On the eve of the Spring Festival in 2020, a new coronavirus epidemic has hit the consumer industry, which was supposed to be driven during the Spring Festival holiday.

Guoyuan Securities research report shows that the sales of new energy vehicles continued to decline, with 44,000 units sold in January, a significant year-on-year decrease of 54.02%. Facing such a bad situation, new energy automobile companies have started to resume work around mid-February.

Industry insiders said that in the short to medium term, the auto industry will be greatly affected by the epidemic situation, and the cold winter in the auto market will intensify; in the long run, the market demand for private cars will increase.

For the new forces of car building, the entrepreneurial background of the Internet gene is a good one at this time. However, the IT Times said that it is more difficult than a full resumption of work to Synchronize the resumption of work of supply chain companies.

Smaller workload at Tesla

On February 10, Tesla Super Factory officially resumed work.

On the first day of resumption of work, Li Ming (a pseudonym), an engineer of Tesla's battery production line, received three 3M masks from the company. In addition, the temperature of each workshop was required to enter and exit the workshop.

Compared with the heavy workload of the previous year, Li Ming (pseudonym) has reduced his workload by half and reduced overtime on weekends.

"The established production line can still operate normally, but our team is mainly responsible for new projects. Even if we start construction, the supplier does not go to work." Li Ming told the IT Times reporter.

Until now, Li Ming's work rhythm has returned to normal. "Suppliers have delayed the epidemic, the project progress is too slow, and leaders have requested that new projects must be put on the agenda this week."

According to media reports, the tender for some important projects of the 1.5 phase of the joint plant of Tesla Shanghai Lingang Super Factory closed on February 25. The key structures including the steel structure production of the stamping workshop are about to start. The construction period is expected to be only one month. This means that the follow-up project of Tesla Shanghai Lingang Super Factory is accelerating.

On the one hand, the progress of the new project is stagnant, and on the other hand, good news from Tesla's ace Model 3 is frequently heard. In a recent "range mode" test, the Model 3 can travel 563 kilometers on a single charge.

According to data disclosed by the American Automobile Research Institute, the Tesla Model 3 favored by consumers is also the industry leader in terms of value preservation. The used car after one year is only 5.5% lower than the new car.

"Affected by the epidemic, the number of customers in offline stores is not large, but there are a lot of orders for online cars, and orders have now been arranged to May." Zhang Yue (pseudonym), a salesperson at Shanghai Taikoo Hui, said.

Emergency recruitment for car companies

Also returning to work on February 10 was Nio in the first echelon of the new building force.

A source from Nio told the IT Times that Nio's Shanghai headquarters has officially resumed work on February 10 in accordance with the Shanghai Municipal Government's regulations and has prioritized home office work. The regional and user service departments keep on duty according to the actual situation and respond to user needs.

In terms of internal management, Nio has temporarily established a new crown pneumonia prevention working group, which is responsible for notifying employees of the precautions during the epidemic, understanding the health information of employees and their families, and preparing sanitary cleaning and protective supplies in the office area.

In terms of marketing, Nio has made some innovative adjustments, such as maintaining online communication with users through social platforms such as live broadcast. Thanks to Nio's online sales link layout, users can easily choose and purchase cars through the App.

"As a startup company with an Internet background, Nio's own Internet gene is an advantage, and it can go online very quickly in response to this epidemic," said the above person.

In terms of plant production, Hefei Jianghuai Nio Advanced Manufacturing Base also resumed work on February 10 in accordance with the requirements of Shanghai, Anhui, Jiangsu and other local governments.

The person also pointed out that through the close user community, some of the inherent advantages of the Nio service system will be more reflected. For example, under the condition of home filling, using Nio's one-button power-up and one-key maintenance services can minimize contact with others.

Compared with the car companies in Shanghai, the resumption time in Zhejiang Province is slightly delayed. Huzhou Hongwei New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., which focuses on the production of special vehicles rather than passenger vehicles, officially resumed work on February 17.

Hongwei insiders revealed that although all departments have begun work, only about half of the people who can actually be on the job, and Hubei and other personnel in key epidemic areas cannot temporarily return to work.

