Dai Ke's new double-line layout of commercial vehicles to change the prospects of passenger cars


Commercial Vehicles

Dai Ke commercial vehicle layout change

After a week of mystery suspension of Foton Motors’ stock, on the morning of November 29, DaimlerChrysler (hereinafter referred to as Dai-ke) and the directors of Foton Motors secretly met in Beijing.

Zhao Jingguang, Secretary of the Party Committee of Foton Motor Co., Ltd., who walked out of the meeting, said that he was surprised: “The board of directors has reached a final intention and the specific form of cooperation will be released on November 30th.”

At the same time, in addition to the eager eyes of investors on the off-site, more attention is paid by the car industry to the serious concern of Dai Ke's commercial vehicles in China.

Mystery suspension

On November 30, the announcement of Foton Motor finally surfaced: Foton Motors decided to issue additional shares to Dai-ke, and the issuance of shares will account for 24% of the current total share capital of Foton Motor. "Dai-ke will become the second largest shareholder of Foton Motor (the largest shareholder is Beiqi Holding Co.), and it is difficult to say whether the two parties will establish a joint venture in the future," said Li Ming, general manager of Foton Motor Finance.

On November 22, Foton Motor Co. suddenly suspended shares, and industry insiders predicted that this is a signal that Foton Motors and Dai-Ke will brewing major commercial vehicles in China. On the same day, a securities agency said that Foton Motors will join hands with Dai Ke to implement a private placement of DaimlerChrysler Daimler-Benz, which will lead to the establishment of a joint venture company for commercial vehicles.

In fact, as early as September 2003, Foton Auto's controlling party Beiqi Holding Co., Ltd. had signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Dai-Ke Company. The agreement includes: Dai-ke Company's acquisition of part of the legal person shares of Foton Motor; A joint venture company for heavy trucks; discusses the possibility of business cooperation between large and medium-sized passenger vehicles.

“Dai-Ke has been very keen to have a commercial vehicle joint venture with Foton Motor. This is because Foton Motor has many years of commercial vehicle manufacturing experience and production resources. Secondly, it is the controlling party of Foton Motors and Dai Ke's joint venture project in China. The Chinese side is also a BAIC Holding Company. Joint ventures under the same system will benefit Dai Ke's project management and coordination, said a person in charge of Dai-Ke (China) Investment Co., Ltd.

However, the Dai-Ke and Futian commercial vehicle projects have been stalled for a long time, due to restrictions on the number of joint-venture vehicles for commercial vehicles. According to the new "Automotive Industry Policy," the same foreign-funded enterprise can only establish no more than two joint ventures producing similar products in China. Dai-ke established Yaxing Mercedes-Benz Co., Ltd. in a joint venture with Jiangsu Yaxing Bus Group in 1997 to produce Mercedes-Benz brand and Yaxing brand passenger car. In 2003, Dai-ke and Fujian Automobile Group signed a joint venture to establish Fujian Benz commercial vehicle company. The agreement to produce light passenger vehicles. Dai Ke's joint-venture quota for commercial vehicles in China has been used up. The marriage with Foton Motor immediately became a “month of water”.

stumbling block

Dai Ke did not give up on the issue of the Fujian Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicle company established with the Fujian Automobile Group.

During the Beijing International Auto Show on November 19, the chairman of Fujian Automobile Group Ling Yuzhang disclosed that the joint venture project between Fujian Auto and Dai Ke has been basically approved. “After the approval of the document, the factory can start construction immediately. In Fuzhou, Qingkou In the industrial park, adjacent to 3,000 mu of Southeastern Automobile City, the same 3,000-acre Dai-k Motor City will start construction soon. It will be completed and put into production approximately one and a half to two years.”

How does Dai-K achieve break? Now, the key point is Mercedes-Benz.

