From Crowd Pleaser to Fading in the Mainstream, Take a Look at the Bitter History of the 6AT

The world is changing too fast. Who would have thought that, since the development of the automobile transmission industry, the share of the gradually decreasing, in addition to the manual gear, and the 6AT that was once rushed.

Manual gear is slowly abandoned, mainly because of the product upgrading, "better driving" automatic gearboxes increase the demand; but the 6AT may be phased out, but there are more complex reasons.

2018 is almost the "highest light" moment for Aisin AW in China. In less than a month, Aisin completed four joint ventures and capacity expansion projects.

The timetable is as follows:

April 23, 2018, Aisin announced the expansion of production lines in Tianjin Aida, and is expected to increase the production capacity of 6AT transmissions by another 300,000 units. (Increased production)

On April 24, 2018, Aisin set up transmission joint ventures with Geely Automobile and Guangzhou Automobile Passenger Vehicle, respectively, to produce mainly front-drive 6AT transmissions, each with a capacity of 400,000 units, and will be mass-produced in 2020. It is worth noting that Aisin's shareholding in both joint ventures is 60 percent, with a major voice. (New construction)

On May 10, 2018, Aisin signed a project with the government of Fengrun District, Tangshan, Hebei province, with an annual production capacity of 400,000 units of 6AT transmissions. (Increase production)

If all goes well, Aisin's 6AT production capacity in the Chinese market should increase to 2.4 million units by 2020, which is this year.

However, from what has been revealed so far, Geely Aisin and GAC Aisin, the two joint ventures, are not following the established trajectory.

Geely Aisin's joint venture program is currently in a state of stagnation, in the third quarter of last year, Geely also independently restarted the standard Aisin 6AT research and development project.

Guangzhou Aisin joint venture shareholding composition of a new change, Aisin through the Aida (China) Investment Co., Aisin AW Co., Ltd. a total shareholding of 10.71%, much lower than the previous 60%, the withdrawal of the signal is obvious.

This time, this time

In 2018, Geely and GAC were willing to set up a joint venture with Aisin, and Aisin accounted for 60% of the equity. The main reason is that the two companies had a strong demand for Aisin's 6AT gearboxes that year.

Geely acquired Australia's DSI transmission company in the early years, and later cooperated with Volvo in research and development, also has 7DCT transmission can be equipped with assembly.

GAC Chuanqi has a 7DCT transmission derived from Fiat's technology, but the current main-selling models GS4, GS5, GS7 and GS8 are equipped with Aisin's 6AT transmission.

The addition of the AT gearbox can enrich the power options and meet the product preferences of different users. Moreover, taking into account the user reputation, in the most critical period of Geely and Guangzhou Automobile's brand rise, the AT transmission also has a certain "sense of premium" and "sense of trust" added.

In fact, Aisin has a virtual monopoly on the Chinese market in terms of 6AT gearboxes. GAC Chuanqi GS8 has been forced to adjust its own output downward due to insufficient supply of Aisin's 6AT transmission capacity.

The joint venture, which was a huge success in its day, must have been a "love affair" and full of optimism.

Geely and GAC can meet the fast-growing demand for automatic transmissions by joining hands with Aisin to ensure that production capacity is constantly supplied, as well as parallelizing a variety of transmission technology routes to satisfy the product needs of a wide range of car models and consumers at multiple levels.

Aisin's calculations are even more shrewd, by tying up with the main domestic independent brands, further locking up market share. Moreover, Aisin has been a strong player in the whole joint venture project, taking a 60 percent stake and having a major say, in line with its traditionally strong performance.

But two years later, the auto market has changed in unforeseen ways.

First, China's auto market sales have declined for two consecutive years, and the 2.4 million units of 6AT transmission capacity planned at the beginning may not be absorbed.

Second, industry trends are accelerating, especially the impact of consumer preferences and the new energy trend, 6AT is not so popular.

Moreover, Aisin's interests in cooperation with Geely and GAC are at odds. Geely and GAC want to get a certain amount of technology, including the introduction of 8AT, but Aisin has been strong, and has always hidden its technology***.

This time, this time, after the industry wind direction has changed, the future of the joint venture also cast a shadow.

6AT is really going to be a thing of the past?

Aisin shouldn't have too much anxiety. Even if the joint venture project is difficult to continue, it still has the Tianjin and Tangshan plants to support its production capacity, and it still has a monopoly on 6AT gearboxes, including pricing power in its market segments. The only worry is that the 6AT gearbox itself will not be "natural elimination" in the transformation of China's auto market?

Automotive home statistics in the past decade, the proportion of different types of transmissions and trends, the most distinctive feature is: 2013, 6AT models accounted for the highest value, followed by a significant decline year by year; 2014, MT models accounted for a sharply higher, and then began to decline; DCT, CVT models accounted for the general trend of year-on-year increase.

There is some historical cause and effect as to which automatic transmission can become mainstream, and it will be different in different regions. For example, DCT is popular in Europe because MT was more often used before; the US transitioned to AT very early, and CVT and DCT had less impact.

