From Tesla's entry into Xinjiang, the development of the new energy vehicle market has accelerated

On December 31, 2021, consumers experienced at the Tesla Center in Urumqi. (Photo by reporter Wang Xuan)

Urumqi Evening News (reporter Wang Xuan, Li Ningyan) Nowadays, more and more consumers will consider green and environmentally friendly new energy vehicles when buying a car. As an energy-rich region, Xinjiang's new energy vehicle market has also ushered in great development.

On December 31, 2021, the Urumqi Tesla Center opened in Zhenxing Middle Road, Midong District. This is the first Tesla center in Xinjiang, providing consumers with one-stop services such as pre-sales consultation, scheduled test drive, new car testing, insurance consultation, pro-license processing, and after-sales maintenance.

With the improvement of consumers' awareness of energy conservation and the continuous improvement of supporting services for new energy vehicles, the market demand for new energy vehicles in Xinjiang has accelerated.

More car companies are deploying in Xinjiang

As the first company to develop new energy vehicles, Tesla focuses on artificial intelligence. Walking into the Tesla Center in Urumqi, the hot-selling model Model 3 and X attracted many consumer experiences.

Xiao Lu, head of Tesla's northwest region, said that Xinjiang is a hot land for investment in new energy vehicles, and they are very optimistic about the huge development potential of the Xinjiang market. The Tesla Center in Urumqi is an important starting point for Tesla to develop a service network in Xinjiang, not only providing one-stop services for consumers, but also continuing to spread the green environmental protection concept of "energy saving and carbon reduction".

At present, Tesla has built and put into use 2 superchargering stations and 14 superchargering piles in Urumqi. In the whole territory, 7 super charging stations and 36 super charging piles have been built and opened, with 6 destination charging stations and 12 destination charging piles, ensuring the charging experience of car owners. In the future, we will continue to improve the charging line to give consumers a better experience.

Recently, citizen Shi Lei plans to buy a new energy vehicle. He found that the map search showed that new energy vehicle brand stores were opening more and more in Urumqi.

As a representative of the transformation from fuel brands to new energy brands, BYD has three sales stores in Urumqi. The friendly business district brings together the stores of ideal automobile, Xiaopeng automobile and Weilai automobile, three new car-making brands.

GAC Trumpchi also aimed at the new energy vehicle sales market in Xinjiang, and began to lay out sales stores and increase sales models.

An Lei, deputy general manager of GAC Trumpchi Automobile (Xinjiang) Sales Co., Ltd., said that there are currently two stores authorized to sell new energy models in Xinjiang, including a store in Urumqi Cybertron Automobile City. GAC Aean is a brand with independent intellectual property rights, and currently promotes 5 hot models in Xinjiang. With the continuous advancement of the "Belt and Road" initiative, Urumqi's location advantage is obvious, the driving force of the radiation central Asian market is strong, and the company has been developing new energy products and systems, which will dig deep into the new energy sales market in the field of private cars.

Wang Hulin, sales director of Xinjiang Fenke Trading Co., Ltd., a first-class dealer of SAIC Roewe Automobile, said that new energy models began to be sold last year, and models such as Kelaiwei and EI5 are very popular with consumers. In 2022, the company plans to add 5 direct-operated stores and 20 secondary franchise stores to sell new energy vehicles, focusing on the market potential of new energy vehicles.

Sales growth continues to accelerate

Wang Kun, a citizen who lives on Qidaowan South Road, often goes to the Red Star Macalline parking lot two kilometers away to charge his car.

"The fast charging pile can be fully charged in an hour and a half, costing more than 50 yuan." Wang Kun said that he is connecting with the community to install charging piles, and once it is resolved, he will buy a new energy vehicle for his wife.

With the continuous updating and iteration of the technical level of new energy vehicles, as well as the new energy vehicle subsidy policy and the car purchase tax exemption dividend, the cost of buying and using cars has been continuously reduced, and it only takes less than 30,000 yuan to start an entry-level new energy vehicle.

According to the data, the number of new energy vehicles registered in the city in 2018 was 844, 764 in 2019, and 846 in 2020. From January 1, 2021 to December 21, 2021, the number of new energy vehicles registered in the city was 3,799, nearly 4.5 times the number of registrations in 2020. Behind the data growth is the increase in government support, but also the improvement of the public's awareness of energy conservation and emission reduction and the improvement of recognition of new energy vehicles.

Yan Xin, byd's Xinjiang regional manager, said that this year's sales of BYD new energy vehicles in Xinjiang exceeded that of fuel vehicles for the first time, accounting for 52%, and there are still more than 1,000 car owners waiting for delivery. They have laid out 12 stores in Xinjiang, and this year will further improve the layout to fill in the blank market, facilitate Xinjiang consumers to choose and purchase a full range of new energy models, and the fourth store in Urumqi will soon open to welcome customers.

Charging facilities are becoming more and more perfect

In recent years, Xinjiang has continuously increased the construction and layout of charging facilities, achieved "zero breakthroughs" in electric vehicle charging stations in highway service areas, and did not have to worry about nowhere to charge when driving new energy vehicles across the G217 Duku Highway.

A few days ago, the new energy passenger car replacement power station in the parking lot of the Aidi Center of the Economic Development Zone (Toutunhe District) was put into use, the first new energy vehicle network interactive (V2G) charging station in Xinjiang was also completed and put into operation in the Degang Wanda business district, and 40 new energy charging piles were completed and put into use in the parking lot of the Jiuding Agricultural Products Wholesale Market, the largest first-class wholesale market in Xinjiang. As the city with the best sales volume of new energy vehicles in Xinjiang, Urumqi focuses on solving the problem of charging, constantly targeting business circles, residential area concentration points, and near public parking lots, increasing the construction of fast charging charging piles in underground garages, and charging owners and exclusive new energy vehicle insurance, which relieves the worries of using cars.

NIO has built and put into use a replacement power station, a supercharging station and a destination charging station in Urumqi, and has built and put into use 10 supercharging stations and 7 destination charging stations in northern and southern Xinjiang.

Ma Long, general manager of Weilai Urumqi Company, said that it will continue to increase the construction of charging and replacing power stations in Urumqi, and plans to add 20 charging and replacement power stations in Xinjiang this year, and use charging and replacing power stations to connect new energy vehicles to cross-city tourism routes to facilitate car owners to charge.

In order to improve the healthy development of Xinjiang's new energy vehicle charging facilities industry, the Xinjiang Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction Expert Committee issued the "Xinjiang New Energy Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Construction (Group) Specification", which clearly stipulates the technical indicators of charging piles, post-operation and maintenance construction, infrastructure construction, to the power distribution part, battery exchange and charging related requirements. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the number of new energy vehicles in Xinjiang is expected to reach 150,000, and 30,000 charging piles will be built.

Zhao Tiejun, general manager of Xinjiang Huataiyi Innovative Energy Technology Co., Ltd., said that in 2021, the company added more than 30 centralized charging stations in Xinjiang, including places with strong traffic connectivity such as Kanas scenic spots, highway service areas, and highways. The charging station is more intelligent, which reduces the maintenance cost of the charging station to a certain extent and improves the efficiency of secondary investment. With the continuous improvement of the charging infrastructure of new energy vehicles in Xinjiang, it will further stimulate the potential of the market.