Strive for 2020 to enter the first square array of Chengdu manufacturing to help the rise of new heights in the automotive industry

The Sichuan Basin has a flat terrain, a wide range of rivers and rivers, and a wealth of products. Since ancient times, it has been known as the “Land of Abundance”. As the capital city of the “Land of Abundance”, Chengdu is the city with the largest number of foreign consulates in the western region and the largest number of international routes. Chengdu, the first city in the western region of China, is a benchmark and model for other cities in the west in many dimensions. It is no exception in the automotive market and automotive industry.

Chengdu Auto Show, one of the four largest A-class auto shows in China, is a major feature of this city. On August 25th, the Chengdu New Century International Convention and Exhibition Center ushered in the 20th Chengdu Auto Show. It is reported that the 2017 Chengdu Auto Show is divided into 9 exhibition halls and outdoor venues with an exhibition area of ​​150,000 square meters and 116 exhibiting brands. From the original 400 square meters to today's 150,000 square meters, the scale of the Chengdu auto show continues to grow, reflecting the growth in demand in the western automotive market. From the Chengdu Auto Show, some high-end products produced in Chengdu are gradually becoming the protagonists of the auto show, such as the Peugeot 4008, Peugeot 5008, Citroen Tianyi, FAW-Volkswagen Sagitar and FAW-Toyota Prado. Produced in Chengdu. Today's Chengdu is not only a key area for automobile consumption, but is also undergoing transformation and upgrading to become a key area for mid- to high-end automobile production.

â–  "Made in Chengdu" is increasing

In the early 1990s, the domestic auto industry was not yet developed, especially in Sichuan Province. Constrained by the geographic influence of the western region, although Chengdu has always been a major automobile sales center in the western region, the development of the automobile industry has always been relatively backward. “The house leaked in the shadow of rain.” In 1997, Chongqing was established as a municipality, and Sichuan and Chongqing formally “separated”. According to statistics, the output value of the automobile industry in Sichuan (including Chongqing) was about 1.3 billion yuan in 1997. After the “separation” of Sichuan and Chongqing, Chongqing took nearly 80 percent of the automobile industry’s output value. Sichuan's automobile industry can be described as “a night before returning to liberation.” ".

In 1998, Sichuan Toyota Motor Co., Ltd. was established in Chengdu and became Toyota's first vehicle manufacturer in China. It is easy to develop the automobile industry. It is difficult for a single company to support the high costs of logistics transportation and component integration. Only the gathering of industries and the development of the group can solve this problem. In 2000, the state-level Chengdu Economic and Technological Development Zone took part in the Longquanyi District of Chengdu City. The Longquanyi District aimed to focus on the automotive industry with high development potential and strong radiation capability. The “Western Modern Manufacturing Base” began its journey.

In fact, the industrial resources of the automotive industry in Chengdu and even in Sichuan Province are relatively fragmented. The scale of individual industries is not large, and it is difficult to form an aggregation effect. After many investigations and reports, the Sichuan Provincial Government has issued a basis for investment in automobile investment and key development plans to further guide the vigorous development of the local automobile industry and further promote the dream of a strong automobile province.

In July 2006, Chengdu successively issued the "Current Status of the Development of Chengdu's Automobile Industry", "Basis and Environment for the Development of Chengdu's Automobile Industry", "Policy Support for the Development of Chengdu's Automobile Industry" and "Key Points for the Recent Development of the Chengdu Automobile Industry" and other documents. . The document mentioned for the first time the focus of industrial carrier construction, and Longquanyi District became a gathering place for auto vehicle companies.

At the end of 2006, the Chengdu base of FAW Group at the time was relocated to Chengdu Economic Development Zone, Longquanyi District. Since 2007, Geely has invested in Chengdu, and has settled in China Jiajia Automobile, Volvo SPA platform passenger car project, Geely plateau automobile, Geely University and other projects, with a total investment of over 30 billion yuan; July 19, 2007, FAW- Volkswagen Jetta Chengdu Production Base was formally put into production. The first "Chengdu" Jetta was offline; July 6, 2008, FAW Toyota relocated and expanded, with a total investment of 3.6 billion yuan; May 8, 2009, FAW-Volkswagen The construction of a 350,000-sedere car production project in the Chengdu plant started; the Chengdu plant of Volvo was officially started in October 2012, with an investment of over 4 billion yuan, completed in September 2013 and put into trial production; on October 16, 2014, by Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. The PSA Peugeot Citroen Group invested 12.3 billion yuan in the construction of the Shenlong Automobile Chengdu plant. According to the plan, the Chengdu plant of Shenlong Motor Co., Ltd. will mainly produce Dongfeng Peugeot, Dongfeng Citroen, Dongfeng three brands of high-end SUVs and MPV models, and plan new energy automotive products simultaneously.

