The global shortage of “cores” forces parking companies, why are car “cores” so hard to find? As the heart of the car, the engine once played a vital role. Nowadays, as cars are being driven by intelligence and electrification, the electronic chips of automobiles have gradually become the core of the development of auto-driving cars. At present, the car chip field is basically monopolized by European and American companies. With the epidemic, global car companies are staged a "film" that is hard to find.
Let's first look at a set of data:
On January 11, Ford announced that its plant in Kentucky, the United States will suspend production for a week. In addition, the plant will temporarily lay off approximately 3,900 employees.
Volkswagen announced on January 15 that it would shut down its Emden plant in Germany for two weeks. More than 9,000 employees had to switch to short-time work. The plant will lose at least 10,000 vehicles during this period.
The output of Passat (parameters | pictures).
On January 15, the Daimler Group, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, announced that it had to reintroduce the short-time work system at the Rastatt plant, which is responsible for the production of compact models, due to the supply of chips. 6,500 employees were all affected.
On January 18, the Bremen plant responsible for the production of Mercedes-Benz C-Class, SLK and GLC immediately announced the cancellation of some evening shifts and applications for short-term jobs for 12,500 production line employees.
On January 18, the Audi CEO also revealed in an interview with foreign media that more than 10,000 employees have suspended work due to the shortage of automotive chips. At the same time, we will do our best to reduce the production volume in the first quarter to less than 10,000 vehicles.
In addition, many car companies including BMW, Daimler, Honda, Nissan, etc. have also joined the ranks of production suspensions, production cuts and layoffs due to chip shortages.
Chip "forced to stop" global car companies
Data shows that the top ten suppliers of semiconductor assembly control 80% of the global automotive semiconductor market, including NXP, Renesas Electronics, Infineon, STMicroelectronics, Bosch, Texas Instruments, ON Semiconductor , Rohm Semiconductor, Toshiba, and Analog Devices, without exception, all come from overseas companies.
The world's TOP40 semiconductor manufacturers control more than 95% of the market share of automotive semiconductors. According to media reports, due to global semiconductor capacity restrictions and pressure from the U.S. government, the European and American governments are drafting a plan report that the U.S. will jointly stop the supply of chips to Chinese automakers by European semiconductor manufacturers. If the news is true, it means that after some chips are digested, China's auto market will fall into a large-scale shutdown.
More than 98% of the automotive semiconductors of China's own brands come from European and American suppliers. If the supply is limited, the production will be suspended indefinitely. Some independent brands had to modify the standards of automotive semiconductors and switch to obsolete products from the 1990s to 2000s.
I really have to ask, when will China's "chip death" be solved?
In response to this, BYD responded to the problem of “stuck necks” due to lack of cores in automobiles, stating that the IGBT chips produced by the company have been used in various product lines. Except for the brand’s own use, they have been sold for export and there is no “stuck necks”.
But other car companies are not so lucky.
Why is there a sudden "shortage of core" in the world?
Some people say that the death of the epidemic caused the death of the chip.
A new crown in 2020 will bring the global economy to a halt. On the one hand, the epidemic has reduced global chip manufacturing capacity, and many factories have been forced to shut down. On the other hand, due to the impact of the epidemic, global car companies are not optimistic about the forecast of car demand this year. These expectations have also led chip manufacturers to correspondingly lower their chip production capacity this year.
In addition, driven by the development of 5G technology, the number of people working and studying at home has increased, and the demand for chips in consumer electronics fields such as smartphones and computers has increased rapidly. Chip production capacity has encountered challenges and has seized the production capacity of some automotive chips.
More importantly, with the continuous improvement of the degree of electrification, intelligence, and connectivity of automobiles, the value of automotive chips continues to increase, which promotes the global demand for automotive chips faster than the growth rate of vehicle sales. This is also a direct result. The supply and demand of chips are out of balance.
The road to domestic chips
Regarding the situation of my country's information industry, there has always been a saying called "lack of core and less soul". The core here naturally refers to the chip, while the soul refers to the operating system. This means that our domestic chips and operating systems are shortcomings of our country's technology, and there is a big gap between them and foreign countries.
"China's New Energy Vehicle Supply Chain White Paper 2020" shows that in China's 28 million annual car market, China's automotive semiconductor production value accounts for less than 5% of the world's total, and the import volume of some key components is 80%-90%. According to wind data, at present, the self-research rate of automotive chips in the domestic automotive industry only accounts for 10%, and 90% of automotive chips must rely on imports from abroad.
According to other data, the global automotive chip market in 2019 is about 47.5 billion U.S. dollars (about 307.6 billion yuan), and China’s self-produced automotive chips are less than 15 billion yuan, accounting for only 4.5% of global production capacity. The import degree of components such as MCU exceeds 80%-90%.
It was previously reported that BYD and Huawei have begun to cooperate in the development of Kirin chips, and it is expected that there will be new breakthroughs in the near future. In response to such a statement, a relevant person of BYD responded that "the news is not true." According to data, BYD Semiconductor was established on October 15, 2004, and has now become a domestic independent and controllable automotive-grade IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) head manufacturer. BYD hopes to rely on BYD Semiconductor's accumulation and application in the field of automotive-grade semiconductors to gradually realize the domestic substitution of other automotive-grade core semiconductors.
However, there is a long way to go. Although domestic chips can be expected in the future, they are subject to the investment cycle and lack of experience in market thresholds, and the road is long.
