China's Auto Exports Ushered in Golden Age as its NEV Exports in January-August Jumped 90% YoY

SHANGHAI, Oct 10 (SMM) - In recent years, the carbon peak and carbon neutrality policy has prompted countries around the globe to embark on the road of energy conservation and emission reduction. Naturally, the new energy vehicles, which are more environmentally friendly compared with traditional fuel vehicles, have witnessed explosive growth. The rapid development of China's new energy vehicle sector has also made a great contribution to the increase in the country's vehicle exports. According to the report from state-run media, China's total auto exports in August 2022 ranked second in the world for the first time, which was largely thanks to the rapid growth of NEV exports.

Statistics show that China's auto export sales totalled 2.015 million units in 2021, ranking third in the world with a year-on-year increase of 101%. While in August 2022, China took place of Germany and became the world’s second largest auto exporter, a solid evidence that Chinese cars are increasingly recognised around the world. According to the data from China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), China exported 1.817 million vehicles in the first eight months of 2022, a year-on-year increase of 52.8%. Among them, 340,000 new energy vehicles were exported, up 97.4% on the year, a key growth point of auto exports. In addition, customs data also showed that China exported 562,500 units of electric vehicles in January-August, 2022, up 49.5% year-on-year. The total value amounted to 78.34 billion yuan, a YoY increase of 92.5%. It should be noted that half of Chinese auto exports were headed for Europe.

As early as June 29, European Union proposed the goal of "achieving zero carbon emissions from vehicles by 2035", which means that no fuel vehicles will be sold in Europe then. Moreover, committed to attaining the goal of "achieving zero emission from vehicles by 2050", EU also proposed to exempt value-added tax on zero-emission vehicles. Other countries in Europe, such Norway and the Netherlands, announced their target deadline for the ban of fuel vehicle sales as well. This implies that the international auto market is undergoing an electric-targeted transformation, which will present a golden opportunity for the export of new energy vehicles made in China.

CAAM previously predicted that China's auto exports would exceed 2.4 million throughout 2022 and account for nearly 10% of the total sales. It is worth mentioning that apart from new energy vehicles, Chinese companies also stood out in terms of installed capacity of power batteries. The latest data released on October 6 by South Korean market research institution SNE Research showed that the global installed capacity of electric vehicle batteries reached 45.7 GWh in August 2022, a steady growth for 26 consecutive months.

In particular, Chinese enterprises, led by CATL, accounted for 64% of the global market. The fact that six of the top ten companies in terms of global installed capacity of electric vehicle batteries are from China also illustrated China's strength in this field.

Yet, Chinese battery companies are not content with their current domestic layout. Well-known battery companies including SVOLT Energy Technology, CATL, Guoxuan Hi-Tech and EVE Energy have all accelerated the pace of going overseas. For battery companies, to secure upstream lithium resources has also become a consensus as its prices remain high. According to the SMM data, the average spot price of lithium carbonate continued to rise after hitting a record high on September 23. As of September 30, the spot prices of domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate surged to 508,000-518,000 yuan/mt, with an average price of 513,000 yuan/mt.