For a long time, due to the overlapping of internal product settings and serious competition, the sales of Yaxing Mercedes have been unsatisfactory. Taking the Mercedes-Benz brand passenger car as an example, the sales figures for the entire year were only two vehicles. “Just because of the location of Yaxing Mercedes, the opposition of the Yangzhou City government and the restrictions of the policy department, Dai Ke’s plan to abandon Yaxing Mercedes has not been realized.” According to a person familiar with the matter, later, Dai Ke also had It is intended to promote the acquisition of Yaxing Mercedes by Foton Motors and Fujian Automobile Group. "Only because of the long-term loss of Yaxing Mercedes, Foton Motors and Fujian Automobile Group are not very active."

In an emergency, Dai-ke took out three foreign executives (one general manager and one deputy general manager of manufacturing and after-sales) in Yaxing Mercedes in June this year and replaced it with the Jiangsu Yaxing Group. Reorganized leadership team. At the same time, Dai-Ke also issued an "ultimate warning" to Yaxing-Benz: to give the Chinese two years of self-help, if the effect is still not satisfactory, Dai-ke will divest from Yaxing Mercedes.

"There is no doubt that Yaxing-Benz is the biggest 'stumbling block' for the restructuring of Dai-ke commercial vehicles," said Chen Yusong, general manager of the automotive division of the Sunshine Cay Consultants.

Yaxing out?

Although the current joint venture between Dai-Ke and Foton is still not fully realized, Dai Ke-(China) official said: "The two sides will not stop planning to establish a commercial vehicle joint venture company." This means that Dai-ke must give up now. There is one of two joint venture partners. It seems that the road to Yaxing Mercedes seems to have come to an end.

When the reporter got in touch with Yaxing-Benz on this matter, the response of a person in charge within him was quite profound: “Dean Kee has already started to implement future product strategies for Yaxing-Benz after the withdrawal of foreign executives. Re-planning, I believe that China can do a good job on its own.” However, according to Yaxing insiders, compared with last year, Yaxing Mercedes’s product sales did not improve much.

For Dai Ke's approach, Yaxing's responsible person has a deep grievance and has caused Yaxing Mercedes-Benz's difficulties today. Dai Ke has primary responsibility. His strategy in China has been problematic. The European and American passenger car market emphasizes that high-end products must be stable. Dai Ke's development of a product generally takes 4 to 5 years to be replaced, but the Chinese bus market is mainly based on low-end products, and changes in two years, "Dai-ke to move the international concept of product development It is not appropriate to go to China and the market has changed since the products have not been developed. In addition to the high price of the products, they are usually more than 1 million yuan. Of course, there will be problems in marketing."

But in any case, Dai Ke has been sharpened and is planning to start working for Yaxing Mercedes that is in the self-rescue period. Yaxing Mercedes leader stressed that, “If Dai Ke continues to maintain its previous marketing strategy, it will be troublesome for anyone to work with. ."

Passenger car articles

Mercedes-Benz car speed worry

The E350 will debut in advance and the C-Class will soon be introduced... Mercedes swears to regain lost China opportunities. However, the localization rate requirements set by the policy have always followed suit.

Small scale of production and sales, high quality requirements for parts and components, and how do 40% localization support be achieved? Mercedes headaches.

Mercedes speed

A few days ago, Beijing Benz announced that the new generation of domestic Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan officially listed, and on the same day to accept reservations nationwide. The three new E-Class sedan marketed here are E200K, E280 and E350, respectively. According to the previous statement of Beijing Benz: “The new E350 will be launched in Beijing in early 2007.”

Mercedes-Benz’s ego has allowed it to lose too many market opportunities in China and is now determined to change its face. Just two days before the launch of three domestic new E-Class sedans, Ulrich Walker succeeded Betimin as the chairman and chief executive of Northeastern Asia. Cai Che, chairman of Dai-Ke Group, said: "Huali has many years of experience in joint ventures and hopes to take advantage of his appointment to promote Dai Ke's business development in Northeast Asia." In fact, Dai-Ke Northeast Asia The headquarters is in Beijing, and the Mercedes-Benz project is the core project of Dai-Ke China. Some industry insiders think: "The main purpose of this substitution is to accelerate the development of Mercedes-Benz in China."

