Development Trend of Heavy Trucks

2011 has come. Looking back on the commercial vehicle market in 2010, heavy truck is undoubtedly the hottest keyword of the year. Since the beginning of the year, the hot heavy truck market has made all heavy truck enterprises happy.
In a good market environment, the sales volume of heavy trucks in 2010 broke the record of one million vehicles. In 2011, although most people are cautious and optimistic about the heavy card market, the three major trends of the heavy card enterprises, namely, the acceleration of the industrial chain, the upgrading of service competition and the lightweight of heavy card products, will be more significant.
Industry chain integration of heavy truck enterprises accelerated
The booming production and sales of the market performance has increased the demand for self-produced powertrain from heavy truck manufacturers. An industry expert commented that the relationship between vehicle manufacturers and diesel engine manufacturers has evolved from strategic cooperation a few years ago to equity cooperation, with more and more group companies in the whole industry chain.
At present, major domestic vehicle manufacturers are building or restructuring their own diesel engine plants. FAW Jiefang is supported by Xichai and Dachai. China National Heavy Duty Truck has two engine production bases, Hangfa Factory and Zhangqiu Factory. Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle Company is mainly supported by Dongfeng Cummins, and has built a power assembly base of 30000 Dongfeng dCi11 engines. Even in Shaanxi Heavy Truck, a vehicle factory controlled by Weichai Power, it has also set foot in the engine field, and jointly produced 11 liter engines with Cummins. The newly launched Jirui United Truck is also equipped with Yuchai United Power's 6K large displacement engine on its UE heavy truck platform as standard. In addition, in the first half of 2011, the joint venture of BAIC Foton Motor Co., Ltd. and Daimler AG for medium and heavy trucks and engines is expected to be established. After the project is put into operation, the annual capacity of Mercedes Benz OM457 series engines will reach 45000 sets.
In September 2010, JAC Automobile, which had the highest growth rate in the heavy truck industry in 2010, signed an agreement with Navistar and NC2 Global LLC to establish two joint ventures for the whole vehicle and engine. In the future, it will fully cooperate in the research, development and production of medium and heavy trucks. At the same time, the joint venture will also have relevant engine strategies to support the development of medium and heavy trucks. It is understood that Navistar's engine series is called Maxxforce, including 7L, 9L, 10L, 11L and 13L. According to insiders, this joint venture of JAC will add a new competitor to China's heavy engine market in 2011.
To sum up, there are only Beiben, Valin and some new entrants like Universiade in the heavy truck industry without engine supporting plants. However, it is not difficult to predict that in 2011 or in the near future, with the growing sales of its heavy trucks, it will be an inevitable trend to establish or merge engine plants and master the core power.
The service competition of heavy truck enterprises will become white hot
2011 will be a year for heavy truck enterprises to compete and upgrade their service means. With the holding of the annual business meeting of all heavy card enterprises in December 2010, the service level continues to be greatly improved, which is still the only way for all heavy card enterprises to enhance their market competitiveness. At the 2011 Heavy Truck Business Annual Conference held by Shaanxi Automobile, its 12th Five Year Plan clearly proposed to build a service-oriented manufacturing enterprise. To this end, Shaanxi Automobile not only improved the content and terms of intimate services, but also launched the high-speed rail express project for parts distribution.
On December 22, 2010, Beiben Heavy Duty Truck held the 2011 Beiben Heavy Duty Truck Service Parts Conference, which not only summarized the problems in the service of Beiben Heavy Duty Truck, but also carefully planned and arranged the service content in 2011. On December 25, 2010, Valin Automobile held its annual business conference. Liu Hanru, the chairman of Valin Automobile, stressed that in 2011, Valin would not only improve its heavy truck sales network, but also focus on its heavy truck service network.
Industry insiders said that the reason why heavy truck enterprises pay more attention to after-sales service is that with the gradual dilution of product profits, after-sales service has become the most stable profit source in the automotive industry chain. More importantly, with the intensification of product homogeneity, the differentiation of services will be a solution to enterprise competition.
The trend of lightweight and high-power is more significant
In recent two years, the national and local highway maintenance fee cancellation and weight charging policies have had an impact on the commercial vehicle market, especially the heavy truck market, mainly reflected in the vehicle lightweight and power heavy-duty. In 2010, the trend of lightweight was stronger in the heavy truck industry. FAW and Dongfeng were far ahead of other enterprises in terms of their lightweight advantages. However, China National Heavy Truck, Shaanxi Automobile, Beiben and other old heavy truck enterprises are also catching up, or introducing or improving their new lightweight products. In 2011, the competition around lightweight will be more intense.
At the same time, under the continuous influence of the weight charging laws and regulations, coupled with the high domestic oil prices, many people believe that the general trend of heavy truck lightweight in 2011 is irreversible. This is one of the most significant signs that China's automobile industry is in line with international standards, and it is a general direction and trend, just the speed of technological progress.
On the other hand, with the development of road transport industry, the rise of oil prices and the increase of load control efforts throughout the country, logistics enterprises are increasingly concerned about the efficiency and economy of road transport, which has promoted the rapid development of heavy trucks towards high-end and high-power. It is predicted that in 2011, the main sales power of heavy trucks above 14 tons will be more than 300 horsepower, and the segmented products of tractors above 350 horsepower will be more favored. This trend is particularly evident in the new generation of heavy truck products of various enterprises (heavy truck HOWO-A7, Hongyan Jieshi, Shaanxi Automobile Delong F3000, Jiefang J6, Dongfeng Tianlong, Valin Star Cama, etc. are mainly equipped with high-power models).