chip shortage is dynamic. I don’t know which one is needed tomorrow today, and which one will be missing tomorrow, but the industry panic is not as great as I imagined. Under the expansion of production, experts even reminded the worry of oversupply
The current chip shortage problem is essentially an inappropriate planning of mature process production capacity, and the car companies’ hoarding mentality has further aggravated it. Photo/IC
text | "Financial" reporter Wang Jingyi Li Yang Zhang Yang Lumao
edit | Shi Zhiliang
1 The manufacturer cannot build cars and dealers have no cars to sell, which has become a reality to a certain extent.
"Because the manufacturer lacks core, if you choose a high-configured heating rod and Harman Katon speaker on ID.4 (a new electric car launched by Volkswagen), you can only pick up the car in September. If it is an ordinary configuration, it will take one month to pick up the car." On June 15, a salesperson at a SAIC Volkswagen dealer store in Shanghai told the reporter of " Finance ".
This is not an isolated case. From ordinary brands to luxury brands, many car dealer stores have experienced chip shortages, resulting in insufficient supply of new cars and delayed delivery time. Chen Hong, chairman of
SAIC Group , recently confessed: "Chips have caused us a lot of trouble, and the finished cars in the channels are quite nervous." The chip shortage of
has become a reality, and for car companies, grabbing chips has become a necessity. But what to grab, how to grab, and how much to grab are all knowledge, and there are many considerations of interests.
After all, the current chip shortage problem is essentially an inappropriate planning of mature process production capacity, and the car companies' hoarding mentality has further aggravated it. Gong Min, head of the Chinese automobile industry at
UBS , explained to the reporter of "Finance" that the current shortage of automotive chips is mainly MCUs for control (microcontroller Unit), including seats and wipers chips. These are not the 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer advanced products that are pursued now, but mature processes of dozens of nanometers and hundreds of nanometers. Because mature products meet the automotive grade standards, they will not be damaged for more than ten years to prevent them from being broken by charge. There is currently no new production capacity invested in this part of the products. The industry is inappropriate in planning and everyone is competing for each other, which ultimately leads to a chip shortage. What’s more important is that automotive chips not only face the challenge of insufficient short-term production capacity, but also face long-term structural changes. Liu Weihong, co-founder of Heisema Intelligent Technology, a chip startup startup in
, told the "Finance" reporter that as automotive computers move from distributed architecture to central computing platforms, the use of chips will be reduced by an order of magnitude. In the past, a car needed 70-300 MCU chips, and in the future, only 2-4 SoC (System on a Chip) chip plus 10-20 high-performance MCU chips can be completed. There is a crisis in the delivery of automobile products under
and supply chain safety hazards. The chip shortage has become the first major test in the new decade (2021-2030). The shortage of
has resulted in insufficient supply of new cars and delayed delivery time
Although the reservations for the new car WM W6 were very popular, and more than 6,000 user orders were received 50 hours after its release, the shortage of chip supply has led to difficulties in delivery, monthly sales did not meet expectations, and production is still climbing. This is a difficult problem facing WM founder, chairman and CEO Shen Hui .
htmlOn June 16, Shen Hui revealed in an interview with a reporter from "Finance": "From the order point of view, W6's sales are very hot, but it is a new technology car that requires nearly 300 chips. This results in the delivery of W6 not dependent on us, but on the situation of the chip supply chain."Shen Hui introduced that WM Motor is increasing cooperation with suppliers and taking measures including paying price increase orders to cope with the problem of chip shortage restricting the delivery of new cars. WM's chip suppliers include many foreign suppliers including Qualcomm , and will also promote cooperation with domestic chip companies in the future. There are many cases like
.Taking SAIC-GM as an example, due to the chip shortage, its production in May was only 81,000 units, a decrease of 37.4% compared with 130,000 units in the same period last year; however, due to relatively sufficient inventory in the early stage, the retail volume did not decrease, and the retail sales in May were 128,500 units, even a year-on-year increase of 1.4%.
