In 2004, the localization rate was still a topic that every joint venture car company would pay attention to when reporting internally.

However, as the models launched by various car companies all meet the standards, the importance of this data is slowly declining.

For a Chinese private enterprise like Xingchen Automobile, normally no one cares about your localization rate.

But if the boss has a request, someone will naturally take care of it.

Not to mention that the parts purchased directly cannot be imported from overseas. Even some parts purchased from China are also hoped to be 100% truly domestically produced as much as possible.

Obviously, there are difficulties and difficulties, so there are such requirements and goals.

Otherwise, who would care about this data?

"Minister, I'm not quibbling. In fact, the hollow stabilizer bars produced by any domestic stabilizer bar manufacturer are all imported from abroad, and there is no exception."

"We found five suppliers from Germany's Mubea and Thyssenkrupp, as well as Japan's Yangcheng Rizheng, plus local companies Yangcheng Huade and Huaxia Spring Factory, to compete for quotations."

"Although the prices of the latter two are relatively cheap, they have never done the business of hollow stabilizer bars. I think the prices have no reference value."

"The hollow tubes of the first three companies are either imported from Germany or Japan. Tubes that can be used as hollow stabilizer bars are not available in China."

Lu Feng, the buyer in charge of chassis parts, is giving Su Mingxing a report on the localization of parts.

Most of the parts in the chassis field are made of iron.

With the cooperation of Nanshan Special Steel, basically no materials need to be imported.

But I didn't expect that a part like the hollow stabilizer bar, which doesn't look that complicated, would fall apart.

This made Su Mingxing a little annoyed.

Lu Feng also felt a little wronged. It was not his fault.

I have searched all the manufacturers in China, but no one has domestically produced hollow pipes. So what can I do?

"Isn't it just a pipe?"

"Is it that difficult?"

“Why does everyone need to import?”

Su Mingxing suppressed his anger and prepared to clarify the situation first.

"Minister, before answering this question, let me briefly introduce the situation of the stabilizer bar."

"The function of the stabilizer bar is to prevent the car from rolling over when turning or when the left/right wheels are subjected to different loads, and to improve the vehicle's operational stability."

"At the same time, it can also improve the ride comfort of the car."

"The current stabilizer bars mainly come in two specifications: solid and hollow."

"Based on the stress characteristics of the stabilizer bar in actual work, the institute designed it as a hollow stabilizer bar, which can achieve a weight reduction of about 40%."

"The stabilizer bar of a car can be said to be a part that survives in the cracks. Usually, the spatial arrangement of the stabilizer bar needs to be completed after the spatial arrangement of the subframe, steering gear, swing arm, shock absorber and other parts is completed."

"In order to meet the safe clearance distance from surrounding parts, most automobile stabilizer bars have different shapes and bends."

"This hollow stabilizer bar with a complex shape needs to meet 200,000 durability tests under specific experimental conditions, which requires it to have high strength and low stress."

"And it must meet the design requirements for stiffness and cannot break under the conditions of the ultimate test."

"And for the purpose of weight reduction, the wall thickness cannot be set too high."

"As a result, the tube-making process of the hollow stabilizer bar is very complicated."

"And the processing of hollow stabilizer bars is also different from that of solid stabilizer bars."

"Solid stabilizer bars are thermoformed and require a special thermoforming machine to bend and shape the stabilizer bar, and then undergo heat treatments such as quenching and tempering, while hollow stabilizer bars are cold-bent formed according to the spatial direction of the stabilizer bar.

Then heat treatment and other processes are carried out.”

"This cold bending process also has very high requirements for the pipe, otherwise it will break or have some hidden defects if you are not careful."

"So if we want to achieve localization, we must either change to a solid stabilizer bar, or we can only import pipes from abroad."

Lu Feng obviously made a lot of preparations.

For the parts he was responsible for, he personally went to several manufacturers to conduct on-site research. After confirming that there was really no way to localize the parts, he could confidently report to Su Mingxing.

"According to your statement, there is no way to domestically produce hollow stabilizer tubes. The main reason is that the domestic tube manufacturing process is not up to par?"