China's automatic transmission development since the blank stage, the early stage by the mainstream automobile enterprises route choice has a greater impact.

For a long time, Volkswagen purchased Aisin 6AT gearboxes, and there was also the problem of "Aisin dependence", before turning to DSG dual-clutch gearboxes. As you can see from the chart above, the decline in the share of 6AT models after 2013 is related to the switch of VW models towards dual-clutch, and the wave of dual-clutch R&D that it led.

In 2014, the share of MT models pulls up, is China's auto market enters a new round of high growth era, and the middle and low price range models are concentrated on the market. Limited by budget price, consumers are also more accommodating to MT gearboxes.

Subsequently, independent brands have used self-developed dual-clutch transmission, technology breakthroughs, the cost is also declining; in recent years, the independent brand CVT transmission is also beginning to enter the popularization stage. AT transmission because of patents and cost issues, has not been the independent brand of self-development of the mainstream direction.

As for the joint venture brands or luxury brands, they began to pursue more gears on the AT transmission, and a number of models equipped with 8AT, 9AT and even 10AT appeared, which are smoother and more fuel-efficient. And, from the source of multi-gear AT, General Motors, Ford, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and other car companies have chosen to self-research, while ZF dominates the longitudinal platform 8AT.

In the low-end car market, 6AT high cost, fuel consumption is not low, dual clutch and CVT become a good alternative; in the high-end car market, 6AT gears are a little less, can not support the "sense of luxury", and ultimately fall into the "high not, not low "The situation. Now, still insisting on "only" using 6AT transmission models, excluding some of the models near the upgrade, most of the brand in the low-end products or relatively low heat models.

Additionally, the new energy trend is gaining momentum, which is also affecting the attitude of automakers toward transmission development. Gearboxes suitable for hybrid systems, or single/two-speed gearboxes for pure electric vehicles may have more market space.

Hidden security in the industry chain

There has always been a delicate balance between OEMs and suppliers. After all, automobile is a multi-part, long-chain industry, the lack of a link can not. For the purchaser and the supply side, there is inevitably a struggle for the right to speak, both about the division of profits, but also about the essential sense of security. In the early years, the hot-selling Guangzhou Automobile Chuanqi GS8 because of the Aisin 6AT supply capacity is insufficient to reduce production, is the Chinese brand in the breakthrough 200,000 yuan price ceiling road to pay tuition.

With the advent of the electric car trend, the automotive supply chain system needs to be reorganized, and the right to speak will be re-contested. In front of the host factory is still the old problem, how to control the core components in their own hands?

Taking the battery as an example, as a core component of new energy vehicles, the cost of the battery may account for 1/3-1/2 of the cost of the entire vehicle. for traditional car companies, this is an unfamiliar technical field, in order to enhance the sense of security, the common way is still a joint venture to build factories, to ensure the supply of production capacity through the equity bundling, the SAIC hand in hand with the ningde times is a typical example.

Research and development of new energy technology requires a long time, a large investment, traditional car companies completely from scratch is very difficult, temporary copy the answer is also unnecessary. So we are seeing more and more alliances in the industry, not just between OEMs and suppliers, but also between OEMs and OEMs. For example, Toyota and BYD set up a technology joint venture; Honda and General Motors cooperate to build cars with the help of GM's EV platform and battery technology. It's just that such alliances and collaborations, in the automatic transmission space, are unlikely to be new at this point in time.

Late in 2018, Aisin formed BluE?Nexus, a joint venture with another Japanese auto parts giant, Denso, to develop and sell drive modules for electric vehicles. At this point, Aisin's core technologies in the field of automatic transmissions, such as integrated driveshafts and electronic controls, still have huge potential for expansion in the era of electric vehicles.

From a technical point of view, 6AT is not necessarily backward, or 8AT, 9AT is not an essential progress than 6AT. But the choice of technology route, obviously does not depend entirely on the technical nature of the "advanced", but in the consumer "vote with their feet" in the context of the car companies in the technical accumulation of talent points and marketing communication needs to be guided by the same ***, a comprehensive trade-offs results!

This is the result of a comprehensive trade-off.

For example, when Volkswagen, today's many local car companies to the DCT tilt, really just because as advertised, the DCT is faster than the AT shift, high efficiency, is the future of the transmission field? Or do you think it is a selling point that can enhance the brand premium? Behind the "parameter boost", how many knives are padded in the alcove below?

But this choice of technical route, which does not depend on technology, is a completely different orientation when it comes to the consumer market. When consumers are guided by the communication of many car companies to associate 6AT with "low-end", "backward", "fuel consumption" and other negative concepts, the mainstream suppliers, if they do not want to be If mainstream suppliers don't want to be "directed in the wrong direction", they will naturally adjust their capacity planning and technology upgrade routes according to the back-end trend.

So the 6AT becoming a thing of the past is both a reflection of technological progress and iteration, and an inevitable result of marketing communication needs.

This article comes from the author of the automobile home car family, does not represent the views of the automobile home position.