纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英在中国为中国大众汽车为何加码在华业务

A bright orange robot, 10 feet tall, looms over Volkswagen’s new electric car assembly line in central China. It was imported from Germany. The factory’s other 1,074 robots were made in Shanghai.

一台三米高的橙色机器人矗立在大众集团在中国中部新建的电动汽车装配线上。这台机器人来自德国。工厂里其他1074台机器人则是在上海制造的。

Volkswagen used to import shock absorbers from Central Europe for cars it makes at Chinese factories. Now it buys them from a company in China for 40 percent less.

大众以前在中国工厂生产汽车采用的是从中欧进口的减震器。现在的减震器采购自一家中国公司，成本比以前低了40%。

After relying for decades on engineers in Germany to design cars for the Chinese market, Volkswagen has begun hiring for a team of nearly 3,000 Chinese engineers, which will include hundreds transferred from Volkswagen operations elsewhere in China. They will design electric cars at VW’s industrial complex in Hefei, a city in central China.

几十年来一直依赖德国工程师为中国市场设计汽车的大众集团，如今已开始组建一个有近3000名中国工程师组成的团队，其中包括从大众集团在中国其他地区的业务部门调来的几百名工程师。他们将在中部城市合肥的大众汽车中心设计电动车。

The new strategy, which Volkswagen calls “In China, for China,” is another sign of how China’s commanding lead in electric vehicles has upended global auto making. Chinese car brands are appearing more in Germany and throughout Europe, causing politicians to worry about job losses.

大众集团称之为“在中国，为中国”的新战略是中国在电动车行业的领先地位如何颠覆全球汽车制造业的又一迹象。中国品牌的汽车正越来越多地进入德国乃至整个欧洲市场，引发了政界人士对失业问题的担忧。

But Volkswagen is doubling down on its business in China, which is the world’s largest car market and also Volkswagen's biggest market. VW’s aim is to match the speed and efficiency of Chinese electric car manufacturers, which have seized a rapidly growing share of the Chinese car market. That has caused sales of the German car maker’s gasoline-powered vehicles to plunge in China.

但大众集团正在加码在华业务，中国是全球最大的汽车市场，也是大众最大的市场。大众的目标是赶上中国电动车制造商的速度和效率。中国电动车制造商已在快速增长的中国汽车市场占据很大份额，导致这家德国汽车制造商在中国的燃油车销量大幅下降。

China’s city governments and state-controlled banks have been pouring money into electric car makers, helping them build new factories faster than their sales have grown. The resulting overcapacity has triggered a price war that has pushed electric car prices down sharply. Volkswagen wants low costs to make sure its electric cars can be priced competitively. So it plans to start production in Hefei in the coming weeks of its new Tavascan sport utility vehicle for sale in China and export to Europe.

中国各地的市政府和国家控制的银行一直在向电动车制造商注入大量资金，帮助它们以高于销量增长的速度建设新工厂，随之而来的产能过剩引发了价格战，导致电动车的售价大幅下降。大众汽车想降低成本，确保其电动车的售价有竞争力。所以公司打算在未来几周开始在合肥生产为中国市场和出口欧洲设计的新款Tavascan运动型多功能车。

“We all know how difficult it is to make money on electric cars,” said Ralf Brandstätter, the chairman and chief executive of VW’s overall China operations.

“我们都知道电动车赚钱有多难，”负责大众汽车中国业务的大众集团董事兼大众（中国）首席执行官贝瑞德(Ralf Brandstatter)说。

The need to reduce costs is so great that it has also meant painful cuts in Germany — a difficult choice for a company that has been a pillar of German industry since the 1930s. The German state of Lower Saxony owns nearly 12 percent of the company. European labor leaders hold nearly half the seats on the company’s supervisory board.

削减成本的需求如此迫切，也意味着大众汽车不得不在德国忍痛裁员，对这家自20世纪30年代以来一直是德国工业支柱的公司来说，这是个艰难的选择。德国下萨克森州拥有大众汽车近12%的股份。欧洲的劳工领导人在大众汽车监事会里占有近一半的席位。

Volkswagen is looking to shrink its costly, heavily unionized work force in Europe, as well as trim its reliance on high-cost European auto parts manufacturers. Executives began breaking the news in late November to staff at the company’s headquarters in Wolfsburg that job reductions in Europe will have to be part of a 10 billion euro, or $10.9 billion, worldwide cost-cutting plan started earlier this year.

