2020 is about to become history. Looking back, the domestic automobile market has experienced a comprehensive shutdown, as well as a live broadcast with goods frenzy, many new car companies have exploded one after another, the share prices of new energy concept stocks have soared all the time, and independent car companies are collectively rushing higher. Looking forward to the future of the automobile market at the end of such an extraordinary year, what other major changes are expected to take place in the automobile market in 2021?
In the face of 2021, based on new policies and technological trends, as well as the goal plans of mainstream car companies, we have five bold guesses to see which ones are likely to become a reality.
First, mixing will become the mainstream technical route.
In the domestic new energy vehicle market in the past, pure electricity, plug-in hybrid and even hydrogen energy were the technical routes that everyone discussed more, and there has always been a policy escort, but in the ordinary field of gas-electric hybrid, there is no special policy care, so the enthusiasm of car companies to participate is not high. In addition to Toyota, Honda and other Japanese brands that are particularly good at this, there are not many ordinary gas-electric hybrid models available on the market.
But from the clues revealed in 2020, the hybrid technology route is likely to be popular next.
First of all, there are signs of encouraging mixing in policy. More than a month ago, the Chinese Society of Automotive Engineering released "Energy Saving and New Energy vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0", which clearly put forward the goal of fully hybrid traditional vehicles in the next 15 years.
Secondly, many domestic car companies have begun to accelerate the layout of hybrid technology.
In October 2020, Toyota transferred the core system of the THS hybrid to GAC GROUP, the first time Toyota has sold hybrid technology to a company outside Japan. It is understood that Toyota's famous hybrid models, such as the Prius and Camry, are all equipped with the THS system. GAC GROUP, who acquired the Toyota hybrid system, also quickly put the application of related technology on the agenda. According to GAC GROUP insiders, the Guangzhou Automobile hybrid product equipped with Toyota's THS system will be launched by 2021 at the latest.
Then, in November 2020, Geely announced that it would work with Daimler to develop a powertrain for the next generation of hybrid models. It is also understood that Geely's second-generation hybrid products will also be put on the market in 2021.
In addition, Great Wall Motor recently released the lemon hybrid DHT architecture, which, officially, is a hybrid technology system with a "seven-in-one" high-performance multi-mode hybrid system as the core, including a highly integrated DHT hybrid system, two power structures and three sets of powertrains.
It seems that all of a sudden, hybrid technology has become a hot spot in the domestic automobile industry. In fact, the emergence of such a situation is also understandable. On the one hand, in the face of more and more stringent energy conservation and emission reduction tasks, the major automobile companies are indeed facing no small policy pressure, time is tight and the task is heavy, so they have to take more measures to meet the targets in parallel. On the other hand, compared with other new energy technology routes, conventional mixing has advantages in terms of technology maturity and market popularity at this stage. Once the policy sends a signal to encourage, it is not difficult to mobilize the enthusiasm of enterprises.
Tesla starts the harvesting mode in the domestic market.
There are only two best-selling models in the domestic new energy vehicle market in 2020. One is that the Hongguang MINI EV, of SAIC GM Wuling has won a spree in the end market with absolutely low prices. The latest sales figures show that the monthly sales of this small electric car is close to 30, 000. The other is Tesla's first domestic model, Model 3, whose starting price is close to 300000 yuan (after several price cuts within a year, the starting price of domestic Model 3 is now 269700 yuan). Tesla's brand appeal in the domestic market is evident.
According to the plan, Tesla, who quickly opened the domestic market with one domestic model, will introduce another blockbuster domestic car in 2021, and the closely watched domestic Model Y model will be officially delivered in early 2021. Recent information shows that Tesla is already preparing for large-scale delivery of Model Y and the expansion of the Shanghai plant has begun. By 2021, Tesley will have a production capacity of 550000 vehicles in Shanghai, of which 250000 may be used to produce a new car, the Model Y.
Judging from the current market, although there are all kinds of problems with Tesla's products, many traditional luxury car brands are also developing new energy business, and even there are already many luxury electric cars on the market in the bid Tesla, at least in a short period of time, Tesla's exclusive market position in the domestic market is quite solid, and relatively low-cost Tesla products will continue to be sought after in the domestic market. Model Y and Model 3, coupled with the Model 2, which is likely to be made in China, how high the Chinese market can push Tesla? let's wait and see.
III. Independent benchmarking joint ventures become the norm
For more than ten years, independent brands have been trying to make a breakthrough. If the emergence of Lecker and WEY brands three or four years ago shows us signs of success, then the hot sale of some independent middle and high-end products in the market makes us further see the hope of independent bid joint ventures.
Putting aside the new car-building forces such as Weilai, Xiaopeng, and ideal, which rely on electrification to take the high-end route, Lantu, Zhiji and other large automobile groups have recently launched high-end car brand projects one after another, only from the perspective of the traditional energy market. In the past two years, the brand identity of mainstream independent car companies has also been significantly improved. As we all know, the lack of brand power is the crux of the successive failures of autonomous car companies.
