E Insight | What opportunities will automotive industry’s development bring to intelligent logistics?

As an important part of modern supply chain management, automotive logistics center plays a vital role for automotive manufacturers and dealers. With the continuous development of the global automotive industry, the position of the automotive logistics center has become increasingly important.

This article aims to deeply explore the status of the automotive logistics center industry, the opportunities and challenges, and the future development trend, to provide more inspiration for intelligent logistics practitioners.

Industry Status

In 2022, China's motor vehicle increased by 21.29 million, and the vehicle ownership reached 417 million. At the same time, the relevant report predicts that China's car ownership is expected to reach 1.7 trillion before 2025, surpassing the United States and becoming the world's largest market. While China’s automotive industry is booming, global automotive logistics center is also growing. Many automakers have achieved remarkable results in improving logistics efficiency, reducing inventory costs, and achieving real-time visibility. Meanwhile, a lot of automotive logistics centers are also actively exploring the path of green and sustainable development to reduce environmental impact.

Opportunities and Challenges

Automotive logistics center will face many strong opportunities in the future development. It is predicted that in 2025, China's logistics volume will reach 360 trillion CNY, and every 10 trillion CNY increase will release 1 million truck market demand (extracted from 2023 Logistics Technology and Equipment Automotive Logistics Procurement Guide). These opportunities are expected to drive higher levels of innovation and growth in the industry.

Technological innovation: with the rapid development of the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and big data technology, automotive logistics center gains the opportunity to achieve intelligent, automated and digital upgrades. Through real-time data analysis, logistics center can predict supply chain demand more accurately, optimize inventory management and transportation arrangements, and improve overall efficiency.

Green and sustainable development: environmental protection and sustainability have become the focus of global attention, automotive logistics center can create an environmental image for enterprises by using clean energy, optimizing transportation routes, reducing carbon emissions and other ways, to meet consumer demand for environmental protection.

Supply chain integration: under the trend of globalization, automotive logistics center has the opportunity to promote international supply chain integration. Through coordinated operation, logistics center can optimize international transportation and cross-border trade processes, reduce costs and improve efficiency.

Despite many opportunities, automotive logistics center will also face some challenges in the future development:

Digital transformation: although digital technology brings many opportunities to automotive logistics center, it also causes problems like information security and data privacy. Logistics center needs to invest a lot of resources to ensure the security of digital platforms and prevent potential risks.

Talent shortage: with the advancement of intelligence and automation, the demand for talents with high-tech skills is increasing. However, at present, there is a relative shortage of professionals in the field of automotive logistics center. Training or attracting high-quality talents has become a challenge.

Traditional environmental regulations: countries are setting increasingly strict environmental protection and sustainable development regulations. Automotive logistics center needs to comply with various regulations, such as carbon emission limits and waste disposal, in order to reduce environmental impact.

Complex supply chain: the supply chain of the automotive industry is usually complex, involving multiple links and players. Logistics center needs to deal with the coordination between different regions and suppliers to ensure the smooth operation of the overall supply chain.

Development Trend

As an important part of modern automotive industry, automotive logistics center has broad development prospects and huge market potential. In the future, the automotive logistics center will keep growing. With the rise of electric and smart vehicles, logistics needs will become more complex and diversified, and there will be a greater focus on the application of intelligent, automated and digital technologies to respond to rapidly changing market demands. At the same time, the integration of the global supply chain will become an important trend, and automotive logistics centers in various countries and regions will work more closely together to achieve an efficient global logistics network.