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securities times reporter zhang yifan

53 seconds is the production rhythm of a new aion s at gac aion changsha plant (hereinafter referred to as "changsha plant"). 8 months is the evolution process of this plant from a traditional fuel vehicle plant to a new automated new energy plant. the new changsha plant, which completed the first vehicle rolling off the production line in july, is riding on the momentum of new energy vehicles and working towards the goal of 200,000 vehicles/year and a 10 billion yuan industrial scale.

following the direction of process upgrading, digital empowerment, and green development, the changsha factory has illuminated the industry's development path with its actions and has become one of the leading stars of my country's manufacturing enterprises.

coming out of the darkness

the new and vibrant changsha factory looked completely different a year ago. in october 2023, this factory building still belonged to gac mitsubishi, witnessing the decline of this joint venture automaker, which was temporarily shut down and had to optimize its personnel structure. the last financial indicators left by the once glorious gac mitsubishi were an annual revenue of 4.13 billion yuan and an annual loss of 1.35 billion yuan, which was seriously insolvent.

reform, transformation and reorganization are inevitable choices for gac mitsubishi. in a letter to employees jointly signed by gac mitsubishi general manager kenichiro yamamoto and executive vice president li quming, they said: "as history moves forward, the automotive industry is undergoing a disruptive change, rapidly transforming from traditional fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles... looking to the future, we must make a decision to promote corporate reform."

gac mitsubishi, which was in urgent need of transformation, and gac aion, which was in urgent need of capacity expansion, hit it off immediately. after the original shareholders cooperated to assist gac mitsubishi in completing part of its debt repayment, gac aion acquired gac mitsubishi's available equipment assets for 442 million yuan, and rented the land and factory buildings of the changsha factory for 130 million yuan per year. in november last year, it officially started this major transformation with the slogan of "making full use of old equipment, small investment, fast output, and rolling development to achieve rapid profitability."

eight months later, the factory was reborn with the first gac aion s rolling off the assembly line. "the renovated gac aion changsha factory covers an area of ​​1,291 acres. more than a thousand skilled industrial workers in the factory are from the original gac mitsubishi factory. we will strive to achieve a 10 billion yuan industrial scale," ye jianhua, general manager of gac aion changsha branch, told reporters.

every 53 seconds, a new gac aion s model rolls off the production line of the changsha factory and is delivered to consumers. this is the ultimate speed pursued by my country's new energy vehicle manufacturing and is the response of manufacturers to the high growth demand in the new energy vehicle market.

in 2023, gac aion, which was established six years ago and put into production four years ago, won the title of "the world's fastest automobile brand to achieve one million production and sales". nearly half of the one million production and sales were completed in 2023. in that year, gac aion achieved sales of more than 480,000 vehicles with a sales growth rate of 80%. the aion s series, which is mainly produced by the changsha factory, achieved sales of 221,000 vehicles with a growth rate of nearly double, making it the champion of domestic pure electric a-class sedans.

the outstanding sales performance is a source of pride, but also a source of pressure. located in guangzhou, gac aion's "lighthouse factory" operated at an overload capacity utilization rate of 139% in 2023, and guaranteed a production task of 500,000 vehicles per year with a designed capacity of 360,000 vehicles per year. entering 2024, the increased sales target and the launch plan of full-priced and modified models have made it urgent for gac aion to expand production.

ye jianhua told reporters that after the changsha plant reaches full production, it will basically undertake the production tasks of all aion s series products of the group, and may also introduce more pure electric platform models in the future. only by achieving such a high-speed production cycle of 53 seconds can the changsha plant achieve a standard production capacity of 200,000 vehicles per year, and reserve potential for further capacity increase to meet the sales performance of the aion s series, which has doubled year by year in recent years.

leading the way in automated production lines

in 8 months, the factory was transformed from a traditional fuel vehicle factory to a new energy vehicle factory. the transformation first had to focus on the different production processes of the two types of products. ye jianhua introduced that the main difference between new energy vehicles and traditional fuel vehicles is the introduction of the three-electric system, namely batteries, motors, and electronic controls, which replaced the engine, gearbox, and oil system.

therefore, there have been many significant changes around the intelligent and electrified production lines: the original engine assembly line was dismantled and converted into an assembly line for motor combination brackets; a motor assembly line was added next to the assembly lines of the front and rear suspensions of the chassis to complete the assembly of the three-electric components of the chassis.

for the power battery, the "heart" of new energy vehicles, gac aion has directly launched the most advanced automated production line to ensure product consistency and subsequent scalability. the new power battery intelligent assembly system can achieve integrated operations such as automatic online, automatic loading, accompanying assembly, and automatic tightening through 3d visual positioning and robot collaboration, so that the upper and lower processes can be completed in one go.

introducing new processes is important, but for ye jianhua, what is more important is to introduce new concepts of "extreme" and "flexibility" to traditional factories. under the new concept, the new factory constantly reviews the project implementation path, optimizes the process layout, and improves the supply chain model, striving to ensure the optimal cost solution, optimal quality, and extreme efficiency while building an agile organization and realizing intelligence, and creating a benchmark production line under industry 4.0.

walking into the final assembly workshop, the most intuitive feeling of "extreme" is the "extreme" use of space. the yellow and white steel beams and metal partitions build an intensive and orderly three-story assembly space. the white body queues up from the corridor on the third floor to enter the final assembly workshop and is transferred to the assembly line step by step. on both sides of the undulating assembly line, a wide variety of mechanical arms are organized in groups in an orderly manner, cooperating with each other to autonomously and automatically assemble core components such as front-end modules, windshields, seats, tires, etc. onto the body one by one.

