In 2022, the new energy vehicle industry ushered in these changes

Reporter | Zhou Chunliang

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In 2021, the new energy vehicle market has handed over a satisfactory, even somewhat exceeding expectations.

Although the annual sales volume has not yet been announced, according to the latest forecast of the China Automobile Association, the sales of new energy vehicles will reach 3.4 million units in 2021, an increase of 1.5 times year-on-year.

The sales of the new forces of head car manufacturing have increased exponentially.

Xiaopeng Automobile sold 98,155 vehicles in 2021, an increase of 263% year-on-year; Nio Motors sold 91,429 vehicles, an increase of 109% year-on-year; Ideal Automobile sold 90,491 vehicles, an increase of 177% year-on-year; Nezha Automobile sold 69,674 vehicles, an increase of 362% year-on-year.

For the future, the Secretary-General of the Association expects that the sales of new energy vehicles in 2022 are expected to reach 5.5 million, which is expected to account for about 25% of the total sales of automobiles. If it can be achieved, it will achieve the goal of "25% of new energy vehicles" originally formulated by the state 3 years in advance.

Whether from the performance or expectations, the new energy vehicle industry has shown a thriving trend. However, in the week after the New Year's Day holiday in 2022, the crazy killing of leading stocks related to the industry such as Ningde Times, BYD, Ganfeng Lithium, and Yiwei Lithium Energy led to a sharp decline of nearly 10% of the entire new energy vehicle ETF sector compared with a year ago.

The reason is that some analysts believe that "the subsidy for new energy vehicles will decline by 30% in 2022" to form a bearish. Some people in the financial industry believe that the new year fund is adjusting its holdings, cashing out profits from the high valuation targets that rose sharply last year, and turning to find potential targets with lower valuations.

Not only that, after the recent release of new energy vehicle exclusive insurance, many car owners said that the premium has risen sharply, which has also caused certain negative emotions.

Leaving aside the "metaphysics" of the financial market, does the new subsidy policy and captive insurance that have been determined this year really have a "negative impact" on the new energy vehicle industry? The answer is not so absolute.

First, let's look at the subsidy decline. On January 1, 2022, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the "Notice of the Development and Reform Commission of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the Ministry of Finance on the Financial Subsidy Policy for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles in 2022", which clarified that in principle, the upper limit of the annual subsidy scale is about 2 million, and the intensity and rhythm of subsidy decline should be smoothed, and the subsidy standards for 2020-2022 will be reduced by 10%, 20% and 30% respectively on the basis of the previous year. That is, the subsidy standard for new energy vehicles in 2022 is a 30% decline on the basis of 2021.

According to the subsidy rules, in 2021, pure trams with a range of 300km-400km can enjoy 13,000 subsidies, and in 2022, they will decline by 30%, that is, reduce the subsidy by 3900 yuan;

In 2021, pure trams with a battery life greater than 400km and priced at less than 300,000 yuan can enjoy 18,000 subsidies, and in 2022, they will decline by 30%, reducing the subsidy by 5,400 yuan;

Hybrid models with pure electric endurance NEDC working conditions greater than 50km, or WLTC working conditions greater than or equal to 43km, and the price is less than 300,000 yuan, enjoy 6800 yuan subsidy in 2021, and after 30% decline in 2022, reduce the subsidy by 2040 yuan.

In this regard, Wei Xiaoli and other new car-making forces and some traditional car companies have said that they are about to increase the price of related models or have been raised. However, some new force car companies said that they can bear the subsidy price difference within a limited period of time, while others do not have any "buffer".

Strong companies such as Tesla have directly raised prices several times at the end of 2021. The rear-wheel drive versions of the Model 3 and Model Y models were priced up by 10,000 yuan and 21,000 yuan respectively.

It seems that consumers have become more expensive to buy new energy vehicles.

However, Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, is not worried about the overall growth level of the industry. In previous years, while the subsidy policy was declining, the threshold of technical indicators would continue to increase, but this year's technical indicators have not changed at all. Cui Dongshu said that the policy details of 2022 have not been adjusted at all, "is the overall stability that exceeded expectations, and is very conducive to the strong increase of low-end models." ”

Not only that, but there is another good news mentioned in the 2022 policy. The original policy set the subsidy scale at a ceiling of 2 million units. And now that upper limit has been lifted.

