[Pacific Auto Network Culture Channel] On July 13, 1956, the first Jiefang car drove off the assembly line, opening the prelude to the development of China's automobile industry. After 66 years of glorious years, China's automobile production and sales have now ranked first in the world, and China's automobile industry has also begun to lead the development of global electrification and intelligence. On the occasion of the National Day celebration, let’s take a look at the rise of China’s automobile industry in 66 years.
Early development of China's automobile industry (1901-1949)
The development of any industry is supported by strong national strength. As early as 1901, cars drove onto China for the first time, but the poverty-stricken and weak late Qing Dynasty, by more than half a century of semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, could not support Chinese cars to also get on the right track of development.
In fact, China's connection with automobiles can be traced back to the longer-term 17th to 18th year of the Kangxi reign, that is, from 1678 to 1679 AD, the Jesuit priest who worked in the Imperial Supervision , and the Belgian , Nan Huairen trial-made a Blanca impulse steamer in Beijing and will be on a wooden four-wheel car to become a walking car. This is nearly a hundred years earlier than the first steam car trial-produced by the Frenchman Nicholas Guno in 1769, which is currently recognized as the world's first car. Of course, the trial production of Nan Huairen can only be regarded as a small car model. It does not have much practical value in itself, and it is just a toy of the Kangxi Yuqian Boyi Le.
In 1901, Hungarian Leinz brought two cars into Shanghai Concession , which was the first time that a well-documented real car entered China. The Public Concession Industry Department Bureau discussed at the regular meeting and decided to issue a temporary license first and issue a formal license the following year. However, the authorities are not sure what kind of emerging things should be considered, so they are classified under the carriage category. Since then, more cars have been transported into China from abroad, including the famous one dedicated to Cixi . However, because Cixi thought that the driver was inappropriate in sitting in front of her, she ordered the driver to drive on his knees, and finally had to give up. The car has been preserved to this day and is now stored in Summer Palace .
Around 1907, car freight and car passenger transport began to appear in China one after another. According to customs data at that time, on the eve of World War I, the average annual import of domestic cars reached about 300. In 1917, China's first automobile transportation route, Zhangku Highway ( Zhangjiakou to Kulun , now Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia), was opened to traffic. By 1927, the national highway had reached 29,170 kilometers, and the number of civilian vehicles had increased to 18,677.
Since then, some attempts to produce cars have occurred in China. At that time, China was short of gasoline, so there were many cases of trying to develop and transform charcoal car . In 1931, Mr. Zhang Xueliang built the Minsheng car in Liaoning, which is one of the earliest produced cars in China that can be tested.
During the War of Resistance Against Japan, there were also attempts to produce cars in China. For example, in 1936, the China Automobile Manufacturing Company was established, and more than 2,000 diesel cars were assembled with imported bulk parts from 1937 to 1939, etc. But apart from financial and technical shortcomings, under the background of Japanese invasion, the development of the automobile industry is no longer in line with the conditions. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, a number of domestic auto repair and accessories companies recovered briefly, but until , the founding of in New China, China's automobile-related manufacturing industry was still very weak.
The early development of China's automobile industry did not develop under the background of turmoil, but it reflected the unyielding spirit of the Chinese people and the desire to develop the automobile industry. Although these attempts failed to lay the foundation for the automobile industry in New China, they also cultivated and retained technical talents with certain experience in the department. In the "State of Founding", Mr. Sun Yat-sen proposed a comprehensive idea of using cars, building roads, building automobile factories and supplying cheap fuels, and all of this was gradually realized after the founding of New China.
The start of the Chinese automobile industry (1950-1965)
On October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao announced the establishment of the People's Republic of China and the Central People's Government on the Tiananmen Gate Tower in Beijing, and the Chinese nation has opened a new chapter in history.
It was also in October 1949 that the Central Ministry of Heavy Industry was established, and the preparations for the construction of the automobile industry were immediately begun. In December of the same year, the projects to build large automobile factories agreed with the former Soviet Union included projects to build a large automobile factory. From 1949 to 1953, the central government carried out a series of preparations for the construction of automobile manufacturing plants. The preparatory team surveyed Beijing, Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan, Qixian, Taigu, Pingyao, Xi'an, Baoji, Xiangtan, , Zhuzhou, and other places nationwide. It initially determined several factory site plans. At the same time, recruited and trained technical talents nationwide. The construction of First Automobile Manufacturing Plant was included in the first five-year plan for developing the national economy.
