2021 has quietly passed, this year, I thought that the opening of the car market will bring a sharp rebound in the car market, but I did not expect the epidemic, lack of core, power rationing... or let the car market pick up the pace is not so smooth. Nevertheless, auto people use tenacity and innovation to make the car market in 2021 usher in a rare rebound after three years of decline. From another point of view, these things that have not brought us down will make us stronger. Industrial transformation, mergers and acquisitions, consumption upgrading... Let's take advantage of the afterglow of 2021 to review the top ten events that have been recorded in the "history of the car circle" in 2021.
1
"Missing core"
If the biggest problem plaguing the car market in 2020 is the epidemic, then the biggest problem in the car market in 2021 is the problem of tight chip supply. The impact of the chip shortage on the automotive industry, no car company can be spared, production capacity reduction, chip price increases, executives "squatting" chips, terminal dealer stores less cars and even queues to increase prices are all unique phenomena in 2021.
Why the car market will be difficult to hold on to a small chip, on the one hand, because due to the impact of the overseas epidemic, the chip manufacturing factory has stopped working, on the other hand, the domestic has not mastered the core technology of manufacturing high-precision chips. For the trend of follow-up chip problems, most of the industry is optimistic, it is expected that in 2022, with the easing of the epidemic, overseas factories will resume work, the problem of lack of cores will be alleviated, at the same time, the country has also begun to pay attention to chip research and development and manufacturing, independent mastery of core technology may be within 3 years.
2
The new power of car-making 2.0 era
"Wei Xiaoli" sits firmly in the head of the new car-making forces, the first wave of new car-making forces did not achieve mass production delivery, can already declare the end of the game, and there will be no new car-making forces born after that? Will there be no more external capital entering the automotive market? The answer, of course, is no.
Xiaomi announced car manufacturing, Huawei and car companies are getting closer and closer, Wanda and FAW reached a strategic cooperation, Didi entered the automotive industry, the new player Light Orange Era entered the car manufacturing game, and released the first model, these events all occurred in 2021, and it is expected that in 2022, there will be new companies to build cars or enter the automotive industry.
3
Mergers and acquisitions of the new energy market
At that time, the rules of the game of mergers and acquisitions in the era of traditional fuel vehicles were still applicable in the era of new energy vehicles. At present, there are many enterprises in China's new energy vehicle market, but in a small and scattered situation, the decentralized market is not conducive to the healthy development of the new energy market, so the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposed in 2021 to encourage mergers and acquisitions to become bigger and stronger, and further improve industrial concentration.
The main way to merge and reorganize is to create a large-scale international new energy enterprise with a large scale and competitiveness in the global market through market competition and survival of the fittest. This also means that the competition in the follow-up new energy vehicle market will become more and more fierce, and it is expected that a large number of new car-making forces and even traditional car companies will be merged.
4
The era of 1,000 kilometers of cruising has come
Pure electric vehicle endurance breakthrough of 500km is already "basic exercise", but the mileage anxiety disorder still exists, want to overcome the mileage anxiety disorder, improve the mileage and charging speed is equally important, so in 2021, graphene batteries, all-solid-state batteries, silicon-doped lithium batteries and other batteries that can make the mileage exceed 1000km on the hot search, while GAC Aian also released a "charge for 5 minutes, endurance 200km" high-power charging pile.
The arrival of these technologies makes people feel that the future use of pure electric vehicles can be as convenient as fuel vehicles, and back to reality, these technologies still have many problems to solve, there is still a long way to go from large-scale market promotion, before the large-scale popularization of the market, it is only a beautiful vision.
5
"Autonomous Driving" to "Driver Assistance"
A Weilai ES8 owner drove a traffic accident, which subsequently triggered a discussion on intelligent driving in the industry, and the general view is that it can be called automatic driving until L4 level, automatic auxiliary driving at L3 level, and driving assistance below. Since then, many car companies have deleted the word "automatic driving" when promoting intelligent driving functions, and replaced it with "driving assistance".
Limited by domestic regulations, the current intelligent driving function is below L3 (not included), before most car companies will be driving assistance function packaging for automatic driving is not correct, and many consumers too much believe in "automatic driving" packaging under the "driving assistance" to cause accidents, it is a pity, but I hope that in the future car companies will no longer have excessive packaging, consumers can also polish their eyes, do not superstitious automatic driving, so that the tragedy will not happen again.
6
Fuel enters the OTA era
Only electric vehicles can be intelligent? Only electric cars can OTAs? SAIC Passenger Car's new SIGMA architecture and its first model, MG ONE, prove that fuel vehicles can also be intelligent, fuel vehicles can also be OTAs, and ECU units can be replaced by domain control, plus high-computing chip, and the concept of new fuel forces is born.