In this regard, SAIC Group (600104.SH) stated that due to the chip shortage in the global automotive industry, the recent wholesale sales (business supply to dealers by car companies) lag behind retail sales. It is expected that the chip shortage will gradually ease starting from the third quarter, and SAIC will accelerate the production pace and promote a significant recovery in wholesale sales of the whole vehicle. The shortage of
chips has been around for half a year. On the one hand, factory production has been significantly restricted and production has declined significantly; but until recently, it has almost no impact on terminal sales, which is due to the inventory policies of manufacturers and dealers.
China Automobile Dealers Association data shows that dealer inventory has declined. In May this year, the automobile dealer inventory warning index was 52.9%, a year-on-year decrease of 1.3% and a month-on-month decrease of 3.5%.
Qiu Kai, director of the Industrial Coordination Department of the China Automobile Dealer Association, believes that the shortage of chips has led to tight supply of hot-selling models, and the vehicle delivery cycle has been extended, resulting in unstable sales of dealers. and the dealer's funds are trapped in the vehicles on the way, and the turnover is tight. In addition, the cost of raw materials has increased, the manufacturer's promotional policies have been tightened, and the operating pressure of dealers has increased.
"Currently, dealer inventory can meet the market demand for one and a half months, but if the chip problem is not solved within the year, it will inevitably lead to an increase in the cost of buying new cars. Especially in the peak sales season of "Golden September and Silver October", the price increase and purchase of cars will be extended, and the discount will be reduced. At that time, the increase in the used car market may be higher than the seasonal increase in previous years, from a normal 1-2 points to 2-3 points." Jiang Chi, an expert in the blue-price business retention rate of automobile data institutions, told the reporter of "Finance".
Currently, automotive chips are mainly divided into three categories: the first category is responsible for computing power, specifically processor and controller chips, such as central control, ADAS (advanced driving assistance system) and autonomous driving system, as well as engine, chassis and body control, etc.; the second category is responsible for power conversion, used for power supply and interfaces, such as IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor) power chips for new energy vehicles; the third category is only used for sensors, mainly used for various radar, airbag, and tire pressure detection.
When supply is limited, car companies sort the supply of car models according to priority. From the perspective of bicycle prices, chip shortage has a smaller impact on luxury brand models and a greater impact on ordinary brand models. "Because a car with a value of 500,000 yuan will not be 5 times the weight of a car with a value of 100,000 yuan, and the iron, aluminum, copper and other uses will not be 5 times the difference, but the price will be 5 times the difference, and car companies will have some choice." Gong Min said.
logic is similar. From the perspective of driving method, core shortage has a small impact on electric vehicles and a great impact on fuel vehicles. Gong Min said that the semiconductor used in an electric car is actually used more than in fuel vehicles, but the main ones are power semiconductors, and what is currently missing is the most basic MCU. Moreover, under the current strict emission standards, car companies will give priority to ensuring the production of electric vehicles.
chip supply chain is disordered, who is creating panic?
"Generally speaking, the OEM is placing an order first, and the supplier supplies the goods as needed, and produces as much as it is. However, due to insufficient chip supply, the OEM has a hoarding mentality, and now it needs as much as it produces." Yima, a supplier of headlight welding technology in Shanghai, told the reporter of "Finance" that suppliers are also short of chips, and now the monthly delivery volume is more than half as expected, and even if the OEM has ideas, it cannot stock up.
The once-in-a-century epidemic, coupled with all kinds of chances, has created a once-in-a-century chip shortage in the automotive industry. " black swan does not fly one by one, it is flying one by one." Chen Hong metaphorically said, "The unlucky thing happened. Japan first had an earthquake, and the United States was blizzard of snowstorm. The United States semiconductors were all in Texas . On March 29, the Renesas Fire in Japan, and the fire burned the chip mainly supplies Bosch . Bosch is our main controller supplier."