the pursuit of the "extreme" automation rate is even more impressive. in the 100% automated welding workshop, only busy transport robots are traveling in the aisles. they automatically identify and pick up materials, and deliver the side panel parts to the welding station according to the qr code on the ground. the 200-jin side panel parts are grabbed by the manipulator, lifted to a height of 3 meters in the air, and then welded by the welding robot. the most exciting "group dance" is staged in the overall assembly of the car body. 16 welding robots are separated into two layers, lined up in the aisles, and rotate and "dance" simultaneously in the narrow car body. hundreds of welding points will be accurately welded within 53 seconds.

watching the robots' "dance" carefully, you will find that their "dance steps" are not mechanical repetitions over and over again, but rather "agile" leaps based on the principle of precision.

in the installation of front and rear windshields, ai visual recognition technology was introduced to help the robot realize multi-angle and full-process digital simulation. based on a series of data such as body data, dynamic monitoring of glue type and intelligent positioning, the robot can complete automatic grasping of windshields, high-precision positioning and 3d+ai detection and judgment of glue type. under the premise that no human hands-on operation is required throughout the process, a 100% pass rate was achieved, which not only avoided occupational health hazards, but also shortened the debugging time by 35%.

the more intuitive "smartness" is that the flexible production line can adapt to the individual needs of users. more than 16,800 customized optional combinations are covered by this production line. "under the requirements of flexible production, we need to adapt the production requirements derived from each configuration for production line transformation. the production line and equipment need to go through multiple rounds of debugging and verification during the transformation to ensure the applicability of the full configuration, thereby achieving a flexible, intelligent and adaptable high manufacturing level." ye jianhua said.

digital and energy-saving evolution

the changsha factory eliminated old, energy-intensive equipment, introduced new, highly automated equipment, and completed the upgrade from the original fuel vehicle production line to the new energy vehicle production line. the actions of the changsha factory are consistent with the large-scale equipment renewal wave promoted by the country. it is understood that the aion changsha transformation project is also applying for several policy subsidies from the central and local governments.

the "action plan for promoting large-scale equipment updates and consumer goods trade-ins" issued by the state council in march proposed that we should focus on promoting new industrialization, with energy conservation and carbon reduction, ultra-low emissions, safe production, digital transformation, and intelligent upgrades as important directions, vigorously promote the update and technological transformation of production equipment, energy-consuming equipment, power generation, transmission and distribution equipment, etc., use re-lending policy tools to guide financial institutions to strengthen support for equipment updates and technological transformation.

under the central government's call, various parts of the country have implemented plans and introduced support policies according to local conditions. like the changsha factory, the demand for equipment upgrades is continuing to be released. in hunan province, 473 projects have been included in the first batch of large-scale special re-loans for equipment upgrades and technological transformations of the ministry of industry and information technology, and 89 projects have obtained national debt support, providing strong support for the implementation of the projects.

the realization of advanced production capacity is not a one-time thing. even the newly built gac aion changsha factory must continue to evolve and upgrade to adapt to new market changes.

adapting to the current competitive situation of the auto market is the first major challenge that the new factory has to face. the overall scale of the new energy vehicle market is still growing rapidly. in the first half of the year, the number of newly registered new energy vehicles in my country reached 4.397 million, setting a new record. however, as new energy subsidies gradually decline, the automotive industry is experiencing a price war, and the profits of automakers are being squeezed. the manufacturing end must play an important role in reducing production costs and manufacturing expenses.

at present, the changsha factory has taken a series of measures to control production costs. the process manufacturing department improves production efficiency and reduces production costs through refined management in all aspects of production; the procurement department implements reasonable procurement strategies and supply chain management to reduce raw material procurement and inventory costs; the finance department finds out the waste links in the production process through cost accounting and takes measures to reduce waste and reduce costs.

through digital means, the changsha plant has linked together the cost reduction measures of various departments to form a digital-driven production model. "driven by digitalization, the production system will intelligently make comprehensive decisions to formulate production plans for ourselves and upstream suppliers based on downstream sales performance and the inventory levels of parts and vehicles." ye jianhua said, "this digital-driven production plan will not only include order volume and production cycle, but also the best logistics distribution routes for parts and vehicles."

digitalization also helps implement the concept of green energy conservation in every link of production. according to the trend of water, electricity, gas and other energy usage in each production link, the intelligent factory brain constantly looks for abnormal points where energy waste or abnormal fluctuations may occur, prompting engineers to take timely measures to implement energy improvements and reduce overall energy consumption.

"the core means of reducing costs is still to use technology to reduce costs. during the transformation, we adopted many advanced technologies to improve the level of automation and digitalization." ye jianhua pointed out that in an environment of internal circulation, only those companies with strong profitability and forward-looking technological reserves, who are fully committed to building an ecosystem and forming a solid moat, have a better chance of winning.

"the rapidly developing new energy industry has proved the revolutionary power of new technologies. our manufacturing sector will also usher in a new technological revolution in the future." ye jianhua said that more intelligent and energy-efficient will be the direction of further evolution of the manufacturing industry. intelligent upgrading combined with ai is the general trend. application scenarios such as ai assembly and ai quality inspection are rich and diverse. the manufacturing industry has broad room for imagination in the future to create a closed loop of the energy ecology.

(securities times reporter pan yurong also contributed to this article)