Automotive Industry

Automotive industry (automotive industry) is a branch of industry engaged in the production of trackless vehicles (for example, cars, motorcycles and carts), mainly with internal combustion engines (ICE).

Partially includes sub-sectors:

• engine building;
• production of components (the most important is the tire industry, also, in modern times, automotive electronics);
• production of technological equipment (machine tools and robotics);

The automotive industry has a high share of capital costs as well as labor costs.

From its very inception, the automotive industry has been a large consumer of ferrous metallurgy products - cold-rolled sheets, iron and steel castings , etc; non-ferrous metallurgy - production of radiators, carburetors, fittings, etc; chemical industry - rubber (primarily tires) and plastic products, dyes, etc; electrical - ignition systems, batteries, generators, starters, electrical wiring, lighting systems; glass industry.

It was in the automotive industry that, from the mid-1910s, the conveyor assembly system became most widespread, revolutionizing the industry of the 20th century.

As chips became cheaper in the 1970s, the robotics industry began to develop widely, finding customers in the automotive industry. The number of robots used in mass production of cars is constantly growing. Robots are mainly used for welding and painting bodies and moving components.

History

Automotive manufacturing, as a branch of mechanical engineering, originated in the 1880s - 1890s in France and Germany, and at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries in England, Austria-Hungary, Italy, the USA, Belgium, Canada, Switzerland, Sweden and the Russian Empire in connection with the need for transportation and the displacement of the muscular power of animals and people from this area. Since the mid-20th century, the automotive industry has been a mature industry with a high degree of monopolization.

1920s - “fuel problem” (USA).

In the 1930s, an industrial-type automobile industry was created in the USSR. In the 1930-1950s, the use of woodworking industry products, whose products in bodybuilding were replaced by steel parts, practically ceased.

In the 1950-60s, the automotive industry began to develop intensively in Japan, quite actively in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, and to a limited extent in India, China and a number of other countries. In the 1950s, the Japanese company Toyota adopted a Kaizen-based system of flexible production and quality improvement known as the Toyota Method.

Since the mid-1970s, CNC machines and automated production lines (especially in hazardous and critical areas) with industrial robotic manipulators have become widespread. By the 1980s, electronic information technologies and logistics became widespread in the auto industry, making it possible to increase labor productivity, introduce a just-in-time (kanban) component supply system, and also make it possible to expand the options for individual vehicle configurations.

In the early 1980s, Japan took the title of world leader in the automotive industry from the United States, and in the mid-1980s, intensive development of auto production began in South Korea. In the 1990s - early 2000s, with the help of leading Western European automakers in some post-socialist European countries (Germany, Czech Republic and Romania), auto production was modernized (Skoda , Dacia) as well as in some countries of the Asian region, primarily in China, which In 2009, it became the new world leader in the automotive industry and auto consumption. At the same time, since the 1980s, many European countries (except Germany) have significantly weakened their positions in the global automotive industry.

Since the 1980s, the global hegemony of the Big Three automakers from the United States (General Motors, Ford, Chrysler) also began to lose their monopolistic positions (in the North American market), giving way, first of all, to Japanese concerns, subsequently supplemented by Korean and German ones. Both the largest and smaller automakers have repeatedly merged (and also diverged) with other concerns and consortiums, and have increasingly located and are locating their production in third countries (primarily in China).

At the end of the 20th century, competitions for passenger cars and then trucks “car of the year”, first in the European and then Japanese and North American markets, as well as worldwide and international cars and trucks, in which cars of different classes alternately won, became widely known, manufacturers and countries. A “car of the century” competition was also held and the Ford T (1908–1926) won.

Since the beginning of the 1980s, there has been an increasing use of electronic industry products - engine control systems, gearboxes and transmissions, passive systems (pretensioners and tension compensators of seat belts, airbags and curtain airbags, active head restraints, satellite alarm systems) and active safety ( ABS brakes, breakassisters, anti-skid systems and so on), active lighting systems , radars and sonars, tire pressure sensors, hand-free mobile communication headsets , also on-board computers, diagnostic and navigation systems, and more recently, automotive personal computers or computers (onboarders).

The most important trends in the global automotive industry at the beginning of the 21st century include special attention to improving the environmental and economic performance of internal combustion engines (catalytic converters and new generation diesel engines, new types of fuels, including biofuels), the creation of hybrid systems (internal combustion engine + electric motor + battery), increasing the level of safety (see above), improved driving performance (all-wheel drive, electronic driving assistance systems), “intellectualization” of the car as a whole.

In the second decade of the 21st century, the trend towards creating hybrid and all-electric vehicles has intensified , especially in the USA (Tesla and the Big Three companies) and China, for example, BYD. In China, the output of hybrids (HEVs), plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs) increased from 2014 to 2016. approximately fourfold - up to 507 thousand, of which 409 thousand are electric vehicles and 98 thousand are hybrids. For 2020, the Chinese government plans to achieve a production level of alternative energy vehicles of 3 million per year, with total production increasing to 30 million vehicles. By 2025, China plans to take a leading position in all global automobile markets.