The improvement of the brand power of autonomous car enterprises has been reflected in the market performance in 2020. The Changan UNI-T, which went on sale in mid-2020, has sold more than 10,000 cars for several months in a row. as the first model under the Changan high-end product series, UNI-T 's hot sales are off to a good start for the follow-up model of the series, and the UNI-K model, which will be launched in 2021, has also attracted a lot of fans. And Geely Xingrui, an independent compact car priced directly into the price range of the mainstream joint venture sedan, handed over more than 7000 market data in its first month on the market (on November 1, 2020). According to the news received by Geographic, Xingrui models were out of stock in many Geely 4S stores in December, and the popularity of Geely's new car is evident (of course, the new car has just launched, there are also reasons why production capacity is still climbing in addition to the heat of the market).
The market performance of new cars owned by Changan, Geely and other autonomous car enterprises shows that the saying that autonomous models can only take the low-end route is out of date, and independent products that rely on real product power rather than low prices to attract consumers can also go. In other words, the situation of independent brands challenging joint venture brands is emerging, and independent benchmarking joint ventures may really become more and more normal.
Fourth, L4 autopilot is the main direction of attack.
A day ago (December 30), the Ministry of Transport issued guidance on promoting the development and application of road traffic autopilot technology, which clearly proposed to strengthen the research and development of autopilot technology and promote self-driving passenger travel services.
With policy encouragement, it can be predicted that a new wave of autopilot-related technologies is coming. We may also have more expectations for the L4 technology that can achieve autopilot in a real sense.
In fact, in 2020, the leading companies in the global self-driving industry have begun to try the commercial application of self-driving, among which the most concerned one is Robotaxi (self-driving taxi). In the domestic market alone, a lot of Robotaxi projects have emerged. In June, Didi announced a large-scale demonstration project for manned self-driving in Shanghai; in August, AutoX officially launched Robotaxi services for Shanghai users; at about the same time, Baidu announced the launch of ApolloGo Robotaxi services in Cangzhou, Hebei Province, and officially brought the related services to Beijing in October.
In terms of the application of car companies, giant companies such as Volkswagen and Daimler are currently promoting the research and development of L4 self-driving trucks. Dongfeng has previously taken off the first L4-level 5G self-driving car in China. Changan launched the L4 self-driving operation project; Weilai also said that it would restart the L4 self-driving self-driving project.
From an industrial point of view, although autopilot has just entered the mass production stage of L3, it has cast a shadow over the practical application prospect of L3 self-driving due to the successive accidents of L3 production vehicles and the controversy over the delineation of responsibilities. There are signs that it is possible for autopilot to skip the controversial L3 level and directly enter the research and development of technology related to the L4 level in the future. A few days ago, during the "2020 China Automobile supply chain Conference", Xi Zhongmin, deputy general manager of GAC NE Automobile Co., Ltd., told the media: "2022 will be the first year of L4 self-driving." In order to enter this "first year" smoothly, 2021 is bound to be a key time point for relevant enterprises to focus on L4 self-driving technology.
V. A new round of cross-border car construction is officially launched.
Cross-border car-making has always been a hot word in the automobile industry, such as wine-making enterprises' cars, house-building enterprises' cars, home appliance enterprises' cars, Internet enterprises' cars and so on. A few years ago, there was a trend of multi-wheel cross-border car building at home and abroad. Recently, with the revelation that Apple will launch a car project in 2021, a new round of cross-border car building has begun.
It is reported that Apple has recently made stock requirements to auto parts suppliers such as Heda, FTU-KY, Heqin and Futian. Apple is expected to release a new car in September 2021, and its prototype has begun road testing in California, according to relevant supply chain companies. And Volkswagen CEO Herbert Dis's previous comments attracted the industry's attention to Apple, who believes that Apple's entry into the auto industry will bring more serious challenges than traditional rivals such as Toyota.
In fact, it is no longer news for Apple to build a car. Apple launched the Project Titan car project in 2014, but it didn't go well. At one point, Apple abandoned its research and development plan and made a major layoff in 2019. After entering 2020, probably spurred by the soaring share prices of new car makers such as Tesla, Apple's car-building project began to speed up, and the first model, which had been stressed that it would take two or three years to be released, was advanced to 2021.
In addition to Apple, the four major domestic Internet giants have also recently had an affair with car-building. Huawei wants to work with Changan Automobile to build a high-end smart car brand, and Alibaba has become one of the shareholders of SAIC's high-end electric car brand Zhiji. Although Baidu and Tencent have no definite information about building cars, it is rumored that Baidu is already considering producing its own electric cars, and Tencent may also take a stake in Changan's high-end smart car brand. The secret wrestling of several Internet bosses is likely to bring about a new round of scuffle in domestic "Internet car-building".
The above five conjectures are based on the current trend's outlook on the dynamics of the car market in 2021, and they are also several important expectations for the car market in 2021. As to which one will be the first to achieve, let's wait and see what happens.
