In 2023, China will export 4.91 million vehicles, surpassing the original No. 1 Japan (4.42 million units) and becomingThe world's largest exporter of automobiles
Everyone should have seen this news recently.
Some people say that this data is not golden, because foreign brands like Tesla have contributed a lot. How to say it, it is true that they have a part, but in fact, Tesla exported 340,000 units last year, and even if it is taken out, China will still win.
Looking at the top ten car companies in exports, except for Tesla, they are all domestic manufacturers, until.
Only nine or ten people have the shadow of a joint venture.
Maybe you don't have any idea about exporting nearly 5 million vehicles a year.
Let's pull a timeline, in the 50s of the last century, when China's first Jiefang brand car rolled off the assembly line, the annual production of cars in the UK had exceeded one million.
In 1957, we exported the first Jiefang car, and in 2012, exports exceeded 1 million for the first time. From 1 to 1 million, it took 55 years.
But since 2020, we've skyrocketed by more than 1 million units every year: in 2020, 9950,000 units; In 2021, it doubled to 20160,000 units; In 2022, 31110,000 units; 4.91 million units in 2023.
This curve took off in place at an unprecedented speed, and in just three years, we have become the top brother from the middle of the list.
So, what exactly is happening to Chinese cars?
From FAW to joint venture
The export history of China's automobiles is in the same vein as the development of our automobiles, and their common starting point is FAW.
When New China was first founded, the country was in a state of poverty and whiteness. In order to have our own car, we have thrown the power of the whole country to FAW.
Experts from all over the country were dispatched to Changchun, and the country's top auto workers came to work in shifts day and night. In 1954, 95% of Changchun's municipal construction costs and 84% in 1955 were spent on FAW construction.
Finally, in 1956, China's first Jiefang CA10 car rolled off the assembly line.
The prototype of this car is the Soviet Gise 150 car, and it can be seen from the appearance that it is a brother. With a maximum load of 4 tons, CA10 was very good at pulling goods, and after mass production at that time, it was immediately transported to all parts of the country, and the supply exceeded demand.
The top is the liberation CA10 and the lower is the Geese 150
Then at the following year's China Export Commodities Fair, the Jiefang CA10 appeared at the boothA Jordanian businessman thought it was good after seeing it, and bought 3 cars on the spot, which was the first time China exported a car.
After that, under the planned economy, the domestic industry was dominated by trucks, which was basically in a state of "closed-door construction". The best in various places are imitating existing domestic cars and repeating production.
In the 60s, there were more than 20 imitation emancipated car factories alone. Qinghai Automobile Factory imitated a Qinghai Lake brand car, and Chongqing also imitated a Shancheng brand car.
By 1976, there were 53 automobile factories in the country, but the average output of each factory was less than 1,000 vehicles, and the work was basically repetitive.
Although during this period, we also made Hongqi and Phoenix cars, but they are all used for official business or foreign affairs reception, and the number is very small. The production of the whole car is pitifully low, and in 1978, the annual production of cars and off-road vehicles in the country was only 5,000.
Until the reform and opening up, the market economy came, individuals could buy cars, and the demand suddenly increased.
However, at that time, the domestic car foundation was too thin, and there was no experience in making family cars at allJoint venturesIt was born.
A lot of people may not know thatIn fact, the joint venture model was first mentioned by foreign car companies.
In October 1978, the chairman of General Motors of the United States led a wave of people to visit the second automobile in Hubei, and when discussing the introduction of heavy-duty truck technology, in order to dispel the concerns of the Chinese side, they proposed that they could use the joint venture model to make money together and carry risks together.
Although the cooperation was not negotiated in the end, the talk of a "joint venture" reached the top management. In 1982, the tone was set by an official document"Sedans can be joint ventures"., the policy is completely through.
Then, in 1983, BAIC and American Motor Company established Beijing Jeep, the first joint venture in China. It was also in this year that the Germans brought a generation of Santana, a generation of god cars, to Shanghai to see what the craftsmanship assembled by the Chinese was like.
In 1984, there was a small upsurge in Sino-foreign cooperation, and in March, Tianjin Xiali cooperated with Japan's Daihatsu; In May, Changan and Suzuki announced their partnership. In October, Shanghai Volkswagen was officially established.
From the very beginning of the joint venture, we just wanted to "exchange the market for technology".
During the negotiations with Beijing Jeep, Rao Bin, Minister of Machinery Industry, said: "The joint venture cannot produce second-generation cars for more than 3 years. The performance of a joint venture is not mainly to see how many cars there are and how much money they make, but to see when a new car will be released. ”
However, at that time, it was not possible to manufacture auto parts that met the standards of car companies in China.