1951, FAW finally selected the site in Changchun, and determined that the product was the Gis 150 truck with an annual production program of 30,000 vehicles. It began design in 1951, started building a factory in 1953, and completed and put into production in 1957. Subsequently, a wave of support for FAW's construction was set off across the country. On July 15, 1953, the First Automobile Manufacturing Plant was officially laid. After unremitting efforts from all walks of life across the country and the help of former Soviet experts, FAW, which was originally planned to be completed in four years, was officially completed and put into production in 1956 one year ahead of schedule.
On July 14, 1956, the first batch of 12 Jiefang brand cars were launched in the assembly line. This batch of cars underwent a 41-day road test. The experimental results prove that the assembly quality of the cars, power, economy and durability meet the design requirements. The commissioning of Jiefang Automobile marks the completion of FAW and has also become the beginning of China's automobile industry.
In May 1957, FAW began to design cars according to the notice of the First Machinery Department. On May 5, 1958, a Dongfeng brand 71 sedan was trial-produced. On May 21, 1958, Chairman Mao and Lin Boqu and other central leaders watched and rode the car on Zhongnanhai . Subsequently, considering the problem of central leaders riding in domestic cars, FAW began to concentrate on developing high-end cars and stopped the subsequent development of Dongfeng Motor .
In July 1957, the first Red Flag CA72 high-end sedan was successfully trial-produced. The front grille of Hongqi CA72 adopts a fan shape, and the taillights adopt a palace lantern-style shape. The whole vehicle is solemn and elegant, perfectly integrating Chinese traditional aesthetics with modern cars. A new batch of Hongqi CA72 high-end cars began to be manufactured in 1959, and 43 were trial-produced before the National Day in 1959, of which 6 participated in the National Day parade and 2 review cars participated in the parade .
At the same time, all parts of the country have begun to manufacture cars one after another, and self-reliance to develop the automobile industry, and the needs of the development of the national economy. By 1965, four new automobile production bases were gradually formed, including Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing, and Jinan, and a number of unique automobile parts production plants have also developed, filling the gap in the new China's automobile varieties and contributing to alleviating transportation tensions.
New China built the first automobile manufacturing plant at a relatively fast speed from introducing former Soviet products, manufacturing technology, organizational management methods, but in practice, it has also found that the former Soviet model has many aspects that are not suitable for China's national conditions. In the subsequent development, after several explorations and attempts, a professional organizational collaboration system has been gradually formed, changing the industrial organizational structure of "big and complete" and "small and complete". After this period of development, China has its own automobile industry, gained experience, and cultivated talents. These achievements have played an important role in the future development and transformation of the automobile industry.
Growth of China's automobile industry (1966-1980)
1958, the central government proposed to build the second automobile manufacturer , but it was delayed due to economic difficulties and the final Sino-Soviet feud. The national economy improved in 1963, and the contradiction between supply and demand in automobiles became increasingly prominent, and the army continued to have various types of vehicles due to the tension in the international situation. In 1965, a plan was proposed to build a second automobile manufacturing plant on the third line during the third and fifth line.
1964 to 1965, the First Ministry of Machinery began surveying the Second Automobile Factory site in Hunan, Sichuan, Hubei and other places. In January 1966, it was initially determined to build Second Automobile in Shiyan County, the area at the foot of Wudang Mountain. On April 1, 1967, the construction ceremony of Erqi was held in Daluzigou (now the site of the power plant). According to the policy of "backing, scattered and hidden" in Line 3 construction, Erqi construction officially began in Shiyan City, surrounded by mountains.
The construction of Erqiu is carried out in the form of construction contracts. More than 60,000 construction and installation personnel participated in the construction in 33 exploration and design departments across the country. In 1968, the first product of Erqi, EQ240 2.5-ton off-road vehicle , was determined, and the design results of FAW CA140 5-ton vehicle were transplanted to Erqi's products, while inheriting some of the achievements of 20Y 2-ton off-road vehicle. In April 1969, Erqi completed the first round of trial production of three prototypes.
