exports. As neon, krypton, xenon and other inert gases are indispensable raw materials in the chip manufacturing process, analysts believe that Russia's inert gas export restrictions may aggravate the supply shortage in the global chip market.

In April, even earlier, because of the lack of core, Ford's American factory could not install the chip, so the vehicle could not be delivered, so it was left idle, and eventually had to sell "semi-finished" cars. Of course, Ford also promised to reissue the chip to the dealer a year later, and the dealer will assist in the installation of the vehicle.

Generally speaking, the automotive industry is still in a state of shortage of key components. In response to problems such as core shortage, it was reported today that relevant staff of listed companies in the production of new energy vehicles said that the problems of raw materials and lack of core have an impact on the industry, but enterprises will take various measures to deal with them.

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