Expert interpretation| analysis of opportunities for the coordinated development of plug-in hybrid and pure electricity

The development lines of the world's new energy vehicles are differentiated, and European car companies are relatively more aggressive. European car executives confirmed that manufacturers will not develop new plug-in hybrid systems in the future, and existing systems will continue to be used in existing and upcoming products. Some European car companies will launch only electric vehicle platforms from 2025, and will confirm that plug-in hybrid models will no longer be developed. Plug-in hybrids are running out in Europe, and having two drive units in one car is a serious drawback. So European car companies will not invest more money in the next generation of PHEV systems.

The differentiated routes of new energy bring us more choices. The world is not only the European market, 90 million of the world sales, Europe is 20 million, the southern hemisphere and Asia and other regions of the fuel vehicles still have room for sustainable development, including plug-in and mixed many models in the next 10 years of great market value, look forward to China's own brand of plug-and-mix models out of the unique market space.

First, Europe's aggressive environmental protection strategy

The EU's current strategy for environmental protection is more aggressive, and recently 23 countries, including the United Kingdom, Sweden, Canada, Ireland and other countries, have pledged to strive to achieve zero emissions for all new cars and trucks by 2040 or earlier, or to achieve this goal in the leading market no later than 2035, so they are strongly promoting on pure electric lines. The attitude towards fuel and plug-in hybrid lines is slow, so the lines that lead to the conversion of some European car companies from plug-in hybrid to pure electric are relatively clear. In recent times, the development of plug-in hybrids in Europe has been relatively slow, which also gives us a relatively large opportunity in the upgrading of fuel vehicles.

However, the pure electric process of most luxury brands that dominate the high-end market, such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, is still struggling. From 2022 onwards, if they continue to be unable to meet the requirements of the proportion of double points, these joint venture car companies will either reduce production or buy more points in China, which is very difficult.

This is also the common consideration of other car companies, the current international mainstream manufacturers plug in the cost is higher than the fuel car, if the family with few cars is basically not worth buying a mixed model, so Shanghai and other places have also made it clear that the future will not give the plug-in green card.

Second, the progress of pure electric power worldwide is not synchronized

From a worldwide perspective, the development of supporting infrastructure for electric vehicles is not synchronized. Especially in the southern hemisphere of Africa, South America and other regions, Southeast Asia, as well as parts of South Asia, West Asia, the development of pure electric is constrained by a relatively large use environment, and the fuel supply system of fuel vehicles is relatively stable, so plug-in hybrid has a good market development space.

The problem of mileage anxiety refers to the mileage anxiety caused by the long charging time and insufficient convenience of charging new energy vehicles. Some mainstream car companies improve charging efficiency by laying super charging piles, such as Tesla and Xiaopeng; some car companies focus on power battery technology research and development, improve energy density to increase mileage, such as BYD, etc.; and some car companies use oil-electric hybrid technology routes to alleviate the battery mileage problem, such as ideal and Great Wall Lemon and other traditional car companies' new energy vehicle brands.

In this case, In the competition with European car companies, due to the abandonment strategy of European car companies for fuel vehicles, and China's plug-in hybrid to achieve independent industrial chain control, fuel consumption is relatively low, the cost is relatively relatively advantageous, it may form a new situation in which European car companies withdraw from the market of low-income countries and Chinese car companies accelerate the expansion of overseas markets.

Third, the low-cost high-end strategy of Chinese car companies

At present, the biggest problem with PHEV is that the two systems bring some problems. The first is the two systems of fuel system and electric system, forming a relatively high-cost system integration. The pricing thinking of Toyota and Volkswagen of the joint venture car companies is based on the premise of not destroying vested interests to the greatest extent, so the price of plug-in and hybrid models is seriously high, but the pricing of BYD fuel vehicles is very low, and the cost of BYD new energy has a huge price space.

Secondly, the HEV mode of PHEV is currently relatively high in terms of electric vehicle power consumption, and the 100 km power consumption of pure electric vehicles is generally around 13 degrees, while the plug-in hybrid model is above 20 degrees, so the comprehensive energy-saving effect of electric vehicles is better than that of plug-in mixed models. However, the mileage and charging anxiety defects of pure electric are still difficult for some consumers to accept, so the plug-in hybrid model has a better use effect in the medium term of the next 3 years.

Third, some consumers' vehicles are used less frequently, so fuel vehicles are the most cost-effective choice. Many consumers clearly believe that buying a car only buys ordinary fuel vehicles, reliable use, although the fuel consumption is high, but the use mileage is short, do not care about the annual fuel consumption of 3,000 kilometers, but no car is not OK.

Chinese car companies are expected to break through such problems. Recently, the independent brand is based on DHT technology, focusing on the series parallel mode to accelerate the layout of the hybrid car market. Compared with the series hybrid system, the series parallel hybrid system has the advantage of fuel saving, and the fuel saving advantage of high-speed working conditions and models above B level is more obvious.

On the whole, the innovation ability of independent brands is super strong, in the consumption upgrade group, the price can not be too low, the independent early low-cost fuel vehicles can not match the consumption upgrade, and now the consumption upgrade driven by the rise of independent technology has a good effect.

Fourth, the plug-in and mix breaks through the main market of A-class

To promote the development of independent brand PHEV products, it is mainly to break through the main A-class car market, not a simple high-end, and the current A-class car market is huge. Joint venture brand fuel vehicles face the problem of high fuel consumption and low standards, and electric vehicles are difficult to meet mainstream demand, so the low-cost strategy of independent insertion and mixing can effectively promote the transfer of fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles and achieve new breakthroughs in independence.

Due to the obvious intelligent trend of high-end B-class cars, the intelligent process of plug-in hybrid models is relatively slow, and it is difficult to compete with Tesla, Weilai, Xiaopeng, etc., so don't be busy with high-end, but achieve a breakthrough in A-class cars.

Especially in the Chinese market, the price of cars is too high, so the overseas plug-and-mix market does not have much opportunity for high-end, and it is more pragmatic to do a pragmatic job of independent plug-and-mix to replace joint venture fuel vehicles.

Fifth, battery upgrading and plug-in and hybrid cost reduction must be grasped

At present, Europe and North America want to achieve pure electrification development lines, assuming that PHEV is a short-term transitional product, generally slowing down the input of plug-in hybrids, our low-cost high-tech lines can divert the market share of joint venture fuel vehicles in the short and medium term.

We must pay attention to the improvement of battery technology to prevent the cost increase caused by technological improvement from offsetting our low-cost advantage of lithium iron phosphate. From the overall perspective of Europe and North America, the gradual improvement of battery energy density is also a process of rapid transformation to solid-state batteries. So in this case, if the solid-state battery begins to gradually mass-produce in 2025, assuming that the energy density of the battery increases rapidly and the charging speed increases more obviously, then the advantages of plug-in hybrid may gradually weaken, and the construction of the electrification supporting system within the worldwide system will also accelerate. Because the advantages of high energy density and fast charging products are obvious, the supporting system will also keep up. Therefore, we in China must strengthen the principle that plug-in hybrid and battery upgrading must be hard. Can not rely too much on low-cost lithium iron phosphate batteries, and slow down the high-density ternary battery push.

The core of the development of electric vehicles is technological upgrading, and it is necessary to accelerate the further improvement of ternary batteries, while achieving continuous synchronization capabilities for technologies such as solid-state batteries.