 大众汽车正计划收缩其成本高昂且高度工会化的欧洲员工规模，同时减少对高成本的欧洲汽车零部件制造商的依赖。大众高管已在去年11月底向沃尔夫斯堡公司总部的员工释放风声，称在欧洲裁员将成为公司今年早些时候启动的把全球生产成本降低100亿欧元（约合775亿人民币）计划的一部分。

“To increase our efficiency, we have to reduce our work force,” Oliver Blume, Volkswagen’s chief executive, said told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

“为了提高效率，我们必须缩减员工规模，”大众汽车首席执行官奥利弗·布鲁姆对《法兰克福汇报》说。

The cuts in Europe and imports from China could produce a double whammy for Germany, where the car industry has been a mainstay of the economy and accounts for nearly 800,000 jobs. Industry analysts predict the shift to electric vehicles, which are simpler to assemble than gasoline-powered cars, will cause that number to shrink by 12 percent.

在欧洲的裁员加上从中国进口汽车可能会给德国带来双重打击，汽车工业一直是德国经济的支柱，创造了近80万个就业岗位。行业分析师预测，向电动车转型将导致这些岗位减少12%，因为电动车比燃油车更容易组装。

VW and Chinese carmakers have begun building new facilities in China to make electric cars, instead of converting existing factories. The new factories, for local manufacturers like BYD and Nio as well as VW in Hefei, are among the world’s most modern and highly automated.

大众和中国汽车制造商开始在中国新建生产电动车的工厂，而不是对现有工厂进行改造。包括比亚迪和蔚来等本土车企以及合肥的大众汽车中心在内，这些新厂生产线的现代化和自动化程度都是世界领先水平。

Midea, a Chinese appliance maker, in 2016 bought the German company Kuka, a leading producer of car factory robots. The new VW factory in Hefei uses robots from Kuka, which has shifted considerable production to Shanghai.

中国家电制造商美的在2016年收购了德国的库卡公司，这是一家制造汽车生产线机器人的领先企业。大众汽车在合肥新建的组装线用的就是已将大量生产转移到上海的库卡公司的机器人。

Last summer Volkswagen acquired a 4.9 percent stake in Xiaopeng, a Chinese electric car maker that is particularly strong in instrument panel electronics. And VW is replacing European parts manufacturers that still supply its Chinese factories.

今年夏天，大众汽车收购了小鹏汽车4.9%的股份，这家中国电动汽车制造商在仪表板电子产品领域尤其强大。大众汽车正在取代其中国工厂供应链中仍在使用的欧洲零部件制造商。

“The really big potential is the localization, to really localize 100 percent of the parts in China,” said Ludger Lührmann, the chief technology officer for VW’s operations in Hefei.

“真正巨大的潜力在于本地化，在中国真正实现100%的零部件本地化，”大众汽车合肥中心的首席技术官吕尔曼(Ludger Lührmann)说。

Volkswagen’s move reflects a painful reality for every traditional multinational car company: They have been caught flat-footed by China’s rapid shift to electric cars and Chinese automakers’ success in cutting costs, said Bill Russo, an electric car industry consultant in Shanghai.

大众汽车的做法反映了每个传统跨国车企面临的痛苦现实：它们对中国转向电动车的速度之快、以及中国汽车制造商削减成本的成功没有准备，住在上海的电动汽车行业顾问罗威(Bill Russo)说。

Electric cars account for over 30 percent of China’s car market, up from 5 percent three years ago. By 2025, VW expects, half the cars sold in China will be electric.

三年前，电动车只占中国汽车销售的5%，这个比例现已增长到30%以上。据大众汽车预测，到2025年时，电动车将占到中国市场销量的50%。

Multinational companies have long sold the majority of China’s gasoline-powered cars through joint ventures with local automakers. But they sell fewer than 20 percent of China’s electric cars, and those are mostly made by Tesla, the American automaker. Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers BYD, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, Zhejiang Geely, Li Auto and Nio have moved much faster than their European counterparts.

很长一段时间里，中国市场上销售的半数以上的燃油车都由跨国公司与本土汽车制造商的合资企业生产。但它们的电动车销量不到中国电动车销量的20%，而且大多数是美国汽车制造商特斯拉生产的。中国制造商比亚迪、上海汽车工业集团公司、浙江吉利、理想汽车和蔚来汽车进军中国电动车市场的速度远快于它们的欧洲同行。

Volkswagen is the longtime leader for gasoline-powered cars in China, holding almost a fifth of the market through two big joint ventures with Chinese state-owned companies. But it sells less than 3 percent of the country’s electric cars.

