廢棄工廠展示中國電動汽車熱潮如何超出合理的限度 (2 of 2)

Recently Yahoo New on-line reported the following:

Deserted Factories Show How China Electric Car Boom Went Too Far (2 of 2)

Bloomberg News

(continue)

‘Idle Capacity’

Things started to look up this year, when Byton signed a strategic cooperation deal with iPhone maker Foxconn Technology Group in January (aided by the Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone) to start mass production of the Byton M-Byte SUV by the first quarter of 2022. But Foxconn has been withdrawing staff from the Nanjing plant after one of the carmaker’s biggest creditors started taking management control, Bloomberg reported in July, and last week, the Nikkei newspaper said the collaboration had been put on hold due to Byton’s worsening financial situation.

A representative for Byton declined to comment for this story.

Jiangsu province, where Nanjing is located, strove to become an EV hub, luring $32 billion of auto-industry investment in the six years through 2020. Now, it’s home to more than 30 car manufacturers. But it became the focus of a Beijing-ordered probe earlier this year, which found some local authorities had been doling out tax breaks and land incentives to attract carmakers that were beyond the scope of government guidelines. This resulted in “salient problems of low production capacity utilization rates and idle capacity,” Jiangsu provincial officials said in a statement in February, without elaborating.

“Local governments had high expectations for the development of new-energy vehicle companies, hoping to tap the opportunities of the sector and drive local economic expansion,” Cui Dongshu, secretary general of China Passenger Car Association, said in an interview. “Investors also saw huge profit potential. This has resulted in surplus capacity.”

Yinlong New Energy Co.’s Nanjing factory broke ground in 2017 with a total planned investment of 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion). Output was set at 30,000 new-energy commercial vehicles, mainly electric buses, and there were EV battery making plans too. Production was due to start in 2018 but today the plant is all but abandoned. Trash has piled up along its walls and roads connecting buildings inside are deserted, its entrances barricaded.

The company’s biggest shareholder, Gree Electric Appliances Inc., said there’s still scope for collaboration, either in bolstering the carmaker’s capacity utilization and competitiveness, or in pushing its battery technology.

Some of China’s established automakers are watching all of this with a sense of inevitability. Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., one of the nation’s biggest privately owned carmakers with a range of brands spanning mass-market vehicles to ultra-luxury racing cars made by Lotus -- which it controls -- sees a natural cycle playing out, and one that will involve some casualties.

“Some people rush to build one, two, three, five factories, even though their first car isn’t yet on the market,” Group Lotus Plc Chief Executive Officer Feng Qingfeng said.

“When everybody thinks it’s easy to make cars, people dive into car making. When they realize the car business isn’t that easy, they stop investing,” he said. “It’s the invisible hand of the market economy commanding order.”

Translation

（繼續）

“間置產能”

今年情況開始好轉，今年 1 月拜騰 (Byton)與 iPhone 製造商富士康科技集團(Foxconn)簽署戰略合作協議（在南京經濟技術開發區的幫助下），將於2022年第一季度開始大量生產拜騰 M-Byte SUV。 彭博社在 7 月報導, 但當汽車製造商最大的債權人之一開始接管拜騰管理控制權後，富士康即從南京工廠撤出員工。上週，日經新聞稱，由於拜騰的財務狀況惡化，合作已被擱置.

拜騰的一位代表拒絕對這個報導發表評論。

南京所在的江蘇省力爭成為電動汽車樞紐，到 2020 年的 6 年內吸引了 320 億美元的汽車行業投資。 現在，它擁有 30 多家汽車製造商。但它成為今年早些時候北京下令進行的一項調查的焦點，該調查發現一些地方當局一直在發放超出政府指導方針範圍的稅收減免和土地激勵措施, 以吸引汽車製造商。江蘇省官員在 2 月份的一份聲明中表示，這導致了 “產能利用率低、產能閒置的突出問題” ，但沒有說明詳細内容。

中國乘用車協會秘書長崔東樹 (Cui Dongshu) 在接受采訪時表示:“地方政府對新能源汽車企業的發展寄予厚望，希望抓住行業機遇，帶動地方經濟擴張”。又 表示: “投資者也看到了巨大的盈利潛, 這導致產能過剩。”

銀隆新能源有限公司 (Yinlong New Energy Co.) 的南京工廠於 2017 年破土動工，計劃總投資為 100 億元人民幣（16 億美元）。新能源商用車的產量定為3萬輛，主要是電動客車，也有電動汽車電池製造計劃。生產原定於 2018 年開始，但今天該工廠幾乎被棄置。垃圾沿著牆壁堆積起來，部建築物內的連接道路空無一人，入口設置了路障。

該公司的最大股東格力電器 (Gree Electric Appliances Inc)表示，雙方仍有合作空間，無論是在提高汽車製造商的產能利用率和競爭力方面，還有在推動電池技術方面。

一些中國老牌汽車製造商正在以一種不可避免的感覺關注這一切。浙江吉利控股集團有限公司 (Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co.) 是全國最大的私營汽車製造商之一，旗下擁有一系列品牌，涵蓋由大眾化汽車到蓮花製造的超豪華賽車 - 全由它控制著 - 看到了一個自然循環，一個這將涉及損傷的循環。

蓮花集團 (Group Lotus Plc)首席執行官馮慶峰 (Feng Qingfeng) 說“有些人搶著建一、二、三、五座工廠，即使他們的第一輛車還沒有上市”。

他說:“當每個人都認為製造汽車很容易時，人們就會投入到汽車製造中來。當他們意識到汽車業務並不那麼容易時，他們就會停止投資”; “這是市場經濟指揮秩序的無形之手。”

              So, alarmed by irrational investment in the sector in EV car production -- and the bankruptcies and zombified factories that come with it -- Beijing is applying the brakes. EV car production becomes the focus of a Beijing-ordered probe which found some local authorities had been giving out tax and land incentives to attract carmakers that were beyond the scope of government guidelines. I would see this as a down side of a planned economy. When the central government sets a goal in doing something, local government of course will do its best to achieve that goal, regardless the reality on the ground. Chinese people are paying the “learning fee” for that.