Investment in dense automobile industry appears Chinese-style “overcapacity”

The R&D center blossoms all over the country

Searching for "Car R&D Center" on the Internet will reveal that the full pages are "Four R&D Centers built in three years", "Three R&D Centers are completed at the same time", and "The layout of five major R&D centers in five countries" has appeared... It seems that In the past year, China’s automotive R&D center suddenly sprang up all night, blooming everywhere. It was roughly estimated that the number of new R&D centers opened in the past year has reached dozens. However, these R&D centers were built with the original intention and the efficiency of inputs and outputs. But people have to worry that it will eventually become a surplus in the auto industry.

Obvious excess of R&D institutions

On June 28, Changan Automobile officially opened its R&D center in the Nottingham Science and Technology Park in the UK. In this way, Chang’an established four institutes in just six months, and its global R&D structure has also been upgraded to “four countries and eight regions”. Expanded to “Five Countries and Nine Lands.” On July 19th, the General Motors China Forward Science and Technology Research Center, with a total investment of 150 million U.S. dollars, broke ground. Over the past year, with this “R&D” boom, China’s diverse automobile R&D centers have rapidly expanded. .

At present, domestic automotive R&D centers are broadly divided into three categories: automotive companies, research institutes, and local governments. Among them, independent brands are the most active supporters of R&D centers. In addition to Changan, in March of this year, the investment was 5 The new base of the Chery R&D Center of billions of dollars was officially launched; Geely plans to build another R&D center in Hangzhou.

In terms of multinational corporations, based on the popularity of the first R&D center, new R&D institutions are already in the pipeline, and the USD 250 million GM forward-looking technology research center was put into use at the end of last year.

At the same time, the input of local governments has also risen one after another: “In Guangxi, four major automotive R&D centers will be built in three years”, and nearly 50 R&D centers have been launched in Shanghai...

R&D centers are mostly cashed in enclosures

The new energy R&D center is the new focus of the pursuit. Among them, Guangzhou last year offered the banner of “building a world-class R&D center for new energy vehicles”; Beijing will build a world-class R&D center for electric vehicles in three years; and In Shenzhen, new energy R & D buildings in various fields, including passenger cars, have risen; the "New Energy Vehicle R&D Center" in Shanghai, Xi'an and other places has also sprung up.

Although the National Development and Reform Commission has cooled the new energy base, the R&D center as a “scientific and technological unit” has only increased. The analysis pointed out that most of the so-called “new energy R&D centers” have an entrapment policy under the stimulation of national policies. The purpose of the subsidy. Even in the world's most advanced new energy vehicle producing countries, do not need so many R & D centers, and China's new energy concept is still in its infancy.

Input and output are not proportional

Industry analysis points out that the rapid expansion of “R&D centers”, especially new energy R&D centers, has policy reasons. According to relevant notification requirements of the National Development and Reform Commission, “All new vehicle production capacity during the “Eleventh Five-year Plan” period must meet the conditions for self-developed products”. In the wave of expansion of production in 2009, this document became the main driving force behind the R&D center.