A trailer is a vehicle that is towed by a car without its own power drive. A combination of one car (truck or tractor, forklift) and one or more trailers. The driven vehicle section towed by the main vehicle is called a trailer. It is an important vehicle type for road transportation. It has the advantages of speed, maneuverability, flexibility, safety, etc., and can easily realize section transportation.
There are two types of trailers, semi-trailers and full trailers. Full trailers have been gradually eliminated, and are only used in some closed places for turnover transportation and bulk transportation. Therefore, the current trailer market is mainly semi-trailers.
There are many types of semi-trailers, which can be divided into: ordinary semi-trailers, chemical tank transport vehicles, powder material transportation semi-trailers, bin-type transport semi-trailers, low-flat semi-trailers, flat semi-trailers, containers Transport vehicles, side curtain semi-trailers, van semi-trailers, timber transport semi-trailers, dump semi-trailers, livestock and poultry transport vehicles, special vehicles (hydraulic axle vehicles), concrete mixers, etc. This shows that there are so many types of trailers that the market prospects are broad.
The market concentration is low, and the trailer industry has almost stayed in place for more than a decade
Taking 2018 as an example, there are 627 production enterprises in the trailer industry. The output of the top 10 accounts for less than 16%, and the output of the top 50 accounts for less than 50%. The industry as a whole is in a state of atomic competition, with uneven product quality, bad money driving out good money, disorderly competition in the industry, and worrying prospects for the industry. The low market concentration indicates that few of the current trailer manufacturers have absolute advantages in technology, let alone the possibility of monopoly.
At the same time, it is precisely this situation. In the entire trailer manufacturing industry, the "catfish effect" that is gradually emerging in the new energy passenger vehicle industry has not stimulated technological innovation and industry reshuffle. Compared with European and American countries, domestic trailers have hardly introduced new ones. Take CIMC Vehicles as an example. When it was first established in 2002, it launched four semi-trailer products; by 2019, these four models are still being produced and sold. The technology and products of the passenger car industry have been iterated many times, but the semi-trailer industry is still standing still.
Competition in the trailer market is chaotic and disorderly
At present, traditional trailer factories have serious overcapacity and oversupply. And good products are difficult to promote. A number of new models such as all-aluminum trailers, vans, side curtain cars, and central axle freight trains have been blocked in the domestic promotion. The competition of domestic trailer companies is like sailing against the current. Data shows that: the 17.5m high and low board certification data is only more than 80,000 units, and it is conservatively estimated that the market is operating illegally modified and licensed vehicles over 400,000; super-large e-commerce vehicles with a volume more than 1.5 times larger than that of a compliant van; , It only needs 20,000 yuan to exchange for a new frame, the product quality is too poor, and the product safety is in jeopardy. The above products are just the tip of the iceberg of the chaos of trailers. Overloading and over-limiting, illegal modification, and reselling certificates are currently the three major problems in the trailer industry. There are even a lot of games between trailer companies and regulatory authorities that have fallen into the trap of "one foot high, one foot high".
The high-quality development of China's trailer industry urgently needs to find a way out
Where is the future of ordinary trailers? In recent years, relevant standards and regulations of GB 1589 and GB 7258 have been implemented. Trailers are reshuffling, improving configuration, transforming and developing, and improving quality and efficiency is the main theme of industry development. The trailer industry is about to enter the product upgrade stage. Take Wielton, a well-known trailer manufacturing group in Eastern Europe, as an example. As early as 1998, automatic beam welding technology was introduced on its trailers. And it also has unique characteristics in terms of product types and geographic diversification. In its product line, there are up to 800 configurations to choose from among 12 types of models, which is enough to see the degree of product breakdown. And its unique trailer customization system can select various trailer configurations in detail, ranging from the body structure and material to a shovel.
In addition, the current domestic hydraulic flatbed trailer is almost blank. Taking the latest set of data as an example, the inter-provincial large-size transportation parallel permit system issued 1,736 permits in a single day on April 17 this year. Of course, some backlogs during the epidemic have been eliminated. But it is also enough to see that the demand for bulk transportation in my country is huge, and it will be even greater in the future! Therefore, hydraulic flatbed trailers used for large-scale transportation will also be a profitable market for trailer manufacturers with certain technical accumulation in the future.
In summary, combined with the current trailer industry structure, market competition environment and market demand, the technological innovation and upgrading of trailers are urgently needed. We can refer to and learn from the development experience and lessons of my country’s passenger vehicles over the past few decades, and further segment the trailer market to improve the current development status of the trailer industry, stimulate the competitiveness of the trailer market, and develop our own high-end trailer products and The brand is also worthy of my country's title of "Global Automobile Manufacturing Kingdom"!
