Shanghai auto show: Welcome to the future

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In Shanghai, the car starts fair, and the industry is looking to get banned to China. Here is the future of the car decides. For German manufacturers, the largest market in the world is important for survival. But falters.

The Chinese manufacturer Geely shows in Shanghai E-car Geometry A

No other sales market for the German car maker as important as China. Volkswagen sold around 40 percent of its cars, Mercedes 28 percent, BMW a quarter. But in the meantime, there are a number of developments that make German auto executives nervous.

There are numbers to a decline in sales. In the past year, car sales in China for the first time in 20 years on the decline – a consequence of the weaker economy, but also the uncertainty due to the trade conflict with the United States.

The decline will also continue this year, believes the car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer from the Center for Automative Research (CAR) at the University of Duisburg-Essen. He expects that in 2019 will be sold in China, a total of 22.3 million cars – the 1.1 million vehicles would be less than in the previous year.

“Taking into account that in the Chinese market in recent years, with a continuous annual growth of five per cent was planned for 2019, with an Overcapacity of nearly five million new cars”, said Dudenhöffer in a recent assessment of the auto show in Shanghai.

“Cautiously optimistic”

How much of the burden on the operations of the German manufacturer is yet to be seen. In the previous year, they were up against the Trend. In the current year, at least, the manufacturer of luxury cars want to repeat.

Wherever you look in Shanghai you see electric SUV: Audi…

In the case of Mercedes it is “cautiously optimistic”, says the future Daimler group chief Ola Källenius; after a good first quarter, it expects for the full year, higher sales. BMW believes that its heels in China this year to increase. “We will expand five and ten percent in this stagnating market,” expects BMW chief financial officer Nicolas Peter.

In contrast, the Volkswagen group, suffered in the first quarter of sales losses, because small and medium-sized vehicles are more affected by the current reluctance to purchase. Careful Stephan sounds Wöllenstein, head of the China business, the core brand of VW. “We are currently in a period of weakness,” Wöllenstein to the DW. “But we hope to see from the summer, a significant improvement.”

Electric and fully-networked

A weaker market is not the only reason for concern. Add to this the growing importance of electric cars in China – a market segment in which the Germans are not very strong. The government of China requires manufacturers that ten percent of their sales of E-have to be cars, and this ratio works. In the past year more than a million electric cars were sold. This year it will be 2.2 million E-cars in the following year, then more than three million, Ferdinand dudenhoeffer predicted.

… here is Renault…

Also in the manufacture of Lithium-ion batteries for electric cars, China is the leader. “35 percent of the worldwide production of cells came from the two large Chinese corporations CATL and BYD,” said Dudenhöffer.

Add to this the technology-affinity of Chinese customers. “Reason number one in Chinese is ‘Connectivity’, i.e. the networking of the car”, says Dudenhöffer. However, especially the engine and transmission were playing in Europe and the United States a role in the purchase.

The Autonomous Driving, the Chinese customers are also more open-minded than Europeans, add to this the technological know-how from companies such as Huawei, the networking and the new mobile radio standard 5G leader.

Learning in China

In order not to lose the connection, the German car maker’s new partnerships. BMW makes the electric version of the Mini from the Chinese manufacturer Great Wall to build. Daimler wants to Smart the smallest car in the future, just as E-car offering, and has established a Joint Venture with Geely, a Chinese carmaker that already has almost ten percent of Daimler.

Volkswagen wants to play at E-car in China. “We plan, in the year 2025 as the group’s 1.5 million electric vehicles per year in China to sell,” VW China CEO Wöllenstein. This would correspond to a quarter of the market, because according to the forecasts, then, annually, six million are to be sold cars in China.

… and here as a concept of Volkswagen.

Also, the entire car market is expected to recover, according to forecasts by 2020 and, by 2025, to around 27 million vehicles to grow – he would then be as large as the automotive markets of the EU and the USA.

China is so in the car world is increasingly setting the tone and forcing manufacturers from all Parts of the world, to adapt quickly. “The car of tomorrow is not without China is simply unimaginable,” says car expert Dudenhöffer.

Who introduces himself under the “car of the future”, however, something particularly Unusual, you will be disappointed. The wishes of Chinese customers and the offers of many manufacturers on the trade fair clearly show, how the future looks: like a fully-networked electrically powered SUV. “This is a message from the Shanghai auto trade fair,” says Dudenhöffer.