Theoretically speaking, chip production capacity is insufficient, and it is just a pain in a short period of time. But in fact, against the background of the intensified chip shortage, the supply chain of automotive chips has begun to be disordered, and even reached the point of being hungry. Horizon founder and CEO Yu Kai said that many customers cannot get the chip they want, so they bought the Horizon chip and used it on the domain controller .
dismantling the east wall and filling the west wall can still be explained as a rescue emergency in the world The helpless move, the behavior of some middlemen to make the difference by any means fully demonstrates the loss of the automotive supply chain after the chip shortage.
Many industry insiders who did not want to be named told the "Finance" reporter that many manufacturers of have begun to deliberately hoard chips and maliciously create panic to seek greater benefits. For example, suppliers convey error messages to the upstream, infinitely amplify their own demands; for the downstream, they play hunger marketing on the grounds that there is insufficient raw materials. Driven by the interests of
, information on the supply and demand of automotive chips can no longer be accurately transmitted, which is a matter of chip supply. The recovery is extremely unfavorable, and it has also formed a vicious cycle of panic-or-treatment among related companies.
"There is a panic mentality now," Li Shaohua, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Industry Association, told the reporter of "Finance" that the chip shortage problem is no longer a problem in the automotive industry, but a problem of the whole society. This improvement process will last for 1-2 years. For the automotive industry, there will be a relatively obvious improvement by the end of this year.
Nowadays, car companies are no longer able to fully determine whether their chips belong to them will be intercepted or hidden suddenly. It is possible to arrange people to focus on the production of each chip. This is not only to ensure the production of this model, but also because once the chips of a certain model are cut off unplanned, the inventory of other parts will accumulate in a short period of time, which has a huge impact on the production of the car company.
This puts forward extremely high requirements on the response speed and coordination capabilities of the car company. Yang Dongsheng, director of the Product Planning and New Automobile Technology Research Institute of BYD (002594.SZ), said: "Our R&D department now has to focus on materials and every chip. Once there is an early warning, the technical department must take action immediately. "
Geely Auto (00175.HK) told the "Finance" reporter that many original chip manufacturers have extended the procurement cycle from the original 12-20 weeks to 40-50 weeks. One of the short-term measures taken to address the chip shortage includes locking up 6-12-month long-term orders to suppliers.
In the long run, car companies hope to deeply intervene in the entire process of chip production. "From the future development, cars will take the road of intelligent chips, and intelligent chips must be directly dealing with the entire vehicle manufacturers and chip manufacturers. "Finance reporter learned from Chen Hong that because vehicle manufacturers need to master algorithms and software, there is a need to communicate directly with chip factories. Now many chip factories understand this changing trend and are willing to deal with vehicle factories.
Many experts reminded that there may be a chip overcapacity crisis
chip shortage caused car companies to stop production, the first reaction of enterprises in the chip industry chain is to expand production.
Intel plans to invest 20 billion US dollars, build two new chip factories in the United States, and also plan to invest in and build factories in Europe. Apple (AAPL.O) also announced that it will invest 1 billion euros to build a chip R&D center in Europe. Bosch Group has also built a new one Two fabs, automotive chips are expected to be put into production in September this year.
html On May 21, TSMC (2330.TW) stated that it would increase MCU production, up 60% from 2020. SMIC (0981.HK) 2020 annual report shows that its factories in Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin and Shenzhen are expanding production lines, and the project progress is more than 70%.SAIC Infineon General Manager Wang Xuehe is worried that intensive chip investment and expansion will lead to a chip overcapacity crisis. He told the "Finance" reporter: "The risk of fluctuations in the semiconductor industry is very high, and it may turn a sharp turnaround one day, from shortage to surplus. For enterprises, chip price reduction and inventory will become very large risks at that time."Hang Qiang, CEO of
Xinchi Technology, has the same concerns. He analyzed that the total automobile production is a relatively stable value. If the demand for intelligence does not increase rapidly, that is, the number of automobile chips in each car, or the usage area of silicon wafers does not increase too much, in terms of current production capacity, it will definitely be oversupply. What is particularly noteworthy about
is that the chip shortage is full of dynamic changes. "Many people say that the entire automobile industry has been short of chips for more than half a year, so why can't it be relieved? The fact is that the automotive industry has been facing the chip shortage in the past three quarters, but the chips that are lacking every week are different . We don’t know what chips are missing next, just like cooking in a restaurant. There is less oil now, and less vinegar next, and different local effects continue to exist. "Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of NIO, recently publicly stated that the cycle of new fabs in
is usually 1-2 years, that is, factories invested and built now will start to release production capacity in 1-2 years. According to consulting company Gartner, the global semiconductor supply will return to normal levels in 2022, and the release of production capacity just catches up with the abundance of chip supply, resulting in overcapacity of chip production.
