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lidar failed last year, and motor failed again this year。

what happened to tier 1, the world’s no. 1 company?

recently, bosch officials revealed that they are considering closing a motor factory in germany and may further lay off employees.

at this time, only one year has passed since bosch announced that it would abandon lidar.

no coincidence.

europe's largest car manufacturer, centenary volkswagen, is also considering closing its factory in germany and planning to lay off employees.

the largest tier 1 and the largest automaker both plan to close factories and layoff employees in the short term.。

what happened to the european auto industry?

bosch considers closing motor factory

bosch ceostefan hartung (stefan hartung) recently revealed in an interview,bosch is considering closing an electric motor manufacturing plant in germany。

however, hartung later added,bosch continues its electrification strategy。

it can be seen that the closure of the motor plant is not because bosch's determination to transform into electrification has wavered.

rather, it is due to bosch's pessimistic expectations for the future.

bosch believes that affected by the general environment,the market outlook is not optimistic：

from the perspective of overall demand,global auto market demand lower than industry expectations 5 years ago, specific toin the european domestic market, production will be several million units lower than five years ago.。

when it comes to the tram market, bosch expects the growth rate to be relatively slow. he further revealed that some customers have already postponed orders for tram parts.

due to reduced demand for existing production capacity and unoptimistic market expectations,therefore, while bosch is closing the factory, it will also consider further layoffs.。

this scene is hard not to remind people of bosch’s setback in lidar at this time last year.

but what’s interesting is that, in bosch’s view,the motor is not a new thing like automotive lidar, but an "old antique" with a history of hundreds of years.。

in april 2021, bosch published an article on its official website, briefly reviewing its history of conducting motor-related research, which can be traced back to 1887.

bosch said at the time that after more than 100 years of development, motor research still has great potential.

bosch is researching new solutions, such as magnet-free excitation synchronous motors, looking for replacements for brushes, and integrating ai technology into product improvements.

a year and a half later, bosch expanded motor production to the united states, investing more thanus$260 millionat that time, it was equivalent to approximately rmb1.84 billion yuanbuild a factory.

it can be seen that motor research and development has been valued at bosch for a long time and is developing well.

but now, tier 1 is still lagging behind in the electrification competition.

so what is the secret of motors that can rewrite the competitive landscape of suppliers?

the composition and principle of the drive motor

the motor mentioned here refers to the vehicle drive motor. compared with industrial motors, it has higher requirements on power density, speed range and heat dissipation.

there are two main core components:

stator and rotor。

the stator mainly has three major components:

stator core, stator windings and frame, where the windings are part of the motor circuit.

the rotor is placed in the internal cavity, and there is an air gap between the rotor and the stator.

when the power battery outputs electric energy and current flows through the stator winding, a rotating magnetic field is generated. the magnetic field interacts with the magnetic field in the rotor, causing the rotor to start rotating, and the motor outputs power.

according to the speed of the rotor and stator, common motors can be divided into two types:

synchronous motors and asynchronous motors.

synchronous motor, i.e.rotor magnetic field and synchronous rotation with stator magnetic field, the most common ones arepermanent magnet synchronous motor, the power density and operating efficiency are relatively high, the structure is more compact, and the smaller size can save more space in the car.

permanent magnet synchronous motors have become the mainstream of the domestic motor market, and are generally equipped with single-motor models.

however, since the rotor adoptspermanent magnet, has its own constant magnetic field, and the production materials are relatively expensive, so the material cost of the motor is relatively high.

in addition, the temperature rise when the motor is working may cause the permanent magnet to demagnetize, so some people are looking for its replacement, which is mentioned earlier:

excitation synchronous motor.

by winding a coil around the rotor and then energizing it to generate a magnetic field, permanent magnets are replaced.

however, due to the need to energize the rotor, a "carbon brush" needs to be used. the carbon brush will wear out during operation and generate dust inside, causing new problems.

currently, there are relatively few models equipped with this kind of motor, such as the bmw i3.

let's look at asynchronous motors or induction motors, which are generally combined with permanent magnet synchronous motors, using a "different front and same rear" layout, and are installed on four-wheel drive vehicles.

