"although some enterprises are subject to the impact of production capacity, from the perspective of new energy alone, domestic sales of new energy vehicles will reach about 3.3 million in 2021." A few days ago, Ouyang Minggao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and vice president of the China Electric vehicle Association of 100 people, thought so at the 2021 media communication meeting of the China Electric vehicle Association of 100 people.
By 2022, he believes, that number will rise further to 5 million vehicles. "this is still limited by forecasts under battery supply, chip supply and capacity constraints, without which demand alone may be higher".
The senior analyst of the Global Automotive Research Institute is relatively conservative in his forecast for the sales of new energy vehicles in China. He believes that the sales of new energy vehicles in China will be about 3.1 million this year and about 4 million next year. But even so, the medium-and long-term goal of "20% penetration of new energy vehicle sales in 2025" mentioned in China's "New Energy vehicle Industry Development Plan" issued at the end of last year is expected to break through ahead of time next year and the year after next.
Facing the development of domestic new energy vehicle market in the next 5-10 years, Ouyang Minggao believes that China's new energy vehicle sales will reach between 7 million and 9 million by 2025, and will expand to 17 million to 19 million by 2030. In terms of the number of new energy vehicles, China will have more than 30 million new energy vehicles in 2025 and nearly 100m in 2030, followed by an increase of 100m every five years.
Standing at the end of 2021, Xin Guobin, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, had no choice but to reduce the penetration rate of 25% of new energy vehicle sales in the previous "consultation draft" to 20% by 2025 in response to the national New Energy vehicle Industry Development Plan at the end of last year, but he never thought that it would take only a year. China's new energy vehicle market is racing against the trend after many restrictions, such as rising prices of raw materials, lack of cores, "less electricity" and even power restrictions in some areas.
Technology + products + policies work together, and the trend is more than expected, but it is logical.
As mentioned earlier, the development trend of the new energy vehicle market in 2021 exceeded everyone's expectations.
According to the data released by the China Automobile Association, a total of 1.367 million new energy vehicles were sold in China in 2020, accounting for 5.4% of the annual new car sales. There is a huge gap between this share and the medium-and long-term planning goal of 20% market share for new energy vehicles in 2025.
Based on this, the China Automobile Association predicted at the end of last year that total car sales in China are expected to reach 26.3 million in 2021, an increase of about 4 per cent over the same period last year, including 1.8 million new energy vehicles, an increase of about 40 per cent over the same period last year.
However, it never occurred to me that the market for new energy vehicles would develop so rapidly in 2021 that the Federation had to announce in the middle of the year that it would raise its forecast sales of new energy passenger vehicles to 2.4 million units this year.
But obviously, 2.4 million is not the end either.
According to the data of the China Automobile Association, in October this year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China set a new monthly sales record, approaching the level of 400000, and the penetration rate of new car sales has reached 12.1%. So far, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China have completed 2.566 million and 2.542 million respectively. And in Ouyang Minggao's expectation, by the end of November, this number will be infinitely close to 3 million vehicles, thus achieving the sales forecast of 3.3 million vehicles for the whole year.
It is important to know that in 2021, in addition to the impact of sporadic outbreaks on the car market, China's automobile industry is under great pressure due to rising prices of raw materials, lack of cores, lack of electricity and power cuts in some areas.
In this context, Ouyang Minggao believes that "the reason for this year's market explosion should be said to be the result of technological progress, rich products and strong policies."
In his view, the rapid popularity of new energy vehicles is closely related to the continuous improvement of battery technology and cost reduction.
In May this year, with the mass production of BYD blade batteries and the large-scale application of CTP technology in Ningde era, the capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries was reversed in this month, and then in July, the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries exceeded that of ternary lithium batteries after many years. In the middle of this month, BYD officially announced that all its pure electric cars had been equipped with blade batteries. Tesla CEO Musk, a lithium iron phosphate platform, said next month that he preferred lithium iron phosphate to ternary lithium batteries.
In the following months, the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate continued to rise, and more and more vehicle enterprises switched to lithium iron phosphate, boldly predicting that in the past November, the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate in China may double that of ternary lithium batteries. Behind it, in addition to lower cost and more stable safety than ternary lithium battery, the energy density of lithium iron phosphate continues to increase in recent years, and the gap between ternary lithium battery and ternary lithium battery is gradually narrowing.
The lithium iron phosphate battery with low cost, long life, safety and energy density no less than ternary lithium electricity further shortens the distance between new energy vehicles and consumers, and provides strong support for the development of new energy vehicles dominated by pure electric vehicles in the future.
