A few days ago, some media exposed that the zero-run car is testing a zero-run C11 extender spy car, which is understood to be released in 2022. In fact, the zero-run C11 was listed in October this year with the concept of full matching, and its final subsidy price was only 159,800-199,800 yuan, which successfully attracted the attention of many people.
Less than 3 months later, the zero-run C11 has become the focus of the news again, but this time it is no longer full of concepts or sales have reached a new high, but has attracted everyone's attention as an extended-range electric vehicle.
Turning over the current product sequence of zero-run cars, whether it is the S01 that is not very successful or the sales volume T03 and the fully equipped C11, we can find that zero-run cars, like many new forces, choose to develop from pure electric routes, at this time, the increaser C11 exposure is against the trend for zero-running cars or is there another intention? Let's analyze it in detail.
Will range-extended electric vehicles go against the tide?
Whether it is the future development trend or from the perspective of energy conservation and emission reduction, pure electric vehicles will be the mainstream of the future, but this does not mean that electric vehicles, including plug-in hybrid, range increase, etc. have no value.
In fact, although the pure electric vehicle market is growing rapidly, but now the traditional fuel vehicles in the market still account for 80% of the share, if you want to achieve carbon peak and emission reduction, only 20% of electric vehicles can not achieve the target. Studies have shown that the effect of carbon emissions of hybrid vehicles, including extended range electric vehicles, in the whole life cycle is actually not inferior to that of pure electric vehicles.
In addition, since this type of hybrid does not require new development and manufacturing facilities, and the dependence on charging piles is not serious, and can also take advantage of the current gas station, the rapid upgrading of hybrid vehicles, including range extended electric vehicles, will help achieve carbon peaking.
It is worth mentioning that China's "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap (Version 2.0)" released in October clearly requires that by 2035, the annual sales of energy-saving vehicles and new energy vehicles in China will account for half of each, and the traditional energy-powered passenger cars will all be converted to hybrid, so as to achieve the comprehensive electrification transformation of the automobile industry, which not only leaves enough time for hybrid vehicles, including range-extended electric vehicles, but also dispels the doubts of car companies that have been holding a wait-and-see attitude towards extended range electric vehicles.
In addition to the promotion of policies, the low research and development cost of extended-range electric vehicles is also the main reason why many car companies are obsessed with them. At the 2019 World New Energy Vehicle Conference, Ouyang Minggao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, predicted that "a car equipped with a 60 kWh power battery will cost 48,000 yuan in 2019 and drop to about 40,000 yuan by 2025." And since the beginning of this year, with the rise of downstream demand such as electric vehicles and energy storage, the price of new energy vehicle batteries has been rising, and some institutions predict that this wave of battery price increases will continue until 2023. In this way, at least in five or six years, the cost reduction of lithium-ion batteries is very limited. In contrast, the battery capacity of smaller range extender electric vehicles in the cost of pure electric vehicles are obviously more advantageous, if there is no accident, in the rising price of lithium batteries, there will be more car companies to join the wave of extended range electric vehicles.
In addition, from a technical point of view, the extended range electric is more closely related to the pure electric platform than the plug-in hybrid, and has a certain continuity in technology. For car companies that do not have much accumulation in new energy vehicles, the development of extended range electric vehicles can not only not be burdened with huge research and development cost pressure, but also switch to pure electric vehicles at any time when the battery cost is reduced. Just like the ideal car that has been deeply cultivated for range extended electric vehicles, it also started with the micro-electric vehicle SEV, but with the failure of the SEV project, the ideal car chose a different range increase route from them in order to keep up with the rhythm of Weilai and Xiaopeng as soon as possible and launched the ideal ONE. Although it was not optimistic about the market at first, with the continuous hot sales of the ideal ONE, even one step away from profitability, the ideal car proved that the business model of the extended range electric vehicle is successful. Since the pearl jade of the ideal car is in front, Li Yinan, the former vice president of Huawei and the founder of Xiaoniu Electric, who recently started a business again, has also chosen the proven development route of the extended range electric vehicle, like Li Xiang.
For those large car companies that have accumulated, including those car companies that sell well in pure electric models, the development of a range-extended electric vehicle on the basis of their pure electric platform is undoubtedly an effective way to avoid the cost pressure brought about by the subsidy decline, and the zero-run C11 that was exposed this time is believed to be based on this consideration.
