Subsidies have declined, car companies have "weaned" New energy vehicles have ushered in a new inflection point

At the beginning of the new year, the subsidy for new energy vehicles has also ushered in a new historical stage: it will decline by 30% compared with 2021 (20% in the public sector), and the subsidy will be terminated until December 31, 2022.

The new energy vehicle market in 2021 has been in a trend higher than the overall auto market growth rate almost since the beginning of the year, constantly refreshing the single-month record, and the "outbreak of the first year" has almost become the consensus of the industry, and the once immature new energy vehicles have also developed and grown.

The withdrawal of the subsidy policy confirms the key turning point in the development of new energy vehicles. The market will become a complete driving force, product strength is the core of competition, car companies in order to plump the wings, is accelerating the technology, production capacity, channels and other system layout. In 2022, despite the pressure of subsidy decline and supply chain costs, the industry generally believes that subsidy decline will not change the growth trend. The wings of the new energy vehicle are hardened, let it fly on its own! A wash of survival of the fittest will leave behind excellent players and a benign development ecology.

● Southern Daily reporter Wei Hongquan Gong Qianshu intern Xu Shaojue

Future market expectations remain positive

According to the Notice on the Financial Subsidy Policy for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles in 2022 issued by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other four ministries and commissions, in 2022, the subsidy standard for new energy vehicles will be reduced by 30% on the basis of 2021; the subsidy standard will be reduced by 20% on the basis of 2021 for urban buses, road passenger transport, rental (including online car-hailing), sanitation, urban logistics and distribution, postal express, civil aviation airports and vehicles in the official field of party and government organs. The subsidy policy for the purchase of new energy vehicles will be terminated on December 31, 2022.

In fact, in the past few years, subsidies for new energy vehicles have been in a state of decline. The "Notice on the Financial Support Policy for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles from 2016 to 2020" clearly points out that the subsidy for new energy vehicles will be implemented in 2016-2020, and new energy vehicles may enter the era of no subsidies after 2020, and 2021 and 2022 are two years of extension.

Under the huge policy dividend, many companies have joined the new energy vehicle track, whether it is a veteran in the field of fuel vehicles or a new force in car manufacturing, it is blooming everywhere. Nowadays, new energy vehicles usher in a key change driven by the market, and it is time for these developed car companies to "pull out and slip".

According to statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in the first eleven months of 2021, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 3.023 million units and 2.99 million units, respectively, an increase of 1.7 times year-on-year, and the market penetration rate reached 12.7%. Xu Haidong, deputy chief engineer of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said that China's new energy vehicle market has entered a stage of rapid development, and it is predicted that in 2022, the production and sales of China's new energy vehicle market will achieve an increase of about 50%.

Behind this is the mature technical support and the strong drive of the private market. In the context of product competitiveness and market recognition, the impact of subsidy decline on consumers is limited. According to the calculation of the subsidy plan, in 2022, the subsidy for pure electric passenger cars with a cruising range between 300-400 kilometers will be reduced by 3900 yuan compared with 2021, the subsidy for pure electric passenger cars with a cruising range greater than or equal to 400 kilometers will be reduced by 5400 yuan, and the subsidy for plug-in hybrid (including extended range) passenger cars will be reduced by 2000 yuan.

In this regard, Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Passenger Car Market Information Joint Association, analyzed: "The recognition of new energy vehicles by domestic consumers has been greatly improved, and even if the price of vehicles increases slightly after the subsidy declines, it will be a short-term phenomenon." "From the perspective of market competition, as more and more car companies transform new energy and continuously advance technology, car companies want to maintain product competitiveness, and price decline will become a long-term trend." In addition, the subsidy policy in 2022 remains stable on the framework of the technical indicator system and does not raise the threshold, which is conducive to the continued strong increase of low-end models.

Subsidies have declined and price wars have intensified, which is the trend of the times. Based on this, many people in the industry remain optimistic about the performance of new energy vehicles in the future. Cui Dongshu estimates that the sales of new energy vehicles will reach more than 5.5 million in 2022, and even expected to exceed 6 million.

The "weaning" car company won the second half

As the new car-making forces of car companies crossed the threshold of mass production delivery, the delivery volume of "Wei Xiaoli" in December reached a new high, which also drew a satisfactory end to the new energy market in 2021.

Xiaopeng continued to lead the new car-making force with the delivery of 16,000 units in December, an increase of 181% year-on-year, and the total delivery volume of the whole year reached 98,155 units, 3.6 times that of 2020. Ideal Auto delivered 14,087 Ideal ONE units in December, an increase of 130.0% year-on-year, and a total of 90,491 units were delivered in the whole year, an increase of 177.4% year-on-year. Nio delivered 91,429 new cars in 2021, an increase of 109.1% year-on-year, doubling for two consecutive years.

A few years ago, the goal of the new car-making forces was to deliver 10,000 vehicles a year, and now it has achieved a monthly delivery of more than 10,000 vehicles, and then sprint to the goal of 100,000 vehicles a year, and the development speed of smart electric vehicles is beyond imagination. At present, such a goal is constantly approaching, and the gross profit margin of new forces is constantly improving. Ideal Vehicle Sales Revenue for the third quarter was RMB7.39 billion, up 199.7% year-on-year, and vehicle gross margin was 21.1%. Nio's revenue in the third quarter was 9.805 billion yuan, an increase of 116.6% year-on-year, and the gross profit margin of 20.3% was also significantly higher than 12.9% in the same period of the previous year.

However, it is not easy to achieve the goal of delivering more than 10,000 per month. Since last year, new force car companies have also been significantly affected by the "lack of core". In October, Xiaopeng P7 was tightly supplied by chips, and sales did not rise but fell. Ideal Car also proposed a new car "delivery first and then reload" plan due to insufficient chips.

Under the risk pressure of the supply chain, the cost pressure is constantly increasing, and the continuous high R&D investment and rapid expansion of sales and service channels are all hard demands. Taking ideals as an example, R&D expenses in the third quarter were RMB888.5 million, an increase of 165.6% year-on-year.

The competition for channel network construction has also been upgraded synchronously, and the competition is more direct to consumers. As of the end of November 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile has rolled out 661 brand supercharging stations nationwide and operated 311 sales stores nationwide. As of December 31, 2021, Ideal Auto had 206 retail centers across the country. In 2021, NIO will build 778 substations, 15 new NIO Houses, and 72 service centers around the world.

Although "Wei Xiaoli" has mass-produced more than 10,000 yuan per month, with the further decline of new energy subsidies in the future, in the face of supply chain challenges such as chip shortages and raw material price increases, it is still necessary to continue to expand the scale of sales, balance the relationship between high-cost investment expansion and cost pressure, and face the competition between traditional car companies and second-tier new energy brands that are constantly making efforts, in order to be able to bear their own profits and losses and become a lasting winner.

In the future, with the further improvement of the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the decline of new energy subsidies will make this market more differentiated, and how not to be eliminated in a new round of reshuffle has become a challenge for all car companies.

Source: Nanfang Daily