Media: Hubei does not do China’s Detroit while helping fuel vehicles to destock, while frantically adding new energy
As a pole that cannot be ignored on the map of China’s auto industry, Hubei is starting the strongest car purchase discount season in history. The difference is that the government is at the forefront. The official guide price of a Dongfeng Citroen C6 co-creation version is 216,800 yuan, and the manufacturer and the government each subsidize 45,000 yuan, which means that the hand price is only 126,800 yuan.
This is the second time since 2023 that Hubei has caused national controversy in the automotive field. Two months ago, Hubei Huanggang announced that it had reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Faraday Future led by Jia Yueting. The two parties will promote FF to establish a Chinese headquarters in Huanggang, and the Huanggang government guidance fund will end and participate in the investment.
While helping fuel vehicles to destock, while frantically adding new energy sources, Hubei’s anxiety is beyond words.
The Hidden Worry of the First Pillar Industry
If you know that the automobile manufacturing industry is the largest pillar industry in Hubei, it is not difficult to understand the motivation and determination of the local government of Hubei to “enter the game”.
In the past two years, Hubei’s economic performance has been outstanding. In 2021, it will exceed the 5 trillion yuan mark. Calculated at comparable prices, its GDP will grow by 12.9%, ranking first in the country. Last year, the GDP growth rate was 7.44%, which is still the leading level in the country. The total GDP is only 300 billion yuan behind Sichuan, which ranks sixth.
In the composition of Hubei’s GDP, the contribution of the automobile manufacturing industry once exceeded 20%. As of 2021, there are 1,578 enterprises above designated size in the automobile industry in Hubei Province, 25 complete vehicle companies, and nearly 1,400 parts and components enterprises above designated size, directly and indirectly driving the employment of millions of people.
Throughout 2022, against the backdrop of severe setbacks in the auto industry, the annual added value of the auto industry in Hubei will increase by 1.5%, barely withstanding the downward pressure, but what about the future?
Take Dongfeng Motor, the most important automobile company in Hubei, which is on the cusp this time, as an example. The sales data of 2.4645 million vehicles last year was less than 60% in 2016. The sales volume in January this year fell by 64.4% year-on-year.
Compared with the decline of a single brand, the lack of a feast of new energy vehicles is more worrying.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the output of automobiles in Hubei in 2021 will be 2.099 million vehicles, second only to Guangdong, Shanghai and Jilin in the country. However, throughout 2021, China’s new energy vehicle production will reach 3.545 million, and Hubei will only account for 4.2%. The figure of 150,000 vehicles is not only far lower than the 632,000 vehicles in Shanghai, it is not even comparable to the 205,000 vehicles in Zhejiang, and Anhui, which is betting on Weilai, has a figure of 252,000 vehicles.
Although the proportion of new energy in automobile production is still not high, it has already affected the status of Hubei and other cities. For example, in 2022, Hubei’s automobile production will be surpassed by Chongqing, and it will be ranked fifth in the country, with a gap of 195,800 vehicles. Among them, the production gap of new energy vehicles reached 72,200.
Considering the seesaw effect between new energy and fuel vehicles in the future, the pressure on Hubei’s first pillar industry is obvious.
Lonely “Motor City”
It is not just the local government in Hubei that is anxious. In the former “Auto City” Changchun, China FAW launched the “Flag Benefit Jilin-100 million yuan limited-time subsidy for the people” campaign, covering all FAW’s models, with a total of 150 million yuan, the highest Bicycle subsidies reached 37,000 yuan. However, most of this money is provided by FAW Group, and Changchun City’s subsidy is only 30 million yuan.
Judging from the data, Jilin’s automobile output last year was 2.1558 million units, ranking third in the country after Guangdong and Shanghai, but a year-on-year decrease of 11.07%, only 64,000 units ahead of the fourth-ranked Chongqing. I am afraid that it will be surpassed sooner or later. thing. Throughout 2021, Jilin will only produce 104,000 new energy vehicles.
In the face of menacing new energy vehicles, Hubei and Jilin have become a pair of difficult brothers.
Historically, the auto industries of the two places are indeed linked by blood. At the end of the 1960s, because of the large-scale “third-line construction”, Changchun FAW decided to build the second automobile factory in Shiyan, Hubei, which later became Dongfeng Motor Company. Around 1979, Dongfeng 140, 240 and other models participated in the counterattack against Vietnam, and were hailed as “hero cars” and “hero cars” by officers and soldiers. “Second Automobile” occupied half of the domestic automobile market in one fell swoop.
Compared with Hubei, the story of Jilin and the automobile industry is more vigorous. The first truck, the first car and the first off-road vehicle in New China were born here, and a large number of backbone talents in the automobile industry were also trained.
However, after the reform and opening up, under the multiple impacts of the market economy and the reform of state-owned enterprises, the old industrial base in Northeast China, represented by Changchun Automobile Industry, fell into a collective depression.
On the other hand, Shanghai and Guangdong took the lead in establishing joint venture factories. In the era of fuel vehicles, SAIC and GAC respectively held onto the thighs of German cars and Japanese cars. Entering the 21st century, BYD and Tesla are the protagonists , The two places started to tell the story of new energy vehicles, realizing the smooth switching of new and old energy sources in the automotive industry.
It’s just that this round of changes in the auto industry and market demand is more traceable than the series of drastic changes caused by policy dominance back then. In the 1970s and 1980s, when Changchun gradually had the ambition and embryonic form of the “Motor City”, Detroit, the world-famous “Motor City” on the other side of the ocean, ushered in a “big defeat”.
detroit big defeat
On July 18, 2013, “Motor City” Detroit officially filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the largest bankrupt city in American history. However, just half a century ago, this was the best place to realize the “American Dream”, and the “Big Three” of the United States (General Motors, Ford, Chrysler) all had their headquarters here.
On the surface, Detroit’s decline is because American cars can’t beat Japanese cars. In the 1970s and 1980s, Japanese cars represented by Toyota, Honda and Nissan entered the U.S. domestic market, and quickly defeated established automakers such as General Motors and Ford. Until 1980, Japan replaced the U.S. as the world’s largest car manufacturer. country.
But from a deeper perspective, behind this is still the energy revolution and industrial transformation. In December 1970, the U.S. government passed the Air Purification Act, requiring vehicles produced after 1975 to emit one-tenth of the pollutants emitted in 1970 and 1971, giving the American “gas tigers” a heavy blow.
The house leak happened to rain overnight. In the 1970s, the world experienced two rounds of “oil crises”, which directly affected the sales of American cars. For example, in the first oil crisis, General Motors sold 1.5 million less cars, and Ford sold 500,000 less cars, but the two giants didn’t take it seriously.
By 1979, Japan had exported 4.5 million cars, of which 2 million were on American roads. In this year alone, the share of Japanese cars in the United States increased by 7 percentage points.
Taking history as a mirror, look at the present: controlling “carbon emissions” has become a global consensus, and China is also actively achieving the goals of “carbon peak” in 2030 and “carbon neutrality” in 2060, and the war between Russia and Ukraine has exacerbated the global energy tension. situation.