Before Santana was born, a German reporter went back and wrote a very heart-wrenching sentence after seeing the workers in the Shanghai automobile factory knocking the car with hammers:Volkswagen is about to be produced on an isolated island, and there are no spare parts dealers here. ”
If a foreign car company wants to build a car in China, it must first ship parts from abroad and then do the assembly work. The first Santana had around 52,000 parts, all of which were imported from Germany without exception.
This pattern is called ckd (completely knock down) mode.
For foreign car companies, this simple and extensive production model, the obvious advantage is that the profits are huge, they are equivalent to exporting all the parts of a car first, these profits are all eaten by themselves, and then they can also make a sum of money in the assembly of the whole vehicle, so as to achieve "one car and two eats".
And because there is no local development, and there is no need to invest too much, it is really standing and making money.
So in the beginning, Jeep, Daihatsu, and Suzuki all came to build cars in the way of CKD.
But for China, it first has to spend a lot of foreign exchange to import parts. In the 80s, there was no general shortage of foreign exchangeWhen the tension was tight, all the foreign exchange in the country was only enough to assemble 30 Santanas.
Spending so much money to go out, not to mention, in the end it was just a pure assembly factory, and I couldn't learn any technology, so I definitely couldn't do it.
Therefore, after the establishment of the joint venture, we took the localization of parts as the core task, and started with Shanghai Volkswagen's Santana. The management even gave the order,If the localization rate can't be raised, simply close the factories for you.
At repeated requests, the Germans gradually paid attention to their refusal to cooperate at the beginning, and dragged Chinese workers to Germany for training, and provided technical assistance to Chinese businessmen.
They can change 180 degrees, in addition to the pressure, or because they feel that the Chinese market has potential, the CKD model can make a quick buck, if you really want to do the scale, localization is more advantageous in terms of manpower and production costs.
Therefore, Volkswagen has successively moved the automobile industry chain to China, and the localization rate of Santana has also increased significantly.
In 1985, Santana's localization rate was 27%；By 1990, the localization rate had reached 60%; In 1997, the localization rate exceeded 90%. The body, engine, and gearbox have all been localized.
After Volkswagen laid a good model, until the 90s, joint venture car companies came one after another, Guangzhou Peugeot, FAW Audi, SAIC-GM, Guangqi Honda and other car factories were born.
At that time, the family car market was obviously the world of joint venture cars, and the representative models at that time were "old three".Santana, Jetta, Beverly, the first two are Volkswagen's, and Beverly is the ZX that introduced the French Citroën.
There is also Xiali, which is popular all over the country, and it is the Charade model that introduced Daihatsu in Japan.
At that time, independent brands basically did not have the ability to build cars, and could only make cars with low technology and low profits, such as miniature bread.
The price of a micro noodle is 20,000 or 30,000 yuan, and a Santana is 200,000 yuan smaller.
Among the joint venture car companies, the Chinese side has not made a name for itself in research and development. Basically, at that time, Chinese car companies did not have much core technology to come up with.
At that time, everyone could buy Hongqi cars, and the engine in it was Chrysler.
Xiali, who uses the Japanese car platform, has always gnawed at other people's old bottoms and has no own technology. The car was not replaced, and finally the brand was gone.
And at that time, only some people made money, and cars were not cheap, so the sales of the car market were not high, in 2000, the sales of cars in China were 2.08 million. In the family car market, there are only about a dozen cars to choose from.
The domestic market has not risen, let alone any export business. At this stage, our car exports are basically negligible.
In 2000, China exported only 170,000 units, while Japan's car exports were 4.72 million units that year, which is not in an order of magnitude at all.
The start of its own brand
The take-off of the auto market will not take place until China joins the WTO in the 21st century. The economic situation is very good, and everyone has money in their pockets, so they have to drive the whole car.
In the decade from 2000 to 2010, it can be said that it was the first decade in China, and the market was a big blue ocean, with a double-digit growth rate every year.
Annual car sales have grown from 2 million to 18 million, making it the world's largest automotive market.
The market plate is getting bigger and bigger, and independent brands have begun to pick up their own cars. But in the beginning, everyone started from cottages.
In 1998, Geely, China's first private car company, built its first sedan, Geely Haoqing, which was an out-and-out copy of Xiali, including the engine and gearbox.
Chery's QQ, and GM's Daewoo Matiz also look like thieves.
For this matter, GM also sued Chery, claiming 80 million, and the result was that the two sides reconciled, and we don't know how they reconciled, anyway, QQ is sold as usual.
BYD's F3 is a one-to-one tribute to Toyota's Corolla. As for car companies like Zotye, there is no need to say more.
The top picture shows F3 and the bottom picture shows the corolla.
At this time, of course, there is nothing to export, you are engaged in copycats in China, people can't argue with you, forget it, if you dare to sell abroad, it will be strange if you don't tell you to go bankrupt.
