At present, the insufficient supply of automotive chips has become the focus of attention of global auto companies, affecting the entire upstream and downstream of the automotive industry chain. Affected by repeated outbreaks of the epidemic, superimposed blizzards, earthquakes and other occasional multiple events, some countries and regions were forced to suspend chip production lines, and the production capacity of the global semiconductor industry has dropped sharply. Malaysia is a key industrial base for global chip packaging services. A new round of epidemic broke out in mid-July this year, which led to the shutdown of many production lines in the local semiconductor chip packaging and testing industry. Large-scale stocking of consumer electronics products such as mobile phones and mobile phones has squeezed production capacity.
The smart car chip market has an unprecedented scale. Under the pressure of the lack of cores, my country’s car chip design has made rapid progress: Horizon Journey 5 is scheduled to be equipped with new brands such as BYD, Hongqi, Ideal and Weilai; Black Sesame Smart won Dongfeng The group’s Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle’s first pure electric car and the first pure electric SUV are the two models of project designation. Domestic automotive chips are now ushering in better opportunities for development. Self-owned brand car companies have gradually begun to accept and actively embrace domestic chips, and the wind direction has begun to change. Some chip companies that have deployed early have also begun to enjoy market dividends. Domestic chips are speeding up to be used in cars, and a new era of automotive chips has arrived. The industry expects that 2025 will become a key node for chip localization replacement.
At present, my country’s economic structure has undergone major adjustments, and industrial transformation and upgrading are continuing. Industrial base machines will surely undertake important missions in this development process, and will also usher in rare historical opportunities. Breakthroughs in key areas require long-term unremitting efforts and continuous investment, so it is particularly important to guide social resources, especially capital resources, into the industrial machine tool industry. This requires both top-level design and the joint efforts of multi-level capital forces.
Chips are becoming more and more important to intelligent connected cars, but due to the shortage of chips, the shortage of chips has had a great impact on car companies since the second half of 2020. “One core is hard to find” has become a true portrayal of the automotive industry in the past two years. Car companies even set up special teams to go to chip factories to “grab chips” to guarantee supply; at the same time, under the wave of domestic substitution, domestic chips are taking advantage of the trend. Looking forward to 2023, according to Zhang Hui, an expert in the China Automotive Research and Political Research Consulting Center and intelligent network policy research, as the epidemic stabilizes, the world resumes work and production in an orderly manner, and the production of automotive chips gradually increases. It is expected that there will be a shortage of automotive chips in 2023. will get some relief. The supply rate of China’s domestic automotive chips is less than 10%, the lowest is less than 1%, that is, more than 90% of the chips needed for each car are imported. Whether it is ordinary chips or some key chips, especially smart chips, the demand will increase in the future, but the bottleneck will also become higher and higher. And the United States continues to increase the technical blockade of Chinese semiconductor companies!
Automotive grade chip products have high quality requirements, pursue high performance, low power consumption, and low heat dissipation, and at the same time superimpose the demand for continuous and stable supply capabilities of products by automakers. This makes the car-level chips have the characteristics of intelligence-intensive and capital-intensive industries. In the face of design, tape-out to mass production, and even commercial applications, and expanding customer resources, most domestic automotive chip companies are small in scale, weak in their own accumulation, and weak in anti-risk capabilities, and have a strong dependence on foundry manufacturers. Compared with foreign manufacturers, the disadvantages are more obvious. However, we must see that the localization of automotive chips is a major trend, and domestic auto companies also intend to accelerate localization and replacement to ensure supply security. This is also an opportunity for the development of domestic auto chip companies. Enterprises with reliable technical teams, capable of responding to market demands in a timely manner, and with good industrial partnerships will be given priority for development.
Insufficient supply of automotive chips has become the focus of attention of global auto companies
Due to the shortage of chips, the most direct impact is that the production and sales of automobiles are hindered, the delivery time of new cars is continuously extended, the discounts for most brands and models are also greatly reduced, and some brand models even have increased sales. The increase in raw materials for automobiles and the increase in the price of chips have put the entire automobile market in a relatively passive position, and the increase in prices has also had an adverse impact on consumers. In order to save the continuous decline in sales, major car companies have begun to reduce their dependence on chips by reducing allocations, so that the production and sales data will not look too “ugly”. Some car companies adopt the “delivery first and then reinstallation” plan, while others adopt a “permanent” reduction plan. The former approach is more common among new power car companies. For example, Lixiang and Xiaopeng have adopted this temporary reduction plan, while more traditional car companies have directly removed some configurations that will not affect vehicle performance and safety.