In addition, according to the regulations, the subsidy standards for 2020-2022 also need to be reduced by 10%, 20% and 30% respectively on the basis of the previous year. This is also why the previous model 3 and Model Y price increases have been implemented in accordance with the subsidy decline of 30%.
It can be said that with the gradual decline of electric vehicle subsidies, the price advantage of pure electric vehicles will become less and less than that of extended-range trams. In fact, with the development of technology, the gap between extended range electric vehicles and pure electric vehicles in electrification and intelligence is decreasing. Without hesitation, when subsidies officially withdraw from history, range-extended electric vehicles without range anxiety will not necessarily fall behind in the competition with pure trams.
In fact, in addition to the zero-run C11 range extender electric vehicle exposed this time, with the loosening of policies, cost pressures and changes in the general environment, a number of car companies have released routes for the two-way development of pure electric and extended range electric vehicles this year, such as the previous Dongfeng Lantu and Tianji Automobile, so the zero-run car launched the range-up zero-run C11 is not against the trend, and it can even be said that a large number of car companies will join the new wave of range-extender electric vehicle development before 2035.
What is the significance of introducing range extender C11?
Let's review the content released by Zero Run Auto at the Zero Run 2.0 Strategy Conference held in July this year, when Zhu Jiangming, the founder of Zero Run Car, once made a harsh remark, "surpass Tesla in 3 years" and "sell 800,000 vehicles in 2025".
although
However, Zhu Jiangming's big words seem to be mostly boastful in the eyes of the outside world, but it can also be seen from the side that Zhu Jiangming's expectations for zero-run cars are relatively high. And as a zero-run car established as early as 2015, it has been trying to squeeze into the first echelon of car manufacturing in recent years, but the reality is not optimistic.
In the November sales data previously released by the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, there are four new car-making car companies whose monthly sales exceeded the 10,000-unit mark, of which "Wei Xiaoli" all exceeded 10,000, while Nezha Automobile once again refreshed its sales record, ranking behind "Wei Xiaoli" with 10,013 vehicles. In fact, Nezha Automobile counterattacked ideal and Weilai with sales of 7699 vehicles in October, jumping to the second place of newly built cars, second only to Xiaopeng.
In contrast, the zero-run car was somewhat eclipsed, with two consecutive months of month-on-month declines in September and October, and a new high in November, but only 5,628 units were delivered, which was not much different from the 5,027 WM cars. Although Zero-Run Auto emphasized that its orders in November exceeded 16,000 units and explained that the poor delivery was mainly caused by the shortage of industry chips and industrial power cuts, the explanation given by the zero-run car that insisted on full self-development was obviously not too convincing at present.
From the current situation, the goal of zero-run cars is very large, but it is impossible to complete the task of selling 800,000 vehicles in 2025 by relying only on the T03 and C11 models positioned as micro-electric vehicles. For zero-run cars, launching more new cars in order to achieve their goals is the only way to go. But does launching a new car mean developing a range-extended electric vehicle against the trend? In fact, at the previous zero-run 2.0 strategy conference, Zhu Jiangming also said, "4 years to push 8 new cars", which includes the C11 extended range version. It can be said that this is already a part of the plan, and the launch of the range extender C11 at this time is also aimed at expanding the market size as soon as possible for zero-run cars.
First of all, zero-run C11 as the current flagship product of zero-running cars, the concept of full configuration has indeed attracted great attention, and the zero-running car C11 delivered from the end of October has obtained a lot of orders with the right price and ultra-high configuration, and the total number of orders for the car has reached 18113 units as of now, which is a good start, but this is not enough. In view of the current existence of a hot-selling range extender electric vehicle below 250,000, the extended range version of C11 launched this time is obviously aimed at the market gap left by the ideal ONE. It can be said that with the launch of the C11 and subsequent new range extender cars, the zero-run car that realizes two-legged walking has the opportunity to catch up with "Wei Xiaoli" and even complete the goal of "800,000 sales in 2025" promised by Zhu Jiangming.
Summary: For zero-run cars, the purpose of which has passed the dangerous period is very clear, that is, to catch up with the first echelon of new car-making forces as soon as possible, as for what method to use, I think as long as it is useful, and the ideal car has proved the feasibility of extended range electric vehicles. Based on policies, costs and future development prospects, the zero-run car launched the range extender C11 based on its own development strategy, but also in response to the call of the market. Once the zero-run C11 was listed with a fully equipped concept and became a hot model in the market, now that the extended-range version of the C11 has been exposed, will it bring greater surprises to the market? I think I'll see the answer soon.