Joint venture auto makers will enter the elimination track

Not long ago, Fengshen L60 was the first joint venture of Dongfeng Group's joint venture company, Shenlong, to go offline in Wuhan and is expected to be listed this week. At the off-line ceremony of the day, whether it was Dongfeng high-rises, or Shenlong Company or passenger car company, they were all very happy with this car. After the strategic cooperation between Dongfeng and PSA Group was realized, this vehicle was considered by Dongfeng as a new model for the development of China's own brand in the “post-joint venture era”.

However, in the industry's view, this cooperation also represents that the joint venture car companies still face technical shortcomings.

“The future competition of self-owned brands will become more intense.” Du Fangci, an advisor to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, analyzed that in recent years, the prices of foreign brands have continued to decline, leaving the independent brands whose prices have been at a relatively low level for a long time to be affected, and the pressure in the future will remain high. Big, it is likely that the situation will be eliminated.

30 years of joint ventures can not take off the "OEM" fate

“The 30 years of joint venture, before a large number of cooperation is just cooperation, the joint venture company is essentially an 'OEM factory'. We have to do is become a real company, not a foundry.” Liu Weidong, deputy general manager of Dongfeng Motor Company said .

In the automotive field, the concept of the "post-joint venture era" was frequently raised in these two years.

The industry generally understands this concept in the right direction: With the growth of China’s auto market and the growth of Chinese shareholders, China’s absolute position in the joint venture has begun to change, and its voice and control have increased. The role of the factory has gradually shifted to cope with the local R&D center and has more complete automotive design, manufacturing, sales, and export functions, and is actively expanding overseas markets.

The goal is very full but the reality is very skinny

“Independent innovation and independent development have always been the direction and goal pursued by Shenlong.” Qiu Xiandong, general manager of Shenlong Motor Co., Ltd., told reporters. In fact, this is almost the common goal of all Chinese joint venture auto companies. In 2008, Guangzhou Automobile Honda launched the "idea" and opened a joint venture company's own brand. After that, a number of joint-venture car companies such as Beijing Hyundai Motors, Guangzhou Automobile Toyota Motor Co., Dongfeng Honda Motor Co., Ltd. and other companies have also continued to vocalize and perform frequently, and they are interested in keeping pace with their own brands.

However, such a new model has also caused many people to work hard for the independent R&D capabilities of Chinese automobile joint ventures.

According to Dongfeng, the research and development of Fengshen L60 was undertaken by Shenlong and Dongfeng. The PSA Group provided more technical support. Dongfeng and Shenlong lead the design, project management, product development, component procurement and industrial production are mainly handled by Shenlong. However, it is still necessary for PSA to provide basic platform and technical support. Then Fengshen insiders revealed that although the L60 is a three-way R&D, it still relies on the joint venture party at the technical level.

"Knockout" challenged its own brand

In fact, it is not the first time that a self-owned brand like Aeolus L60 leverages a joint venture. In the process of developing their own brands, joint venture car companies often need to rely on the strength of the joint venture. The “China 530” developed by Brilliance with the Junjie FSV platform is still being challenged by the industry in imitating “BMW 530”. In the joint venture history of FAW Group, the Hongqi brand once had a controversial "red flag" of the sedan. The car uses the Audi 100 platform to manufacture it, and even looks similar to the Audi 100. Later in the rename and upgrade, the technical prototype was updated from the Audi 100 to the Audi 200, but the market performance was not satisfactory. Wang Yan, an automotive analysis expert, analyzed that although the lower prices made positive comments on the market, the product style of “assembled” damaged the original image of the Hongqi brand.

In addition to losing its own taste in the brand, there may be a more deadly blow. "The bigger risk lies in the long-term reliance on foreign technology platforms for 'blood transfusions', and we can't keep up with R&D talents who really want to do things," said Xia Shu, an independent analyst in the automotive industry.

In the future, all independent brands, including the joint venture's own brands, will not be able to sidestep the fact that “the 11th Five-Year is a qualifying match and the 12th Five-Year is a selection match, and the 13th Five-Year is likely to be a knockout match.” This sentence of Beiqi Group Chairman Xu Heyi was seen by many people in the industry as an overview and prediction of its own brand.

From the data point of view, the sales performance of independent brands in recent years is not ideal. According to China Automotive Industry Association's recent summary of China's auto industry last year, the independent brands did not report good news. As the growth rate of self-owned brand passenger vehicles is lower than that of the overall market, as of the end of 2014, the share of self-owned brands in the passenger car market has decreased by 2.14 percentage points from the same period of last year, and the market share has dropped to 38.44%. Among them, a total of 2,774,400 self-branded cars were sold, a year-on-year decrease of 17.4%.

"In the face of market pressure, the key to the self-owned brand's way out is technology and quality." Du Fangci believes that the joint venture's own brand should combine its own situation and improve its technical initiative.