According to Beijing Mercedes-Benz, “The Mercedes-Benz C-Class that was originally planned to be introduced in the middle of next year has already reached the final moment of negotiation. The car is likely to be put into operation in the first half of next year.”

Three sets of programs

On the one hand, Mercedes-Benz's product launch speed is accelerating. On the other hand, according to the reporter's understanding, the domestic localization rate of Mercedes-Benz is now less than 10%. It is far from the requirement of not less than 40% localization rate as stipulated in the Measures for the Administration of the Import of Automobile Parts that Constitute the Characteristics of the Whole Vehicle (hereinafter referred to as the “Measures”).

A person in charge of Dai-Ke (China) Investment Co., Ltd. made it clear: "At present, Mercedes-Benz is selecting local suppliers of parts and components for the domestic Mercedes-Benz to support it in order to achieve the localization ratio required by the policy." However, according to the report, It is understood that there are some domestic parts suppliers that meet Mercedes-Benz's requirements, but their supply is mainly concentrated on non-critical components other than powertrains, car chassis, etc. "Like Mercedes-Benz, this high-end product has a high quality requirement for parts and components. At present, the technology level of most domestic domestic component suppliers is difficult to meet Mercedes-Benz's global quality standard in a short period of time, which determines that Mercedes-Benz will directly go to the mainland. The proportion of parts suppliers for procurement will not be too high.” Pei Weijian, director of the Beijing Benz News Office, frankly stated.

Dai-ke has a second plan. Dai Ke (China) official said: "At present, Dai-ke is trying very hard to persuade Mercedes-Benz global parts procurement system parts suppliers to set up factories in China in order to increase the proportion of parts procurement in China." In addition to the above two Beyond the project, Zhai Weijian said: "Benz is also preparing to seek to establish a wholly-owned parts manufacturing plant in China. At the same time, it will also look for and inspect some of the strongest Chinese domestic parts suppliers and cooperate with them in the form of joint ventures or technology exports. ”

Not long ago, Dai Ke Group decided that by 2008, it will increase the local purchases in China from the current 100 million U.S. dollars to 840 million U.S. dollars, or approximately 6.7 billion U.S. dollars, of which more than half will be used for domestic Mercedes-Benz support. . "With three sets of plans for protection, the domestic Mercedes-Benz has full hope to achieve the localization rate requirements before the implementation of the "Measures" in 2008." Yan Weijian said.

The future is doubtful

“Whether it is to attract parts suppliers in the global procurement system to set up factories in China, or to establish wholly-owned or joint-venture parts and components manufacturing enterprises in China, it will take time, and Audi took five to six years to realize.” 2005 Mercedes-Benz, which only began assembly production at the end of the year, can meet localization requirements on schedule and a person in charge of FAW-VW Audi's business unit is not optimistic. “This requires annual sales to reach a certain scale, and the global procurement system will Suppliers only have the enthusiasm to build factories in China. Not only that, but the establishment of wholly-owned or joint-stock parts manufacturing companies in the early stages also required investment of hundreds of millions of dollars."

Insiders believe that: "For luxury cars, the annual sales of 40,000 cars should be the bottom line." According to data from the National Passenger Vehicles Association, Audi's production and sales exceeded the 60,000 units from January to October this year. “At present, a considerable part of Audi's more than 150 parts suppliers in China is a supporting plant set up by the parts suppliers in Audi's global procurement system in China, as well as a joint venture between Audi and its Chinese parts suppliers. "The above-mentioned person in charge of the FAW-Volkswagen Audi Division said.

The same data from the National Passenger Vehicles Association shows that from January to October this year, the domestic Mercedes-Benz (E280 and E200K) only sold 4,274 vehicles, even with the newly listed E350 and C-class vehicles expected to be listed in the first half of next year, domestically produced. Mercedes-Benz's annual production and sales volume of 40,000 vehicles before the implementation of the Measures on July 1, 2008 is also difficult. How Mercedes-Benz breaks the board, there are still suspense.


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