Previously, Hongwei had stopped production for 10 days. After resumption of work, it began to work overtime to catch up. At present, both the mining truck production line and the low-speed car PACK production line have resumed production, and the production capacity is basically the same as before. If you are understaffed, use weekends to deploy from other departments.

"We take body temperature during work and noon. The cleaning staff disinfects the office area twice a day. Meals must be brought with them. The central air-conditioning is not used. There is basically no change in the form of the office. It is to wear a mask and use it as much as possible. Network communication. "Said the above person.

February 24 was the first day of resumption of work for Zhejiang Hezhong New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. Wang Gang (a pseudonym), a front-line worker in the welding workshop, told the IT Times that the entire production line has not yet ushered in a full resumption of work.

"The four major workshops of assembly, welding, stamping, and painting have each resumed work, and the production line is still scarce. In order to meet capacity requirements, everyone is prepared to work overtime often. During this time, capacity requirements are relatively conservative , Can keep up with a slightly longer working hour. "

In order to make up for the suspension of production for nearly a month, Zhejiang Hezhong also launched a recruitment plan one week before the official resumption of work, involving dozens of positions such as welders, product development engineers, assemblers, and product quality engineers.

Supply chain may become a bottleneck

T Times learned from people familiar with the matter that Guangzhou Automobile Group's production lines in Guangzhou have resumed production on February 17.

In response to the epidemic, GAC has introduced different measures in terms of driving, dining and office.

On the bus, for the employees who need to be picked up and dropped off from work, the transportation car is assigned a number, the rider arranges a fixed parking space and number of trips and sits at intervals. The temperature is measured before getting on the bus and before entering the company to ensure that employees are not cross-infected.

In terms of dining, meals are arranged by department according to the department. In the office, flexible office is adopted. For support departments that do not need to be on site, home office is encouraged, and other departments return to the office.

To ensure safe production, the company's labor union issued industrial N95 masks to employees on the production line, while other employees used ordinary medical surgical masks to ensure one for each person every day, and also reserved for the weekend.

The reporter learned from official channels that GAC New Energy has implemented a single shift system to gradually resume production. During the resumption of work and production, management of personnel monitoring and workshop disinfection will continue to be carried out in accordance with company requirements.

Each workshop counts the main material inventory requirements in the workshop, and conducts inspection and testing of all production equipment to confirm that it meets the requirements for resumption of production.

Checks on the status of resumption of demand for energy supply, environmental protection disposal, fire safety, etc., to ensure that they can meet the demand for resumption of production.

Although car companies can use the flexible office method to speed up the resumption of work, because different local governments have different levels of control over the epidemic, whether upstream supply chain companies can resume work at the same time will become the primary factor that hinders new energy car companies from catching up with production progress.

On February 6, Beijing Benz wrote to the People's Government of Wuqing District, Tianjin City because of the resumption of work.

In the letter, Beijing Benz stated that the company has only one day of safety stock. If it cannot resume work before February 10, the daily economic loss will exceed 400 million yuan. At the same time, it also requested the government to approve 19 suppliers to resume work normally on February 10. .

Hongwei insiders also said that the company's main problem is still the supplier, "the battery has a greater impact, some companies have not resumed work, resulting in insufficient production capacity and delay in delivery.

In particular, Hubei factories cannot resume work for the time being.

Another problem is the low efficiency of the logistics industry. What can be reached in the past 3 days now takes 1 week. "

According to a survey report by Guotai Junan, the supply of upstream raw materials required by the new energy and automotive industries is at a level of 60% -80% compared with the same period of previous years.

As the main production bases of relevant lithium batteries and battery materials are in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, some processing and raw material links are in Inner Mongolia and Qinghai. Hubei has only a small number of supporting lithium battery production, which has a small impact.

The overall rework situation of employees is lower than 60% in the same period of the previous year. Most of the resumption time in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta is February 10th. The situation of some high-speed diaphragms in some automated production lines is better. Post situation is average.

For downstream orders, due to the subsidy policy, the first quarter of this year is the off-season. Even without the impact of the epidemic, demand is only 60% of the same period last year.

Overall, the impact on the industry has been limited. Ye Shengji, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Industry Association, also told the media that with the end of the epidemic, the trend of China's auto market this year will show a trend of lows and highs, and the auto industry will accelerate its optimization and adjustment.