the rotor of this type of motor uses an induction coil. after the external stator is energized, the stator magnetic field changes during rotation, cutting the rotor coil to generate current. the generated magnetic field and the stator magnetic field are mutually exclusive, driving the rotor to rotate. there is a time difference from the stator being energized to the rotor rotating. , so it is called asynchronous motor.

the structure is relatively simple and the cost is relatively low. however, due to the relatively large number of steps in the conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy, this type of motor consumes relatively high energy.

as mentioned earlier, bosch has actually done a lot of exploration on motors, such as trying to research lower-cost excitation motors, replacing "carbon brushes" with non-contact methods, and improving motor efficiency and power density through innovative structures and materials.

looking at the overall background, perhaps bosch's failure in motors, especially the closure of its factory in germany, was not purely due to technical reasons.。

affected by many factors,the entire european automobile industry, represented by bosch, is heading towards dusk.。

the twilight of the european automotive industry

in september this year, europe's largest car manufacturer and tier 1 were not having a good time.

almost at the same time that bosch ceo was considering closing factories and laying off employees, a similar plan was put to the ceo of volkswagen groupobomu (oliver blume) before the case.

in order to survive the electrification transformation, volkswagen management decided to cut expenses and implement cost reduction plans in two aspects:

factory closure and employment termination protection。

let’s look at the factory closures first.

as the european automobile market has shrunk in the past two years, volkswagen has experienced overcapacity. the current production capacity of about 500,000 vehicles cannot be absorbed.facing the future, volkswagen and bosch are equally pessimistic, believing that sales will not recover in the short term.。

volkswagen can only consider closing two factories. according to reports, these include a vehicle manufacturing plant and a parts production plant.

this is the publicfactory closed in germany for the first time in 87 years。

at the same time as the factory closures, volkswagen plans to terminate the employment guarantee plan at six factories.

the so-called employment guarantee plan is a previous promise made by volkswagen that it will not lay off employees before 2029. it has been implemented.30 years。

once the boots hit the ground, it will meanmore than 100,000 people lost their "iron rice bowl" promise overnight and faced the risk of being laid off.

this ignited anger among volkswagen workers, and the union announced a strike after negotiations with management broke down.

there was a fire in volkswagen's backyard, and at the same time it lowered its profit forecast, and the other two german giants were also in trouble.

not long ago, affected by the recall incident, bmw lowered its profit margin to 6%, a decrease of 2-4 percentage points.

mercedes-benz said that due to the decline in demand in china, its largest market, it decided to lower its profit margin from 11% to 7.5%-8.5%.

the pressure from oems has been transmitted to the upstream supply chain.

bosch, continental, valeo, zf... well-known suppliers in the era of fuel vehicles have successively announced layoffs.

schaeffler also just announced that after merging with vitesco technology (formerly continental powertrain division), some positions will be eliminated due to market conditions and personnel redundancy.

the specific number of people was not specified, but compared to zf’s 14,000 layoffs,84,000 employeesschaeffler gave its employees a "nail-biting pill":

we won’t lay off so many people, we don’t expect to lay off more than 10,000 people.

from oem to supplier,the collective turmoil in the european automobile industry is due to the unstable policies of the authoritiesafter the end of last year, tram subsidy policies in germany, france, new zealand and sweden were reduced or canceled one after another, and the tram market shrank quickly.

relevant data shows that electric car sales from january to august fell by 4.8% year-on-year. this may be why bosch's motor customers postponed orders.

sales in market segments are declining, and the overall market situation is also relatively bad.european car sales fall to lowest level in 3 years。

but in addition to policy factors, the more important reason is that competitors have become stronger.

in the past, giants like volkswagen could consider exporting their products to the chinese market if there was overcapacity at home.

however, with the rise of china's automobile industry, such good days are gone forever.

volkswagen group ceo obermou admitted frankly when facing workers:

no more checks from china。

different eras have different travel needs, giving rise to different products. electric travel is more economical, and technology reshapes luxury.

when the west is not bright, the east is bright. the european automobile industry is entering the dusk, and the chinese automobile industry is rising in the east.

every era has its own cars.

the era of chinese automobiles is coming.