The construction of Second Automobile was launched in the special background of "preparing for war, preparing for war" and "preparing for war" in the 1960s and 1970s, and encountered many difficulties in site selection and construction. However, as the first large automobile manufacturer designed and built by itself in New China, Second Automobile Construction has been completed very well. Chen Zutao, who once served as chief engineer and deputy technical director of Second Automobile, recalled in his oral memoir "My Automobile Career": "In 1978, we discussed cooperation with General Motors in the development of heavy-duty vehicles. With the approval of Li Xiannian, Comrade Li Lanqing and I accompanied them to Shiyan City, which was not open to foreigners at the time. General Motors came with senior management and technical experts. They carefully looked at each of our professional factories and all the production equipment that were basically made by ourselves, and watched Second Automobile production. Some of them drove our cars around the production line. They all admired the factory, equipment, and products, and said 'OK', but they heard that they were all designed and built by ourselves, and they showed surprise. They didn't believe that we were able to build such a large and modern automobile factory. I remember the first question they raised was: 'How many foreigners helped you during the construction of Second Automobile?'" The surprise of the Americans can be said to be a pertinent evaluation of the construction level of Second Automobile.
In order to meet the needs of national economic development and national defense construction, the country successively built three automobile production bases of different sizes, mainly military vehicles in the third-tier regions, including the Second Automobile Manufacturing Plant, Sichuan Automobile Manufacturing Plant and Shaanxi Automobile Manufacturing Plant, objectively adjusting the overall layout of the automobile industry. At the same time, since a considerable part of the funds are concentrated on the construction of military vehicle production bases, the production of automobile products that are urgently needed by society is not growing rapidly, new products are unable to be developed, and they cannot be replaced in time, which has also caused a long-term supply and demand in short supply of automobile products.
Therefore, there has been a situation of organizing automobile production on its own across the country. According to statistics, until 1980, there were still 73 basic vehicle production sites in the country. The small-scale production and "small and complete" pattern brought about some problems of product duplication and factory sites, but it also gave birth to some urgently needed new models in China, and gradually grew up several new automobile production bases such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang, and Wuhan. At the same time, a large number of new spare parts and related industry production sites have been driven, creating conditions for the development of the automobile industry in many places in China since then.
Period of comprehensive development (1981-2000)
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the rapid development of the national economy, domestic demand for cars surged. Especially since China began to implement the reform and opening-up policy in December 1978, people's living standards have been increasing, and the demand for cars has become increasingly urgent. Since the 1980s, the import volume of sedans has increased year by year. In 1980, the number of imported sedans reached 19570, while in 1979 this number was only 667. Driven by the market, some companies have begun to prepare and establish car production bases.
In 1978, Shanghai proposed to transform the Shanghai automobile industry and introduce automobile production lines to form an annual production capacity of 10,000 cars. The report was supported by Comrade Deng Xiaoping. Subsequently, the Shanghai Automobile Manufacturing Plant began to negotiate with foreign investors according to joint venture projects, and contacted seven automobile companies, including General Motors, Ford, Nissan , Renault, Peugeot, Citroen , and Volkswagen, and more than 60 negotiations were held in two years. In June 1982, China and Germany signed a CKD (split assembly) agreement for 100 Santana sedans and a purchase contract for . As of August 1985, 2,517 Santanas were assembled and produced.After the official establishment of Shanghai Volkswagen, it quickly promoted the process of domestic production. With the efforts of Shanghai Volkswagen Company and various supporting factories, the domestic production rate was only 12.7% in 1987, and to a low of 70.37% in 1991.
vigorously promoted the localization rate of Santana, which was considered realistic at the time. At that time, my country's foreign exchange reserves were limited, and importing parts cost a large amount of the country's foreign exchange . However, improving localization is not something that can be achieved overnight. When Shanghai Volkswagen started production, it planned to achieve 100% domestic production in 7 years, but the final implementation was not completed until 1996, which actually took 13 years. However, the Shanghai Volkswagen Santana project has cultivated a large number of high-quality auto parts suppliers, and many have now developed into leading auto parts companies, laying the foundation for the future rise of China's automobile industry.
