New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) in China

Does anyone know if and when Chery will launch their car in Australia?

tphuang said:

So this is all based on your assumption of byd automation vs ice factory automation. We don't have any data on their automation, but we do know they have 500k employees and that is enough to produce 2 million cars a year. We know that ford employed a little under 200k employees and sells around 6 million cars a year. Now of course, byd produces everything in the car and also employs people to build it's factories. But it would be pretty hard to argue that byd is more automated than legacy automakers based on this data point.

In fact, if byd becomes the largest automaker, it would employe several million people. That would make byd the largest private employer in the world. The current largest private employer is cnpc at 1.24 million employees.

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Is that just BYD auto employment or BYD group as a whole? BYD also has semiconductor, electronic component, auto parts, commercial vehicle, construction, etc.

tphuang said:

So this is all based on your assumption of byd automation vs ice factory automation. We don't have any data on their automation, but we do know they have 500k employees and that is enough to produce 2 million cars a year. We know that ford employed a little under 200k employees and sells around 6 million cars a year. Now of course, byd produces everything in the car and also employs people to build it's factories. But it would be pretty hard to argue that byd is more automated than legacy automakers based on this data point.

In fact, if byd becomes the largest automaker, it would employe several million people. That would make byd the largest private employer in the world. The current largest private employer is cnpc at 1.24 million employees.

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No.

1. Battery factory automation is a given. It's a base requirement to produce batteries so they don't contain defects and explode

2. It's not about the level of automation. It's that there are fewer steps and processes involved when you have 2000 fewer parts and therefore less labour

FairAndUnbiased said:

Is that just BYD auto employment or BYD group as a whole? BYD also has semiconductor, electronic component, auto parts, commercial vehicle, construction, etc.

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The entire byd group. 500k is a lot of people. You don't need that many employees just to assemble 2 million cars a year.

AndrewS said:

No.

1. Battery factory automation is a given. It's a base requirement to produce batteries so they don't contain defects and explode

2. It's not about the level of automation. It's that there are fewer steps and processes involved when you have 2000 fewer parts and therefore less labour

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Again, you have no proof that BYD is a net negative in employment except for your own assumptions. On the other hand, they are projecting themselves to be the 2nd largest private employer in the world by end of 2023. And there is plenty of room for further growth after 2023. They will be the largest private employer in the world before 2025. The numbers all show BYD to be a huge net positive to employment in China.

tphuang said:

The entire byd group. 500k is a lot of people. You don't need that many employees just to assemble 2 million cars a year.

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Let's compare:

Tesla - 110k employees, 0.9 million car sales.


BYD Auto: 230k employees, 2 million car sales.


Ford: 190k employees, 4 million car sales.


I don't see how BYD would result in lower employment in the auto industry. If anything it employs more ppl per car than Ford.

I dont think BYD will result less worker to make a car. But certainly EV will use less maintnence than oil cars. However I do not think China in particular need to worry. BYD will result in more cars built overall in China due to competitive export. It wont just cannabalize chinese car market.

tphuang said:

So this is all based on your assumption of byd automation vs ice factory automation. We don't have any data on their automation, but we do know they have 500k employees and that is enough to produce 2 million cars a year. We know that ford employed a little under 200k employees and sells around 6 million cars a year. Now of course, byd produces everything in the car and also employs people to build it's factories. But it would be pretty hard to argue that byd is more automated than legacy automakers based on this data point.

In fact, if byd becomes the largest automaker, it would employe several million people. That would make byd the largest private employer in the world. The current largest private employer is cnpc at 1.24 million employees.

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Ford source lots of auto parts from other suppliers, and OEM like Magna actually assemble cars for Ford


But Magna's design involvement in Blackwood is deep. Sources from various companies close to the program say that Magna engineers made the vehicle wider, lower riding and lighter. Magna also modified the interior, designed a new suspension (see story, p.40) and produces a big chunk of the vehicle: the distinctive small pickup bed.

Magna played a similar program manager role in converting a Ford Expedition into what became the Navigator, in 1997. Mr. Hutchins says Magna was chosen for Blackwood for its engineering expertise, and because Lincoln has a lot of new product in the pipeline in the next 18 months, including a new Town Car, “Baby” Navigator and Grand Marquis and a “significant redo” of fullsize Navigator and LS.

Ford will assemble Blackwood in Claycomo, MO, near Kansas City, on the same line as F-Series and SuperCrew pickups. Magna will assemble the pickup box at a plant nearby and ship it directly to the assembly plant.

CATL will provide batteries that can be swapped for FAW Jiefang' commercial NEVs.

CATL forms JV with FAW Jiefang to tap commercial NEV market​

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Electric Viking's take on Nio's future in the U.S.:

Vehicle exports will top 2.4 million in 2022, trade group predicts​

Annual vehicle exports by automakers producing in China are on track to jump 19 percent. ​

...
In July, vehicle shipments from China to other markets rallied 67 percent to top 290,000 vehicles, with year-to-date volume rising 51 percent to exceed 1.5 million, according to the trade group’s tally.

Last month, exports of light vehicles ranging from sedans, crossovers, SUVs, multi-purpose vehicles and minibuses spiked 73 percent to some 242,000.

In the same month, exports of commercial vehicles such as buses and trucks also advanced 42 percent to about 49,000.

For the first seven months, automakers shipped some 1.18 million light vehicles and 322,000 commercial vehicles overseas, surging 54 percent and 39 percent from a year earlier, respectively.

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The electrification of China's auto market is unstoppable now: Geely had 20% decrease in ICE sales while almost 400% of NEV sales.

Geely grows EV ambitions as fossil fuel vehicle demand sinks​

Geely said one out of five vehicles it sold in the first half were full electric or hybrid -- sales of which increased nearly four fold -- compared with a 20% slump in sales of ICE vehicles.​

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tphuang said:

Again, you have no proof that BYD is a net negative in employment except for your own assumptions. On the other hand, they are projecting themselves to be the 2nd largest private employer in the world by end of 2023. And there is plenty of room for further growth after 2023. They will be the largest private employer in the world before 2025. The numbers all show BYD to be a huge net positive to employment in China.

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Unless someone actually does a study, of course not.

But we have the following data points:
1. Given that BYD are building out completely new factories - it would be reasonable to assume these are more automated than older legacy auto factories.
2. At the same time, battery production has to be completely automated for stringent quality control
3. An electric car has 2000 fewer parts than an ICE vehicle - which almost certainly requires less labour
4. Tesla, NIO and at least 5 other Chinese automakers are going with gigacastings which will further simplify and reduce component numbers, and therefore jobs. BYD will almost certainly follow, if not already.
5. It would be weird for any manufacturing to become more labour-intensive, given shortages of manual labour in China and the ongoing improvements in robots, vision, and machine-learning. Smart factories are now a thing.

Because of all these reasons, I'm confident in saying that BYD will reduce the overall number of automotive manufacturing jobs.
Once BYD becomes a major car exporter, we may see an increase in the net jobs created by BYD, but we're not there yet.

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If we look to VW, they estimate "labour requirements are 70 percent higher for the production of a conventional powertrain than for the production of a powertrain for an electric vehicle."

With technological advancements, you generally need less labour to produce the same output, but the idea is that new demand and jobs are created elsewhere.