COVID-19 epidemic swept the world! How big is the impact of major car companies stopping production?

It was April, and cherry blossoms were in full bloom in Wuhan University. With the continuous efforts of medical staff, the epidemic situation in China has improved obviously, and it is believed that the ban will be completely lifted in the near future. Abroad, the situation is not very optimistic.

Ps: The picture is from National Geographic Chinese Network.

The failure to take strict control measures against COVID-19 in time has led to an increase in the number of confirmed patients in many European countries. Of course, we don't want to discuss how to prevent the epidemic abroad. After all, we are car media. Today, let's talk about the impact of the spread of foreign epidemics on the automobile industry.

Not long ago, I saw the news that Bosch and the mainland, the world's first and second largest auto parts suppliers, announced that they would stop production in Europe. Bosch said that it will suspend or reduce the work in factories in France, Italy and Spain. The mainland also announced that it would stop production in Europe.

In fact, not only two auto parts manufacturers stopped working, but Magna, the third largest auto parts supplier in the world, also announced that the Austrian factory stopped working. Next, I counted the auto parts suppliers who were forced to stop working.

It is not difficult to find from the figure that the enterprises that stopped working involve almost every link of automobile manufacturing, which can be said to have a great influence. So far, some suppliers have announced the shutdown for two main reasons:

First, as of 0: 00 Beijing time on April 2nd, the number of confirmed cases in COVID-19, a country outside China, has exceeded 740,000, which is quite exaggerated. By April 1 day 18, the number of confirmed cases in Italy, the country with the worst epidemic in Europe, exceeded 1 10000. Many auto parts suppliers, such as Bosch and Michelin, have factories in Italy, and the local factories have stopped working due to the epidemic, which undoubtedly has a serious impact on many enterprises.

Secondly, as we all know, auto parts factory is the upstream industry of vehicle manufacturing. At the beginning of March, many parts suppliers said that they would not stop production because of the epidemic, so there would still be many orders in their hands. Now the number of confirmed cases in the world will reach one million. In order to reduce losses, 14 car companies and 100 factories were forced to stop working.

According to Forbes, car sales in European countries will drop by more than 10% this year. Affected by the epidemic, many European countries have introduced laws restricting travel, which has added new troubles to the automobile trading market. Because of the sluggish sales, many factories have to work under the optimal production scale, which will lead to an increase in the manufacturing cost of each car, which is likely to affect the terminal price.

The so-called "pulling one hair and moving the whole body" not only bears the increase in vehicle manufacturing cost caused by the decline in sales, but also worries about the business crisis caused by the shortage of supply chain caused by the suspension of spare parts suppliers. The "black swan" epidemic in COVID-19 has brought a great blow to the global automobile industry. At present, many enterprises in China have resumed their work one after another and can export to foreign countries to cope with the phenomenon of poor supply. But at this time, domestic automakers also need a lot of spare parts, and overseas automakers can't pin all their hopes on the China factory. For consumers, the delivery of cars will be delayed one after another after buying the models of car companies that have stopped production.

We might as well put it another way. This epidemic can be regarded as a test for the global automobile industry, which allows them to formulate different inventory strategies for different parts and adopt multiple supplier channels for key parts. Only by strengthening the flexibility of supply chain can we cope with many uncertainties and realize "sustainable development".

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.