In 2021, China's car ownership is 281 million, of which only 4.92 million are new energy vehicles, and the annual consumption of gasoline and diesel is about 260 million tons. The transportation industry accounts for about 15% of the country's terminal carbon emissions! This year, the "double carbon" goal proposes a new historical mission for the changing automotive industry.
As one of the main forces to achieve "double carbon", the responsibility of the automotive industry is far more than the automotive products on the road. "Double carbon" is closely related to the entire automotive industry chain and all stages of the automotive life cycle, and the tide of industrial transformation triggered by carbon neutrality is heating up in the automotive industry. From product layout, to decarbonization at the production end, to supply chain transformation, "double carbon" is becoming another important factor affecting the transformation and reconstruction of the entire automotive industry chain.
The "carbon race" kicks off
In the process of achieving the "double carbon" goal, the automotive industry has been placed high hopes.
The "Carbon Peak Action Plan before 2030" clearly states that by 2030, the proportion of new new energy and clean energy powered transportation will reach about 40%. The "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0" also clearly pointed out that the carbon emissions of China's automobile industry will peak ahead of the national carbon emission reduction commitments around 2028.
There is no doubt that the challenge of "double carbon" is huge, but this complex test of industrial trends, product structure and market interests is already the common direction of the automotive industry. Six major car manufacturers, Volvo, Ford, GM, Daimler-owned Mercedes-Benz, BYD and Jaguar Land Rover of India's Tata Motors, signed a pledge to phase out the production of fuel vehicles worldwide by 2040.
At the Guangzhou Auto Show, Feng Xingya released the specific carbon reduction targets of gazing automobile group's "green net plan" Provided by the surveyed companies
According to the data, China's total vehicle fuel consumption will reach 227 million tons in 2020, and the direct carbon dioxide emissions will be about 720 million tons without considering the electricity emissions of new energy vehicles. Product use is a key part of carbon reduction in the automotive industry, and car companies have laid out diversified power routes, including pure electricity, hybridization, and hydrogen energy.
Great Wall Motors is the first Chinese car company to clarify its carbon reduction targets, and around the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2045, it has decided to accelerate the implementation of new energy products, and 80% of its sales in 2025 will be new energy vehicles. Dongfeng, GAC, SAIC, FAW and other enterprises have also proposed carbon reduction plans, of which GAC Group plans to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050, and SAIC Motor will account for no less than 32% of total sales of new energy vehicles by 2025.
In contrast, Great Wall Motors is a more "radical" transformation player in the car companies, but the "decarbonization" action of the automotive industry still lacks top-level design and lacks overall action guidelines, and when specific policies are introduced, the "decarbonization" of the automotive industry will be further accelerated.
The "Energy Conservation and New Energy Vehicle Development Report 2021" predicts that in 2035, the proportion of domestic new energy vehicle sales is expected to reach 60%, of which the sales volume of new energy passenger vehicles will account for 66%, and the sales of new energy commercial vehicles should account for 28%.
The opportunity for change in the whole industry chain
According to data released by McKinsey, it is expected that by 2025, emissions from the production stage of new energy vehicle materials will account for 45% of the total life cycle emissions of vehicles, and this figure will reach about 85% by 2040. It can be seen that in order to achieve the "double carbon" goal, the automotive industry needs to reduce carbon in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain and strengthen cooperation and coordination.
Whether globally or in China, more and more vehicle companies are proposing their own carbon reduction targets, while also exploring the carbon reduction possibilities of the whole industry chain and the whole life cycle of products. For example, Great Wall and GAC both plan to build their first zero-carbon plants in 2023; Dongfeng plans to reduce the carbon intensity of the manufacturing end by 15% by 2025; Volkswagen Group requires supply chain companies to achieve a 30% carbon reduction by 2025; Mercedes-Benz announced that by 2039, only production materials that achieve carbon neutrality will be purchased.
At present, it seems that multinational car companies are more advanced in promoting the whole industry chain and the whole life cycle of products. Taking BMW as an example, it plans to reduce the average carbon dioxide emissions of bicycles throughout the life cycle by at least 1/3 compared with 2019 by 2030, and this 30% data is clearly differentiated into supply chains, production and use, which is to reduce emissions by 20%, 80% and 40% respectively.
Starting from the whole life cycle, not only vehicle companies take on the heavy responsibility of "decarbonization", but also upstream supply chain enterprises and downstream material recycling related enterprises actively join the transformation. Ye Shengji, chief engineer and deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, pointed out that for material enterprises in the upstream of the automotive industry chain, the urgent problem to be solved is to reduce carbon emissions from the source and in the production and processing process, and reduce high energy consumption.
At present, domestic and foreign parts supply chain enterprises are actively committed to reducing carbon emissions. Continental's ContiTech plans to achieve 100% carbon neutrality in the value chain by 2050 at the latest. At the Zhangjiagang plant, ContiTech has pioneered the use of solar panels for power generation, a project that reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 1,400 tons per year.
In order to help achieve the goal of "double carbon", China's automotive industry is accelerating its journey to carbon reduction and decarbonization. The energy conservation and emission reduction of the automobile industry is not only the mission of the vehicle enterprise, but also closely related to the entire automotive industry chain and all stages of the automobile life cycle, which is an unshirkable transformation, and also an opportunity for the whole industry chain to accelerate change and status reconstruction.
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[Reporter] Wei Hongquan
【Coordinator】 Guo Xiaoge Shao Yumei
【Author】 Wei Hongquan
【Source】 Southern Press Media Group South + client