In addition to battery technology, Ouyang Minggao believes that rich models and perfect product structure are another strong support for the rapid development of the new energy vehicle market. According to the data of the bus Association, up to now, the product structure of China's pure electric vehicle market shows a "dumbbell" distribution, which are A00-level entry-level electric vehicles and luxury-based high-end car markets. At present, the largest market of 8-150000 vehicles, with the strong invasion of BYD DM-i and other products, is rapidly transforming to a hybrid market, so as to fully cover all passenger car segments and meet the different needs of different consumer groups for new energy products.
"Tesla, Xiaopeng, ideally represented car companies in self-driving, user operation model innovation to a certain extent to promote the market from user education to user acceptance and use of the rapid growth period." A senior analyst at the Gaishi Automotive Research Institute added, "the domestic coastal areas and other developed areas, the high-speed charging infrastructure has been gradually improved, and the self-built energy replenishment systems of some car companies have been accelerated, further reducing users' anxiety about energy replenishment."
In addition, based on the continuation of subsidies for new energy vehicles in China, the price increase of double points, and the expected guidance of the national "double carbon" strategy for vehicle enterprises and young consumers, the promoting effect of subsidies on consumption is gradually fading, and the proportion of private market-based car purchases has risen to nearly 75%.
Based on the above, Ouyang Minggao believes that, "although the performance of the overall new energy vehicle market exceeds expectations, it is logical."
In the coming five years, it is still difficult to predict who will win in the end.
According to the latest data from the car Federation, the retail penetration rate of domestic new energy vehicles reached 20.8% in November, of which the penetration rate of independent brands of new energy vehicles exceeded 37%, but the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in mainstream joint venture brands was only 3.6%. Based on this, from January to November this year, new energy manufacturers ranked among the top 10 in sales, except for Tesla, a foreign-funded car company, there is no mainstream joint venture brand.
The slow electrification transformation of foreign-funded enterprises provides more development space for local enterprises in the new energy vehicle market, and in Ouyang Minggao's view, this development window still has five years.
"I think the joint ventures will work together next year and the year after next, and the competition between Chinese and foreign brands of new energy vehicles will enter a fierce period in 2023." He further pointed out that China's new energy vehicle market will grow at a high speed in the next five years, and the competition will continue to be fierce, and it is impossible to predict who will be the winner in the future.
But even so, Ouyang Minggao is still optimistic about the advantages of China's local auto industry in the future market competition.
First of all, in terms of core technology, "power batteries account for 60% of the technical content of electric vehicles, and China is dominant in this generation of battery technology." This is the introduction of Ouyang Minggao.
According to data released by South Korean market research firm SNE Research, there are six Chinese battery manufacturers on the Top 10 list of global power battery installations from January to October this year, including Ningde Times, BYD, AVIC Lithium, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Vision Power and Honeycomb Energy, which account for 47 per cent of the global market share.
At the same time, with the support of China's policy for more than a decade, China's new energy vehicles have built a relatively complete industrial chain, while the power battery industry chain in other major global automobile markets, such as Europe and North America, is not yet perfect. 70% of the world's power battery capacity is in China.
Based on this, Ouyang Minggao believes that even if countries such as Japan and South Korea are making great efforts to develop the next generation of all-solid-state battery technology, it will take about 10 years for the technology to industrialize and have an important impact on the market pattern. Under this window, "China's battery R & D team is far ahead in the world, with a large number of young talents. As long as we continue to work hard, I believe that our country will eventually be able to take the lead."
In addition, Ouyang Minggao also mentioned China's current "stuck neck" technologies such as "lack of core". He believes that automotive chips only account for about 10% of the total chip industry, and the current shortage is still reflected in the periodic imbalance between supply and demand. In the medium term, it is not difficult for China's independent technology to solve the problem of chips for new energy vehicles.
Focusing on the whole vehicle brand, with the strong attack of new power enterprises such as Tesla, Weilai, Xiaopeng and Xiaopeng, it has subverted the traditional path of the automobile industry over the past century, whether it is brand image construction, business model or technology iteration. have opened up a new field of independent brands of new energy vehicles in China. At the same time, sub-brands launched by traditional independent brands such as polar krypton, salon, Zhiji and Feifan for high-end new energy vehicles shone brilliantly at this year's Guangzhou auto show.
Based on this, "in the new wave of electrification and intelligence, I am confident that China's independent brands will occupy a dominant position in the future automobile industry competition." In Ouyang Minggao's forecast, independent brands may account for 60% of China's new energy vehicle market in 2030.
There is no doubt that the automobile industry is experiencing great changes that have not happened in a century, and the local automobile industry has ushered in a huge opportunity of the times. However, the opportunities are accompanied by many challenges that need to be solved by China's automobile industry, "including the sustainable development of power battery technology, industry and material resources, fast charging / fast switching, car-network interaction, green smart energy, and so on." Ouyang Minggao said so.
After all, only by building a strong enough industrial chain can China truly realize its dream of becoming an automobile power.