大众长期以来是中国燃油车市场份额的最大占有者，它与中国国有企业合资成立的两家大型制造商占了该市场近20%的份额。但大众在中国销售的电动车还不到市场销量的3%。

VW is racing to catch up. Its new factory in Hefei is designed to churn out 350,000 cars a year initially, more than the industry standard size of 250,000 or so. And the buildings have been built with large expanses of empty space inside, so that further equipment can be quickly installed to ramp up production even higher.

大众汽车正在奋力追赶。合肥中心初步规划的年产量是35万辆，高于行业标准的年产25万辆左右。该中心已建好的建筑物里仍有大量空间，因此能快速安装更多的设备，进一步提高产能。

Building a factory in China, instead of converting existing factories, has big advantages for Volkswagen. Starting in the 1980s when China began opening to foreign automotive investment, Beijing has required that foreign automakers assemble gasoline-powered cars in China through joint ventures with its state-owned automakers, and share management control. Volkswagen owns 40 percent of one of its joint ventures, with First Auto Works, and 50 percent of the other, with Shanghai Automotive.

对大众汽车来说，在中国建新厂而不是改造现有工厂的优势很大。中国从20世纪80年代开始对外国车企投资开放之初，政府就一直要求外国汽车制造商与国有汽车制造商成立合资企业，在中国组装燃油车，分享企业的管理权。大众汽车在它与中国第一汽车制造厂成立的合资企业中拥有40%的股份，在与上海汽车集团成立的合资企业中拥有50%的股份。

But Beijing has exempted electric car production from the joint venture rule. Volkswagen owns 75 percent of its electric car manufacturing operation in Hefei — a local partner owns the rest — and VW fully owns its new engineering center in the city. It has full managerial control of both. Tesla, the leading foreign maker of electric cars in China, has operated in Shanghai since 2019 free of any joint venture requirement.

但中国政府已对电动车生产取消了成立合资企业的要求。大众汽车拥有其在合肥的电动汽车装配线75%的股份（其余股份由一个当地合作伙伴持有），并对合肥的新研发中心全资控股。大众汽车对合肥装配线和研发中心拥有全部管理权。在中国领先的外国电动汽车制造商特斯拉自2019年起就一直在上海运营一家独资企业。

Foreign automakers are allowed full ownership of factories that make auto parts. So converting these to electric car component production has been more worthwhile.

中国政府允许外国汽车制造商独资拥有汽车零部件制造厂。因此，改建这些工厂来生产电动车组件是更值得的。

Despite its aggressive new push in China, Volkswagen must compete with a domestic auto sector that receives heavy government assistance. Just 30 miles from its Hefei factory, a Chinese electric rival, Nio, has opened its second factory. Its operation is in some ways even more advanced than Volkswagen’s — sections of the assembly line are essentially mobile and can be rolled to new locations.

尽管大众汽车在中国声势浩大地推进新业务，但仍必须与得到政府大力支持的本土汽车行业竞争。在离大众汽车合肥中心不到50公里的地方，其竞争对手中国电动车制造商蔚来的第二家工厂已开工。蔚来的装配线在某些方面甚至比大众汽车的更先进，装配线的多个部分实际上可以移动，能被推到新的位置。

The local government provided the land and the building, said Ji Huaqiang, Nio’s vice president for manufacturing. “Nio does not own the factory or the land — it is renting, but the factory was custom built for Nio,” he said.

蔚来汽车分管制造的副总裁纪华强表示，当地政府为其提供了土地和厂房。“蔚来汽车不拥有工厂或土地，土地是租来的，但工厂是为蔚来汽车设计建造的，”他说。

Nio’s two factories give it the capacity to assemble 600,000 cars a year, even though its annual rate of sales this autumn is only about 200,000 cars. Nio is nonetheless already building a third plant.

蔚来的两家工厂使其具有每年组装60万辆车的产能，虽然公司今年秋季的预计年销量只是20万辆左右。尽管如此，蔚来已在建设第三座工厂。

Volkswagen executives say that with China doing so much to build up its car industry, they have to be involved. “To build up a Chinese automotive industry,” Mr. Brandstätter said, “was a clear target always of the industrial policy of the government.”

大众汽车高管说，中国为发展其汽车行业做了这么多，他们也必须参与其中。“发展中国汽车工业一直是政府产业政策的明确目标，”布兰德斯塔特说。