In addition to MG ONE, the fuel vehicles of traditional car companies such as Haval Divine Beast, Geely Xingyue L, Changan Ford EVOS, and Beijing Motor Cube have released new products with vehicle OTA capabilities, which is enough to prove that traditional car companies do not want to be "Nokia", they are also actively conforming to the trend of the times, but they are more inclined to "accumulate and thin hair". Do people still think that traditional car companies will be replaced by new forces?
7
Hybrid rises
Previously, there was a view in the industry that hybrid power is only a transitional technology, and the future will be replaced by pure electric, and in 2021, the hybrid market has an explosive trend, and Chinese car companies have released a new generation of hybrid technology and products, such as BYD Automobile's DM-i Super Hybrid System, Changan Automobile's Blue Whale iDD Hybrid System, Chery Automobile's Kunpeng Hybrid DHT, Great Wall Motor's Lemon Hybrid DHT, Geely Automobile's modular intelligent hybrid platform - Leishen Zhiqing Hi · X and so on.
The reason for the sudden heat of the hybrid market is that on the one hand, the problem of pure electric vehicle mileage anxiety has not been solved, on the other hand, if you want to complete the "double carbon" goal, you must develop hybrid. Hybrids can play a clear role in reducing fuel consumption and carbon emissions, with explosive growth expected after 2022.
8
Mazda "merged north and south", and the market opened a knockout round
A few years ago, when Yipinjun was chatting with his peers, he agreed that there are not many models under the Mazda brand and there is no need to set up two joint venture companies in China. In August 2021, Mazda "merged north-south", changan Mazda was changed to a joint venture jointly funded by three parties [(new) Changan Mazda], with the three parties contributing 47.5%, (Changan Automobile) 47.5%, and (China FAW) respectively. Since then, FAW Mazda has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Changan Mazda.
For FAW, Mazda's "north-south merger" has allowed FAW to throw out unprofitable sectors, and for Mazda, it has solved the problems left over from history, and since then both sides can integrate their own resources and exert greater advantages, which can be said to be a "win-win" transaction. However, according to the latest data from Mazda (China), Mazda (China) sold 14,754 units in November, down 21.22% year-on-year and 3.51% month-on-month; cumulative sales from January to November were 169,363 units, down 11.67% year-on-year. It seems that Mazda needs further integration after the "north-south merger", and it is hoped that 2022 will see results.
In 2021, the trend of the weak in China's auto market is more obvious, Borgward, Baoneng, Zotye, Lifan, DS... These brands have been or are on the road to obsolescence.
9
Small pure trams broke out
The fact that Hongguang MINI EV has monthly sales of more than 30,000 has once again stimulated China's own brands. Although it was previously rumored in Shanghai that micro-electric no longer enjoyed a license, the market terminal demand showed that what the people needed was king.
At present, mini-vehicles in the era of fuel vehicles such as Ben Ben and QQ have begun to be collectively revived, seizing the market explosion dividend of new energy vehicles. The price of these products is basically 30,000 yuan, the endurance is 150km, although the configuration is a little, but in some special use scenarios, enough for users to use, but also become the old scooter's flat products.
10
Intelligent networking requires Chinese standards
With the gradual popularization of smart cars, the Chinese market urgently needs the Chinese standard of intelligent networked vehicles, which is also the guarantee of "automobile power" in the era of intelligent vehicles.
This year, the state has intensively issued a number of relevant policies and standards in the field of intelligent and connected vehicles: on March 17, the "Guide to the Construction of the National Vehicle Networking Industry Standard System (Related to Intelligent Transportation)" was released; on April 14, the "14th Five-Year Plan" Intelligent Manufacturing Development Plan (Draft for Comments) was released; on July 27, the "Management Specification for Road Testing and Demonstration Application of Intelligent Connected Vehicles (Trial)" was released; on August 12, the "Opinions on Strengthening the Management of Intelligent And Connected Vehicle Manufacturers and Product Access".
On the road to an automobile power, it is increasingly important to compete for the right to speak for the future of automobiles. At present, China is in the process of transforming the development mode, optimizing the economic structure, and transforming the growth momentum, and it is necessary to take intelligent manufacturing as the main direction of attack, promote industrial optimization and upgrading, help carbon peak carbon neutrality, promote China's manufacturing industry to move towards the middle and high end of the global value chain, and is also an important support for achieving high-quality economic development of China' economy.