On the other hand, the architecture of automotive computers is changing
Liu Weihong told the reporter of "Finance" that traditional automotive computers adopt distributed ECU architecture, and a car requires 70-300 MCU chips. The domain architecture used by autonomous driving currently only requires 4-8 SoC chips and 40-60 MCU chips. In the future, the central computing architecture requires fewer chips. Only 2-4 SoC chips plus 10-20 high-performance MCU chips can meet the needs of autonomous driving and smart cockpits. Computing demand.
Liu Weihong predicts that the central computing architecture will become the mainstream in five years, and the demand for chips by automobiles will further decrease. Is the chip shortage of
short term or long term?
Almost all institutions predict that the chip shortage will be effectively resolved this year or next year, and even an oversupply situation will occur, but this is based on the prediction of the current automotive-grade chip structure. In fact, with the development of electric smart cars, the automotive control system will move from distributed to integrated, and the demand for chips in the automotive industry will also occur hugely. Change.
This means that automotive chips not only face the challenge of short-term insufficient production capacity, but also face the challenge of long-term structural changes.
BYD brand and public relations general manager Li Yunfei told the reporter of "Finance": "The chip cost of fuel vehicles is about US$100-200, and electric vehicles may start around US$1,000. In the era of smart electric, the cost of a single-vehicle chip may double to US$4,000-5,000, and high-end cars and even more. "The leap in the value of
automotive chips is not only reflected in quantity, but also in function.
chips are mainly divided into three categories. With the changes in the automotive control structure, the demand for various chips will also change. But chips are not an industry that can quickly respond to demand. Especially automotive-grade chips, it has the characteristics of large capital investment, long certification cycle, long R&D cycle, and high design threshold. It may take several years to be a verification link just by itself.
Geely Auto introduced a comprehensive long-term chip planning to the reporter of "Finance": from establishing a direct docking channel with international semiconductor mainstream suppliers At first, avoid risks from the source; then participate in the selection of R&D plans, jointly formulate future technical routes and supply channels with major chip suppliers; directly sign price agreements with chip suppliers to reduce the problem of low bargaining power of decentralized procurement of suppliers, and support the organizational capabilities of domestic electronic product suppliers' supply chains; promise to support domestic chip companies and use domestic chips to replace imported chips under the same quality. Zhang Yufeng, vice president of
Horizon and general manager of intelligent driving product line, told the "Finance" reporter that OEMs are increasingly hoping to communicate and cooperate directly with chip manufacturers, so chip manufacturers with core algorithm capabilities will get closer and closer to OEMs.
corresponds to it, the development of smart electric vehicles has reached a point of racing against time. If a new car does not change, it will often lose its competitiveness within 1-2 years. More importantly, the end point of smart electric vehicles - how to achieve self-driving cars, is still controversial.
Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary-general of China Association of Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Automobile Auto The current chip shortage is not entirely a process problem, mainly because of the lack of attention before. At present, the importance is greatly increased, but we must also consider whether the investment is appropriate and what will be the subsequent production cost.
This means that car companies themselves do not know what kind of chips they need in the future cars, let alone chip suppliers. Changes are happening all the time, but the direction of change cannot be determined. Who can assert that such an automobile industry will not be short of chips in the future?
(Reporter Liu Wanyuan of this magazine also contributed to this article)
