What is the future outlook for the automotive industry in China? The demand for talents in this area?

China's automobile industry status quo and development prospects

I. The main features of the current international automobile industry

1. The pursuit of economies of scale. The current universal standard for economies of scale in the international automotive industry is the annual production of small cars more than 1 million, the total production of automobiles more than 1.5 million. For developing countries, this standard is the annual production of small cars more than 400,000 (including 400,000). This year, the merger of Mercedes-Benz and Chrysler, and the competition between Volkswagen and BMW for the purchase of Rolls-Royce under the Vickers Group have shown that the pursuit of economies of scale and the fierce competition for market share have become the main direction of the development of the contemporary international automobile industry.

2. All-round production, with cars as the leading products. The pursuit of economies of scale is the result of an automobile company to produce, including buses, trucks, cars, tractors, off-road vehicles, including heavy and light various types of cars, but the sedan for its leading products. Sedan products itself because of its high level of manufacturing technology, downstream enterprises, its quality can represent the overall level of a country's industrial development; as a basic means of personal transportation, the next century, the development of the car market is still a lot of space, compared with other automotive products, with the growth of per capita income, the car market is the fastest rate of expansion. Therefore, for the international automobile industry in the maturity of the car as the leading product is an inevitable choice. In the automobile industry in developed countries, car ownership accounted for the proportion of the entire social car ownership are more than 60%.

3. Oligopoly market structure. In the automotive industry in the growth period, manufacturers to reduce costs, the pursuit of economies of scale and increasingly fierce competition, and ultimately through bankruptcy, closure, union, mergers and acquisitions to form an oligopoly market structure, the industry's development into maturity. At this stage, few survivors, but have realized economies of scale. For example, in the 20's, the United States automobile manufacturers have 80, France has more than 150, the United Kingdom has 40, Italy has more than 30; to the 70's, the United States is left with only 4 that is, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, the United States automobile (after the United States automobile was merged by Chrysler), the whole of Western Europe is also left with only 12 automobile companies.

4. Government involvement. As a pillar industry of the social economy, the automobile industry is invariably supported by the government both in developed and developing countries. A country's industrial policy also has a profound impact on the automobile industry. In 1979, Chrysler was on the verge of closure, the United States government immediately passed the Chrysler Loan Guarantee Act in December of that year, by the government to provide financial guarantees for the company. Chrysler accepted the loan assistance gradually out of the predicament, in 1982 profit of 2.4 billion U.S. dollars, car sales of more than 2 million units. This example became a successful model of government support for the automobile industry.

5. Transnational production. Because of the extensive division of labor and collaboration within the industry, generally speaking, more than 30% of the cost of an entire car plant is made up of externally purchased inputs, including steel, aluminum, other metals, tires, brake lines, battery units, carburetors, spark plugs, fuel pumps, windshield wipers, locks, door handles, and other kinds of parts. The automobile industry gradually formed a small number of automobile assembly plants supported by a number of parts and components enterprises, and then a large number of downstream enterprises as the basis of the pyramid structure, the producers began to optimize the allocation of resources globally, transnational production. Transnational production in China's performance, that is, China's automobile products have almost all been branded with the international automobile group. For example, Volkswagen and GM invested in SAIC to produce Santana and Buick; Germany produced Jetta and Audi in FAW; GM cooperated with FAW to produce Chevrolet vans and trucks; Citroen invested in Dongfeng to produce Fukang; France produced Guangzhou Peugeot in Guangzhou; Ford cooperated with Jiangling to produce ChuanShun light-duty vehicles; U.S. Automobile invested in Beijing to produce Beijing Cherokee; Suzuki invested in Chang'an Alto and other motorcycle factories. And so on.

Second, China's automobile industry facing problems

1. small market and the contradiction between the many manufacturers restricts the realization of economies of scale. 1995 China's automobile production exceeded 100,000 manufacturers only four, the most FAW produced 182,000 units, less than half of the standard economies of scale. As of the first half of 1998, none of the automobile enterprises in China has reached the production standard of economies of scale in the automobile industry of developing countries (taking the production of cars as the standard). According to the automobile industry development "Ninth Five-Year Plan", during the Ninth Five-Year Plan can form a large-scale production (400,000 cars) manufacturers only Shanghai Volkswagen, the rest, including FAW, Dongfeng, Tianjin, Chongqing Chang'an and other large groups of manufacturers are still unable to achieve economies of scale. This is on the one hand because of China's auto industry production technology, technology level is low, long under the protection of high tariffs have not formed enough to open up the market (including the international market) ability, more importantly, China's small auto market and the contradiction between the large number of manufacturers restricts the realization of economies of scale. more than 40 years, in pursuit of the automotive industry in the high tariffs under the protection of excessive monopoly profits, around the construction of factories producing automobiles, resulting in more than 100 manufacturers today. In order to pursue monopoly profits under the protection of high tariffs, factories have been built all over the world to produce automobiles, resulting in a situation in which more than 100 manufacturers are competing with each other. This is an unavoidable phenomenon in the growth stage of the automobile industry. With the further development of the automobile industry, each manufacturer needs to realize economies of scale, expand production and reduce costs in order to survive in the fierce competition. As a result of being under the shade of high tariffs for a long time. Manufacturers of automotive products in the international market lack of competitiveness, the target market can only be defined as the domestic market. The problem is that China's automobile market is a small market, and in the future for a long period of time, China will remain a small market. China's automobile demand in recent years can be met only by a large Western automobile company to produce, domestic manufacturers if the economies of scale (developing country standards), then only 3-4 manufacturers to meet the national demand for cars, and China's existing automobile factory 116, even if we exclude imports, the domestic automobile market is entirely occupied by domestic manufacturers, then spread evenly to each manufacturer's realizable annual output is also insufficient to meet the demand. The realized annual output of each manufacturer is less than 15,000 units.

With the car gradually become a necessity in our lives, automotive professionals have also become a very popular profession in society. Automotive professionals have become a hot "hot", the automotive industry will become the focus of competition for composite talents, such as proficient in foreign languages, automotive design talent, with automotive technology background of marketing personnel, with automotive sales background of IT professionals, as well as automotive credit, insurance, and other financial talent will continue to be in demand. In addition, thermal and power engineering, industrial design and other related professional talent demand will continue to rise.