Vehicle companies have come to invest in Chengdu, which has not only improved the level of development of the automobile industry in Chengdu, but also has driven a number of parts and components companies to Chengdu to seek development opportunities. Bosch in Germany, Johnson Controls in the United States, Faurecia in France, Magna in Canada, and China's Yunnei Dynamics and other 300 key auto parts companies all invest in Chengdu. It is understood that these parts and components companies provide nearly 1,000 parts including engines, transmissions, axles, and brake systems, providing a strong supporting system for the Chengdu auto industry.

Under the leadership of the Chengdu automobile industry, the Sichuan automobile industry has formed a complete industrial chain of complete vehicles, key components, logistics, and marketing services, and has cultivated a full range of passenger car products. At present, Sichuan Province has built a cluster of auto industries focusing on Chengdu Economic Development Zone, focusing on Mianyang City and Nanchong City. Among them, Chengdu Economic Development Zone has gathered 47 Fortune 500 companies including the Volkswagen, Toyota, Bosch and 51 listed companies. According to the reporter, the next goal of Chengdu is to enter the first phalanx of the domestic automobile industry by 2020.

â– Manufacturing and "smart creation"

According to statistics, the production capacity of passenger cars in Chengdu in 2016 exceeded one million. As a latecomer to the automotive industry, Chengdu Manufacturing did not take the old road of industrial production. Instead, it emphasized the simultaneous development of manufacturing and “intellectualism,” and increased Chengdu’s manufacturing quality while increasing the quality of Chengdu’s wisdom.

On May 22, 2015, the first batch of 22 S60 sedan cars produced at the Volvo Chengdu plant were exported to the US market. Domestically-manufactured vehicles have been successfully exported to the US market, and they are also rare in the history of the Chinese automobile industry. The 22 Volvo cars were delivered from the Volvo Chengdu plant and landed at the port of Shanghai. They finally reached the entire east-west coast of the United States by sea and then met with US consumers at dealer showrooms.

How does Volvo manufactured in Chengdu export to the United States? The answer from the Volvo Chengdu plant is "high quality." The Volvo Chengdu plant performs the same rigorous testing procedures as the European factory. In terms of on-line testing, the Chengdu plant is connected to a European factory, and global managers can see every production data here. According to the relevant person in charge of Volvo, the Volvo models exported to the United States are produced in line with the existing models of the Volvo Chengdu plant, and the production technology level and production equipment are completely the same as those of European factories. It is worth mentioning that Volvo's unique automobile manufacturing system further standardizes the global quality of high-end car production process, from the previous supplier management system, standardized manufacturing system to the later quality control, Volvo in every workshop, every process Extremely strict inspection and quality control standards.

In addition to strict hardware standards, employee training is also an important part. It is understood that Volvo Chengdu's factory exchanges between Chinese employees and European employees and "one-to-one" overseas "shadow project" internships of Chinese employees ensure that the Chengdu factory can fully inherit the essence of Volvo's global manufacturing. According to reports, the "shadow project" is a master with apprentices, apprentices follow the master to learn work. The first batch of 60 front-line staff of the Volvo Chengdu factory all went to the European factory to carry out training and practical operations at the station. Through this training method, they brought their experience and ideas back to the Chengdu factory. In addition to "send out", there is "introduction." At present, Volvo Chengdu has 100 foreign employees in its factory to ensure the original technical transference and convergence.

The Volvo made in Chengdu can successfully go abroad and demonstrate that Chengdu already has the ability to produce superior products of global quality, as well as the ability to participate in the international competition of precision products and serve the international market. This symbolizes that the Chengdu automobile industry cluster is moving from the basic “manufacturing” to more. Efficient and smarter "intelligence" transformation. Take Dongfeng Shenlong Chengdu Base as an example, this is the fourth factory built by Shenlong Auto in China. At the beginning of the planning and construction, the fourth factory established the goal of building a world-class factory and a Dongfeng model factory. “A set of simple data comparisons can explain the problem.” The person in charge of the relevant project of the fourth plant of Shenlong introduced: “The automation rate of welding at Shenlong No. 1 Plant is 40%, 70% at No. 2 Plant, 85% at No. 3 Plant, and 100 at No. 4 Plant. % robot welding."

In order to achieve the goal of entering the first phalanx of the domestic automobile industry by 2020, Chengdu Zhizhi will play a key role. However, Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the National Passenger Cars Joint Conference, said that although some companies have completed this change, they still have to work together in many aspects such as personnel training and the transformation of business ideas. In the future, Chengdu can become the height of the automobile industry.

