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Nidec Chairman and CEO Shigenobu Nagamori said that the company plans to invest 1 trillion yen ($7.21 billion) in its E-Axle motor system by around fiscal year 2030, becoming the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturer. A leader in the electric motor market.
The adoption of electric vehicles will accelerate from 2025, and Nidec will continue to invest heavily in related areas, Nagamori said. Nidec's E-Axle, a complete system that integrates an electric motor, inverter and transmission, is seen as key to the company's 10 trillion yen revenue target by fiscal 2030.
In 2019, Nidec began mass production of the E-Axle system ahead of its competitors. It currently has manufacturing centers in China and Europe, mainly selling to Chinese automakers. The company has previously announced plans to expand production of the E-Axle to seven plants, and Nagamori now expects to add an eighth plant, in Mexico, primarily for the U.S. market. "By around fiscal 2030, we need to invest a total of 1 trillion yen. "
So far, Nidec's E-Axle business has continued to post operating losses due to mounting development costs. The company started producing the cheaper second-generation E-Axle at the end of September and aims to be profitable in the next fiscal year (April 2023 to March 2024).
Nagamori stressed that "cost cutting" remained a key priority for Nidec in the medium to long term. He predicts that the adoption of cheaper electric vehicles will accelerate in emerging economies, and "we will reduce the cost to one-fifth of the first generation system of E-Axle".
Making the system smaller and lighter will be crucial, Nagamori said, but it is also one of Nidec's strengths. "It's not a flashy competition, and technological superiority will eventually lead to greater market share. " Nagamori drew on his past experience in small precision motors, and said early investments will help Nidec expand its market share and master technology know-how, which in turn will help it reduce costs and increase competitiveness.
Nagamori also outlined plans to strengthen Nidec's research and development capabilities, including overseas. "We need 3,000 to 5,000 technical experts to become a world leader. "
Nidec has established a new R&D center in Bulgaria and plans to have 100 IT engineers in Bulgaria by the end of this fiscal year (April 2022 to March 2023), Nagamori said.
An enterprise that provides a package of OEMs for pure electric vehicleswill no longer be a supporting role, but will take center stageNidec is the number one company in the world for brushless motors. In traditional automobiles, automobile motors are only auxiliary parts, but with the development of automobile EV and autonomous driving technology, the number of driving motors is increasing, and the performance requirements for motors are also becoming more and more complex. Driving motors Become the "heart" of electric vehicles.Why is it said that Nidec may become an enterprise that can influence the development of the new energy automobile industry? First of all, because pure electric vehicles have completely subverted the industrial structure of traditional automobiles, more and more "crossovers" such as Tesla and Weilai have emerged as emerging pure electric vehicle forces. Part of the manufacturing business is outsourced, which will make auto parts and supporting enterprises have great potential. In the era of pure electric vehicles, the parts companies behind the scenes will no longer be supporting roles, but occupy the center of the stage. Electric production has such a trend. Nidec not only has the core competitiveness of the "heart" of the car, but also extends to the internal organs and skeletal muscles of the car. Nidec proposed the concept of "Supplier Town" centering on pure electric vehicle parts and gathering factories around it. In 2021, Nidec will begin to convene related companies around the new Dalian factory. In addition to parts related to drive motors, it will also attract factories related to 20 types of parts such as brakes and power steering to form an electric vehicle (EV) A package of foundry industry alliances. Nidec also envisages getting involved in the car chassis in the future, and plans to realize the production of most parts of the whole car without the body and battery, reaching one-third of the cost of the whole car.Nidec President Guan Jun said that in the context of the growing pure electric vehicle market, industry companies that provide a package of OEMs for pure electric vehicles will gain more and more obvious competitive advantages in the future. Nidec strives to become a company like Germany's Bosch (BOSCH), which is called a "mega supplier" and can supply a wide range of parts to domestic and foreign automakers.How to achieve low cost and low price, Nidec is also a typical Chinese strategy. On the one hand, it is to reduce costs through capacity expansion. Nidec has made large-scale investments in China, and its planned production capacity in Pinghu, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province is 1 million units per year. In August 2021, Nidec's first new energy production line will enter mass production. Immediately after November 2021, the second new energy production line entered the sample stage. It is understood that the new energy production line has a total investment of 100 million yuan and an annual planned production capacity of 100,000 sets. It is expected to be officially produced in June 2022. In Dalian in the north, in March 2020, Nidec invested 100 billion yen to build the New Japan Industrial Complex. The annual output of the new Dalian factory can reach 3.6 million new energy vehicle motors. This is the world's largest pure electric vehicle motor factory. Nidec's goal is to "take over 40% of the world's share by 2030" in the field of pure electric vehicle motors.On the other hand, it is the integration of the industrial chain, which is also the ability that Chinese companies are good at. In January 2022, Nidec will rename the newly acquired Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Machine Tool in August 2021 as Nidec Machine Tool, and will build a new factory for machine tools in Pinghu, Zhejiang. It is expected to start production in the spring of 2023. These machine tools are mainly used for the production of electric For gears dedicated to products such as automobiles (EVs), the scale of investment is 50 billion yen. Nidec has also led other Japanese companies to provide industrial support for it. On April 1, 2022, Japan’s JFE Commercial Vehicle Motor Iron Core Project was signed and settled in Pinghu, with a total investment of 34 million US dollars, mainly for Nidec to provide motors. Iron core, the annual output value is expected to exceed 700 million yuan after reaching full capacity. In Dalian, there are also a number of industrial supporting Japanese companies such as Fujiyo Steel Processing Company. Through a series of industrial chain integration, Nidec is currently able to self-produce everything except power devices, with a self-made rate of over 80%.
XINDA