An important problem on a global scale today has become the problem of disposal and recycling of disused cars. A number of countries have today adopted standards, directives and laws requiring manufacturers, in order to regulate recycling processes, to be fully aware of the materials they use. An important step towards the implementation of these laws and regulations was the creation of a unified international information system, IMDS. Today, IMDS members include more than twenty representatives of the global automotive industry.

World production of motor vehicles

In the first decade of the 21st century, the automotive industry in China, Brazil, and Mexico is developing at the most rapid pace due to its leading position in the volume of attracting foreign capital and active anti-crisis tax and credit support from the state. In 2010, production in China grew by 32.4% compared to 2009 and reached 18.26 million vehicles, including 11.6 million passenger cars, maintaining its first place in the world for the second year in a row (including in passenger car sales), significantly ahead of the leaders (USA and Japan) that succeeded each other in past decades, and also ahead of all EU countries combined. In 2000–2010, car production in Brazil increased from 1.7 million units. up to 3.6 million units per year after the beginning of state guardianship over automakers. After entering the global market, Mexico made a small leap and climbed up in the export of automotive products. It was assumed that in 2011, the Chinese auto industry would grow by another 10-15% and for the first time in the world history of auto production for any country would be able to exceed the production level of 20 million cars.

Bus production

The Brazilian Marcopolo SA is a major global manufacturer of buses.

The largest in the world is the Chinese company SG Automotive, which produces buses (and cars) under the Huanghai brand.

The crisis and the global auto industry

With the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, the global automotive industry, with the exception of China, was among the most depressed sectors of the global economy. The GM and Chrysler concerns were forced in the fall of 2008 to turn to the US government for multi-billion dollar loans, without which their survival became almost impossible. Automakers in Europe and Russia also submitted similar loan requests to their national governments . According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, in 2009 the decline in global auto production could reach 14% (55 million).

In the early 2010s, as a result of the global financial crisis, a confident change of leading countries began in the global automotive industry, especially in relation to the previously dominant American automobile industry, represented by the Big Three. Moreover, in their own market, the Big Three were first squeezed out in the early 1980s by the Japanese auto industry, represented by Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi, etc, and at the end of the 20th century, European automakers, including concerns, actively expanded into the world market Volkswagen Group, Daimler, BMW, Renault, PSA Peugeot Citroën, FIAT, etc.

The total volume of automobile production in the world in 2009 amounted to 61.7 million (-12.8% compared to 2008). In 2010, the global auto industry began to emerge from the recession, and sales tentatively increased to 68.5-70 million cars compared to 51.3 million in 2009. In 2017, 73.5 million passenger cars and 23.9 million trucks were produced worldwide.

As a result of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami of 2011, the assembly lines of automobile factories in Japan stopped for some time due to the energy shortage that arose. The export of Japanese cars and spare parts was also suspended due to the closure of the main seaports in the country. As a result, this led to the fact that Toyota, which was the leader of the global automobile industry, fell back to third position at the end of the year (the first places were taken by General Motors and the Volkswagen group).

Auto production in Europe is also suffering due to the recession. For the period from 2009 to 2013. 8 factories were closed. In 2013, 32% of vehicle production capacity remained unused.

2010s

In 2019, the world faced a record drop in car sales in 11 years—by 4%; The car market shrank the most in China – by 11%

The 2020 novel coronavirus pandemic has impacted the operations of auto factories around the world. Thus, in China, the BMW company extended from January 30, until February 10, the New Year holidays of its largest branch in the world - three factories with 10 thousand employees in the metropolis of Shenyang. Volkswagen has suspended joint production with Shanghai Automotive Group and First Automotive Works until February 10 . Volvo has extended holidays until February 9 for all its Chinese factories.
In the 1st quarter of 2021, global car production increased by 17% (to 14.7 million units) compared to 2020, but great difficulties arose (many conveyors stopped) due to a “chip shortage”. The same “chip shortage” led to a large (up to 15-25%) decline by the end of the year for almost all manufacturers.

Scandals

In conveyor production of machines, it is almost impossible to avoid any defects. Manufacturers regularly have to issue vehicle recalls from the trade and from consumers to eliminate critical defects. American companies were the first to conduct reviews. Largest reviews:

• Ford Motor (2001, 22 million vehicles, defect in the ignition system);
• Toyota (2012, 7.43 million vehicles, power window defect);
• Volkswagen (2015, 8.5 million cars, software with an “environmental defect”, Volkswagen concern scam);
• Defective Takata airbags (2015, 34 million Honda, BMW, Fiat, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, Chrysler, General Motors vehicles).
• Also AvtoVAZ#Product recall.