â–  New energy and intelligent counterparts

According to the “White Paper on Industrial Development in Chengdu,” (hereinafter referred to as “White Paper”) issued in July 2017, the future Chengdu automobile industry will focus on the development of mid- to high-end brand passenger cars and parts, new energy vehicles and batteries, electronic control, and electrical machinery. Key components, clean energy cars and smart networked cars. The plan shows that in 2017, the value-added of the automobile industry in Chengdu will increase by more than 10%, strive for 15%, achieve a total vehicle production of 1.2 million units, and the main business income of the whole industry will be 180 billion yuan, and profits and taxes will be more than 35 billion yuan. To maintain the rapid growth of the automotive industry; by 2022, Chengdu to achieve more than 2.1 million units of vehicle production, the industry's main business income of more than 300 billion yuan, and profits and taxes more than 58 billion yuan.

In order to achieve the above goals, Chengdu will target the development of the automotive industry to new energy vehicles and intelligent networked vehicles.

The “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” for the development of strategic emerging industries in Chengdu this year pointed out that by 2020, the scale of Chengdu's new energy and new energy automobile industry will reach 50 billion yuan. According to the “White Paper”, the future development strategy of Chengdu in new energy vehicles and intelligent grid-linked vehicles is to use pure electric power as the main strategic orientation for the development of new energy vehicles, focusing on the development of pure electric vehicles, plug-in (including extensions) Hybrid vehicles and fuel cell vehicles; actively cultivating smart car products such as onboard intelligent terminal systems, advanced on-board sensing systems, and human-vehicle interconnection systems.

At the end of last year, at the Chengdu Investment Environment Briefing and International Cooperation Park Project Matchmaking Conference, Chengdu and a number of new energy auto companies signed the "Chengdu New Energy Automobile Industry Alliance Strategic Cooperation Agreement", Chengdu New Energy Automobile Industry Alliance officially Established. According to the agreement, the alliance will rely on Chengdu's environmental advantages in the areas of markets, policies, and services to jointly build a new industrial chain cooperation platform for new energy vehicles. In addition, Chengdu's new energy vehicle industry has developed its entire industrial chain development concept. According to the plan, Chengdu will build a new energy vehicle "city of cars" and a "car capital." By 2020, a 1-km smart charging ring will be formed in the center of the city, 1.5-kilometers of smart charging rings in other districts (cities) and counties, and a total of 100,000 new-energy vehicles will be used in Chengdu.

"For new energy vehicles and intelligent networked cars, Chengdu insists on the strategy of 'what does it lack?' Wen Bin, director of the Automotive Industry Department of Chengdu City Economic and Trade Commission, said that on the one hand, the new energy vehicles and intelligent networked cars With mature basic conditions, on the other hand, there are great advantages in the field of information industry. “The information industry is the largest industry in Chengdu and has gathered many outstanding technical talents. These talents can all be radiated into the intelligent networked automobile industry.” Wen Bin said.

In March of this year, the Intelligent Network Alliance New Energy Vehicle Technology Research Center led by experts from several national and provincial “Thousand People Projects” was unveiled at the Sichuan Energy Internet Institute. It is reported that the center is affiliated to Tsinghua Sichuan Energy Internet Research Institute and will focus on solving the key issues of efficient interconnection, information security, and big data applications between electric vehicles and the electric grid, and will be sponsored by the Department of Automotive Engineering and Electrical Engineering of Tsinghua University. Supporting the growth of Chengdu's development of intelligent networking industry can be described as icing on the cake.

â–  Piloting the development of western auto industry

Chengdu's auto industry development is often compared with Chongqing. Some analysts believe that Chengdu has three main advantages. First of all, although they are all automotive industry bases, Chengdu has more powerful, stronger, and more growth vehicles. Second, Chengdu has more universities than Chongqing, and its quality is higher than that of Chongqing. It has a natural advantage in the accumulation of talents. . As a “window” in the western region, Chengdu has a greater impact on the western region and has become more popular. Third, although Chengdu cannot form a local large-scale automobile group comparable to Chang’an Automobile in a short period of time, it is a long-term perspective. Look, Chengdu can pursue the open-door policy of “do not ask for everything, but ask for a place”. Through the strategy of building nests and attracting phoenixes, Chengdu attracts more car companies to establish branch factories in Chengdu.

As an important “window” for China’s western market, Chengdu’s importance is self-evident. “In fact, the current domestic auto manufacturing industry pattern is showing a tendency of continuous proliferation and 'western move' from industrial clusters, including the shift of the German Volkswagen related industries to the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, and FAW Toyota’s increasing investment in Chengdu. "A reflection." An analyst told reporters, "The original domestic automobile industry has six industrial clusters in the Northeast, North China, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, Central China, and the Southwest. The southwestern region has traditionally focused on Chongqing. However, as the industry continues to Integration, as well as the demographic dividends in Sichuan Province, the development advantages of raw materials, parts and components industry chain, and the potential of the automotive sales market in the western region continue to ferment, Chengdu is piloting the development of the automotive industry in Sichuan and even the entire western region, becoming the development of the domestic automobile industry. The important force."