After listening to Lu Feng's explanation, Su Mingxing basically understood the current situation.

But if you understand it, you understand it. Whether you accept it or not is another matter.

"Yes!"

"With a simple hollow stabilizer bar base material, Nanshan Special Steel can produce products that meet the requirements."

“But I can’t find a suitable pipe manufacturer.”

"With such high-strength carbon steel, it is very difficult to produce small-diameter pipes."

"This tube also needs to be cold-bent into a stabilizer bar with complex shapes, and the requirements for the tube have been raised several levels."

"Otherwise, manufacturers like Mubea and ThyssenKrupp would not choose to import."

"Even a few years ago, the hollow stabilizer bars common to Spring City Volkswagen and Modu were directly imported from overseas."

"Now it has at least evolved to the point where pipes are imported and the assemblies are processed in domestic factories."

Lu Feng explained further.

However, when he said this, Su Mingxing immediately thought of another question and said: "There should be many places on our chassis that need to use pipes, right?"

"For example, some components on the steering column are made of pipes, and even the shock absorbers also need to use pipes."

"Isn't there a demand for pipes in other parts, such as dashboard beams and seat frames?"

"Don't all these pipes need to be imported from overseas?"

When Su Mingxing asked this question, Lu Feng immediately felt guilty.

How do you answer this question?

It is not a part that I am responsible for. If my answer causes them to add additional reporting work, they will definitely be complained by then, right?

After all, whether it is a seat frame or a shock absorber, there are many components on it.

Under normal circumstances, Su Mingxing would not pay attention to a single pipe part.

Regardless of the hollow stabilizer bar, 70% of the cost is in the pipe. It is difficult to avoid this problem.

"I'll confirm this again."

Even if he didn't answer, Lu Feng had no choice but to resort to delaying tactics.

However, Su Mingxing did not intend to let this matter go.

Instead, after finishing this report, he went to find Xie Lingyun of Nanshan Special Steel.

…

"Mr. Su, are you suggesting that we set up another pipe-making factory?"

Xie Lingyun is also a member of the Xingchen 1 new model project team, and he is relatively familiar with the development of new models.

"Yes!"

"Lightweighting of cars will be a general direction in the future, and more and more parts will take this aspect into consideration when designing."

"If you design a component like a stabilizer bar to be solid, the weight of a bar may reach 6 kilograms, but if it is made hollow, 4 kilograms or even lighter can meet the requirements."

"Counting the front and rear poles, the lightweight effect is still worth looking forward to."

"In addition to the hollow stabilizer bar, there are many places on the entire vehicle that also require the use of pipes."

"Even our pipe-making factory can consider making stainless steel pipes in addition to steel pipes, so as to get back this part of the profit."

When Su Mingxing explained this, Xie Lingyun was also a little moved.

As the general manager of Nanshan Special Steel, he naturally hopes to expand the company's scale.

But according to his understanding, Cao Yang should have no intention of expanding the production capacity of special steel plants in the near future.

In this way, it is worth considering from another dimension and building a pipe making factory.

For Xie Lingyun, who is proficient in steelmaking, the pipe-making process is no stranger.

It's basically a matter of a pipe making machine. Nanshan Equipment may be able to help with the design.

There is even a pipe-making factory. In addition to using the steel produced by Nanshan Special Steel to make pipes, it can also make full use of Shaogang's production capacity to process some relatively ordinary carbon steel into pipes.

After all, for most pipes, the base material does not need to have very high properties.

This can be regarded as a disguised expansion of Nanshan Special Steel's business.

"Hollow stabilizer bar pipes have not been domestically produced for so many years. It is estimated that there are some unique difficulties in the pipe manufacturing process that we have not mastered."

"If the situation in this regard is not clarified and we rashly propose to the group to open a new factory, it is estimated that it will not be approved."

Although Xie Lingyun also knows some basic knowledge of pipe construction, he is not specialized in this after all.

So even if he was a little tempted, he would not immediately agree to Su Mingxing's suggestion.
To be continued...