In fact, there is nothing to be ashamed of when car companies borrow foreign cars at the beginningImitate first, then learn, and only after understanding can you create your own, which makes sense in any industry.
It is also by relying on such a little bit of stealing, and slowly, there are independent brands that have begun to delve into the engine, gearbox and other large pieces. There are more fast-learning car companies that have already laid out their overseas plans one step in advance.
For example, in 1999, Chery rebuilt the engine on the purchased production line.
By 2006, Chery had annual sales of more than 300,000 vehicles, second only to North and South Volkswagen and Shanghai GM. This achievement may not be broken by BYD until more than ten years later.
As early as 2001, Chery exported its cars to Syria, opening the door to the Middle East market. By 2007, Chery's exports reached 100,000 units, and since then it has been one of the top domestic exporters.
Later, some domestic companies followed suit, such as SAIC Motor in 2007 after acquiring the MG brand, began to study export business.
After all, MG's recognition abroad is not low, and to this day, if you go abroad and ask where MG is, there must be a bunch of foreigners who tell you that they are from the UK.
In 2012, China's car exports finally exceeded 1 million units, with Chery exporting the most, selling 18480,000 units. But when you look at these 1 million units, they are basically sold to Algeria, Iran, Chile and other countries.
On the domestic market, German and Japanese rely on the continuous updating of classic models such as Corolla and Passat and firmly control the market.
Although the sales volume of domestic brands has increased a lot compared with before, the market share cannot go up when it reaches 40%, and the majority is still taken away by foreign brands.
As for the export segment, since it reached 1 million units exported in 2012, it seems to be stuck, and this number has hardly been touched until 2020.
Overtaking in the new energy era
As mentioned earlier, the surge in our car exports began in 2021, that is, in the past few years. This coincides with the development of China's new energy industry.
The rapid rise of China's electric vehicles has made our new energy vehicle exports soar. In 2023, NEV exports will be 1.2 million units, up 772%。
To put it bluntly, it is still the domestic new energy vehicle product strength that is strong enough to make the export business better and better. And the reason why China's new energy vehicles have been made first is because our layout is very early.
How early? In 1992, Qian Xuesen wrote a letter to the then vice premier, suggesting that he skip the stage of gasoline trucks and go directly into the new era of automobiles.
You must know that it was only a year ago that lithium batteries were just invented by Sony. I can only sigh that Qian Lao's vision is really too advanced.
And the prime minister also very much agrees with Qian Lao's point of view, and he should strongly support the reply.
The direction is set, and the strategic breakthrough of new energy starts with lithium batteries.
In the previous industry, Japan had a first-mover advantage, and South Korea immediately followed. Tesla's original battery manufacturers were Panasonic and LG, a Japanese company and a Korean company.
China has taken various approaches from policy to industry. For example, in 2009, China implemented a new energy subsidy policy. And Germany didn't start doing this until 2016.
The purpose of subsidies is to make domestic substitutions in every link of battery manufacturing and cultivate their own ** chain.
For example, Dangsheng Technology, which makes battery cathode materials, was selected by Samsung by Samsung in this process by virtue of its research and development in lithium cobalt oxide, and became the only Chinese cathode manufacturer, and later entered the Japanese manufacturer.
At the same time, China has also given birth to world-class battery factories such as CATL and BYD.
In 2022, among the top 10 power battery companies in the world, Chinese brands accounted for 6, with a market share of more than 60%. In 2023, CATL and BYD are expected to occupy the first and second places, and Chinese battery factories will continue to harvest.
The battery has been supported, coupled with the continuous rise of local R&D capabilities, and we also have the ability to come up with high-end accessories, such as air suspension, chips, screens, etc., and system development is foreign countries to learn from domestic experience, so our new energy vehicles are getting better and better, and exports are increasing.
The SAIC MG 4 sold well in several European countries, and BYD also sold well in Japan, Australia and other countries.
In addition, not only self-owned brand trams are being sold out, but foreign car companies are also coming to China for tram exports.
Tesla's Shanghai factory, which supplies major markets around the world for a year, and Renault's Dacia brand, which specializes in building electric cars in a joint venture factory in China and selling them to Europeans.
At this point, you may think that this wave of export growth is all about new energy vehicles, but this is not entirely the case. Because in recent years, our oil truck exports have also been flying. Take 2023 as an example, 370 oil trucks were exported70,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 524%。
The most fierce one here is Chery, they exported 26 in 2021920,000 units, and in 2023, it has risen to 9370,000 units, tripling in three years。Almost all of the people who go to takeout are from oil trucks.