When Shanghai Volkswagen was still assembling Santana at CKD, Beijing Automobile Manufacturing and American Automobile Company (AMC) established a joint venture Beijing Jeep in 1983, becoming the de facto first automobile joint venture in China. However, at that time, American Automobile (AMC), the parent company of Jeep6, was also in trouble and was acquired by Renault during the joint venture. After several twists and turns, it also affected the subsequent development of Beijing Jeep.
In March 1985, Guangzhou Automobile Company and French Peugeot Auto Company jointly established Guangzhou Peugeot Auto. In October 1986, the first Peugeot 505SW8 station wagon was assembled and removed from the line. Unfortunately, Guangzhou Peugeot was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1997. In the end, Peugeot transferred all the shares of the joint venture to Honda at a symbolic price of 1 US dollars, becoming the current Guangzhou Honda. The joint venture model has not started smoothly in China, but it has developed very rapidly, which has played a very positive role in accelerating the popularity of sedans in my country.
When joint venture projects are in full swing, other forms of sedan projects are also developing rapidly. In 1983, Tianjin Automobile Industry Company introduced the products and technologies of the 850 series micro-car and Xiali sedan to Dafa , which is the well-known "Huang Dafa" and the Xiali sedan that later became the earliest national family sedan in China. In 1987, FAW introduced the technology transfer of the Audi 100 model.
While the joint venture and the rapid development of technology introduction, on May 14, 1981, the People's Daily briefly published the "stop order" of Hongqi sedan; on November 25, 1991, the last car, , Shanghai brand sedan, , was launched, and a total of 79,000 Shanghai sedans were produced in 33 years, has since become history. It is admitted that at that time, these domestic cars were already difficult to compete with foreign cars produced in joint ventures, but looking back now, it is inevitable that it is regrettable.
But in a corner where people didn't pay much attention to it, a big car-making storm was quietly accumulating strength. Throughout the 1990s, private or local car brands that we are now unfamiliar with were born. After experiencing a brief glory, they soon fell into silence.
1990, Wei Jianjun, a Baoding , took over township enterprise , which was in debt of 2 million yuan, and was engaged in Great Wall Industry for automobile modification; in 1996, Yin Tongyue , who had been working in the front line of FAW's car manufacturing for more than ten years, received an invitation from his hometown of Wuhu, Anhui, and went south to join the unknown Chery ; in 1998, Li Shufu, who had no production qualifications, quietly built the first car in his motorcycle factory " Geely Haoqing "...
1979, China produced 4,152 cars, and in 1990, this number had risen to 42,409. During the same period, the import volume of sedans increased from 667 in 1979 to 34,063. The rapid development of people's living standards has led to the technology of demand for cars rising, so China's first round of car manufacturing has long been in the 1990s. This popularity lasted until the beginning of the 21st century. At that time, large companies including Sanjiu, Chunlan, Zongshen , Aux , waveguide and other companies also crossed the border and entered the automotive industry, although there was no good result in the end.But during this period, in addition to the Great Wall, Chery, and Geely mentioned earlier, there are also BYD that crossed the border into the automotive industry from mobile phone batteries in 2003. JAC , FAW , Huatai , Lifan , etc., which also entered the automotive industry during this period.
was written at the end
In 2001, China officially joined WTO. At that time, people were full of panic about the impact of imported cars on domestic cars, but such a crisis did not happen. With the foundation laid in the early stage and with the rapid development of China's national strength, the Chinese automobile industry has entered the fast lane of development with the rapid release of the Chinese automobile market. In 2009, China's automobile production and sales were 13.791 million and 13.6448 million respectively, and increased by 648.30% and 46.15% year-on-year. China's automobile production and sales surpassed the United States for the first time and ranked first in the world. This achievement has remained to this day.
Around 2015, China began to vigorously promote the implementation of new energy vehicles, becoming one of the main promoters of the global automobile industry's transformation to new energy. It was also during this period that new car-making brands such as Wei Xiaoli were established one after another. In the first half of this year, the sales of Chinese new energy vehicle companies accounted for as much as 59% of the world's total, and has become the main market for new energy vehicles in the world. And this time, Chinese brands are leading this trend of electrification and intelligence. (Editor: Pacific Auto Network Guo Rui)