The reason is also very simple, after chasing the independent brand for decades, the gap with foreign car companies has narrowed a lot, the original we do engage in internal combustion engines can not play others, but now our oil cars and other people's comparison, are household four-cylinder engines, on fuel consumption, economy, not necessarily worse than you.
And after the scale of China's largest scale, the advantages of our manufacturing industry have also come out.
The configuration, comfort, and space of domestic cars are not false compared with foreign cars, and they used to say that the workmanship is not good and that is not good, but now look at it, made in China is actually not bad at all. The key is that we kill people every minute and every second in terms of cost performance.
There is a Chery SUV bought by the big brother in Dubai, **only half of the Toyota R**4, and it has been driven for five years since it was bought, so there is no problem.
There are also Mexican friends, who also think that the quality and cost performance of Chinese cars are good, and many relatives and friends buy Chinese cars.
In 2022, Mexico was the country where we exported the most cars, and in the first ten months of 2023, a total of 210,000 Chinese-made cars were sold in the Mexican market, an increase of 51%, and the market share of domestic cars in the local market exceeded 20%.
In the past two years, a large number of Chinese car companies have exported to the Russian market. In 2020, there was not a single Chinese brand in the top 10 of Russian car sales, but last year, the 2-7 were all Chinese cars.
There are even some joint venture car companies that do not sell well in China, and they simply transform into exports, such as South Korea's Kia Motors, which exported half of the output of its factories in China last year, of course, they are basically making oil cars.
At the same time as the rapid growth of both trams and oil trucks, it is clear thatAutomobile exports have changed substantially.
The first is that the unit price is skyrocketing. In 2019, China's average NEV exports** were US$5,000 units, rising to 2 in 2022$20,000 units.
According to some data, BYD does exports, and the profit of a car is several times that of China.
In addition, our cars used to be sold only in the third world, but now rich countries such as Belgium, Australia, and the United Kingdom will also buy them in large quantities, and Chinese cars are recognized by more people around the world.
The gap remains
However, although at present, China's auto export situation is very good, but in fact, there is still a gap between us and Germany and Japan and other automobile powers.
In terms of the total export value, in the first half of 2023, our export volume is the largest, but the export value is 462400 million US dollars, significantly lower than Germany (1008.).200 million US dollars) and Japan (556.).$300 million ), that isThere is a lot of difference in the unit price of automobile exports.
People have Porsche and Big G, these cars, one at every turn costs millions, and we still can't compare.
Then there is the proportion of exports, in 2023, China's auto exports will only account for 16% of the total production2%, while Japan is expected to account for 47% of exports, which means that basically half of domestic production is used for exports, not to mention that Toyota, a Japanese company, has a bunch of overseas factories around the world.
Among the top 10 global car companies in terms of global sales in 2023, only BYD is Chinese.
Many of our car companies have just started to export outThere are still many places to think about how to do business for a longer time abroad.
Last year, we exported 4.91 million vehicles, this data was released by the China Automobile Association, and the export volume of automobiles announced by the General Administration of Customs was 5.22 million vehicles, a difference of 300,000 units.
Part of the reason for this is that some brands do not have official export channels, and many car dealers buy their cars first and then export them abroad through used cars. The manufacturer also turns a blind eye to this operation.
But there is a problem that this kind of car is sold, and there is no warranty and after-sales system in the local area, and in the future, the scale will be large, and there will be a bunch of broken things that are broken and not repaired, which will inevitably affect the image of the Chinese brand.
And in countries where there are official exports,Whether the after-sales service and service of car companies can keep up is also a problem. After all, cars are not a one-shot deal, if you can't keep up with the warranty after selling the car, then people may not choose Chinese cars again.
Therefore, selling a car is only the first step, and continuing to cultivate the local market is what we need to do more.
For example, the system language of the car, there are as many as 24 official languages in the European Union alone, and the Chinese car machine can always only give people English, French, German and other mainstream language options.
In the past two years, Europe has launched a countervailing investigation, and the "Inflation Reduction Act" of the United States has been making small moves to restrict Chinese car companies and block China's auto exports.
But in any case, China has seized the initiative in new energy, and now it will not panic. And we not only do exports in China, but also go directly to foreign factories to build factories.
Changan has already started construction of its factory in Thailand, BYD is planning to start production in Brazil, and CATL has built a battery plant in Hungary.
To put it bigger, it is related to the development of the national economy, the development of automobiles is good, and the national economy is not bad. You see, the United States, Germany, Japan and France, these automobile powers, are also all developed countries.
But people's *** is based on hundreds of years of development. We want to rely on more than ten years and decades to achieve overtaking in new energy and subvert the pyramid pattern they have shaped, and the difficulty can be imagined.
Now that the opportunity is in front of us, we can't waste it in vain, so we have to grasp it well, lay a good foundation, and work hard, let us witness the history created by China.