In this regard, Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of The North China University of Technology, said in an interview with Interface News that this is good news. After the upper limit of 2 million vehicles is lifted, it can allow the head of high-quality enterprises to develop without restrictions.

Zhang Xiang also pointed out: "The policy also sets a lower limit, that is, enterprises with annual sales of less than 10,000 vehicles cannot get subsidies. The aim is to weed out small marginal enterprises. ”

From a technical point of view, the 30% subsidy decline can actually be filled by technological progress. "Because of the important components of new energy vehicles such as battery motors, the cost will decline after the formation of economies of scale."

In 2014, the electric car had a mileage of only 100 kilometers, and now to this same price of electric vehicles, it can run 700 kilometers. "So the increase in technological progress already covers the magnitude of subsidy declines."

He believes that in general, subsidies can help the new energy vehicle market survival of the fittest, improve industry concentration, and achieve rapid development.

Another widely watched piece of news is the new energy vehicle captive insurance.

On December 27, 2021, the Shanghai Insurance Exchange officially launched the new energy vehicle insurance trading platform, and announced that the first batch of 12 insurance companies, including PICC Property & Casualty, Ping An Property & Casualty, and China Life Property & Casualty, officially launched exclusive insurance products for new energy vehicles.

On December 14, 2021, the China Insurance Industry Association developed and completed the industry's "Exclusive Clauses for Commercial Insurance for New Energy Vehicles (Trial)", emphasizing "exclusive" and "customized", and it clearly included "three electricity" into the coverage of vehicle damage insurance. At the same time, volkswagen's concern about the risk of spontaneous combustion of vehicles has also been included in the protection clause.

On the same day, the China Association of Actuaries also released the "New Energy Vehicle Commercial Insurance Benchmark Pure Risk Premium Table (Trial)". Compared with the benchmark premium of the current comprehensive reform of motor insurance, the benchmark premium of new energy vehicles in the "Exclusive Clauses" will be slightly reduced, about 0.8%.

Based on this, according to public data, the premium of new energy vehicles below 250,000 yuan has declined, and models above 250,000 yuan have partially risen, but the overall situation does not exceed 3%.

In most people's concept, cars above 250,000 yuan have been called "high-end cars", so it seems that the premiums of most new energy car owners should be reduced. But in reality, there seems to be a different picture.

For example, recently there are Tesla car owners to post insurance policy price comparison, Tesla Model Y, December 23, 2021 insured fee of 8278 yuan, and after the launch of the new car insurance on the 27th, the premium rose to more than 14,000 yuan, an increase of up to 80%, of which, the car damage insurance increased the most, from the original 5759 yuan to 12736 yuan.

Generally speaking, the pricing of car insurance basically follows the principle of higher the car price, the higher the premium, but according to an insurance industry insider, the premium of the model Y with a naked car price of 400,000 yuan is higher than that of the model S with a bare car price of 800,000 yuan.

For the price increase question, Tesla responded that from the statistics as of December 30, 2021, tesla vehicle premiums rose by about 10% on the national average, and the premium of the high-performance version of the more concerned model increased by less than 20% nationwide.

Judging from the data released by the head new force Xiaopeng Automobile, the model with the largest increase in commercial auto insurance premiums is P7, before the exclusive clause was launched, the average quotation of commercial auto insurance of the head insurance company in major cities in the country was 5600 yuan, and after the exclusive clause was launched on December 27, this price rose to 6622 yuan, up 18.2%. The price movements of G3i and P5 were smaller, at 3.5% and 2.9%, respectively.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, said that the high premium of new energy vehicles is mainly due to the small accumulation of insurance historical data for new energy vehicles. With the rapid improvement of new energy products in recent years, compared with the old products in historical data, the technology and safety of new energy vehicles have improved relatively quickly. The probability of failure of some old models in the early stage is relatively high. Therefore, due to the relatively large fluctuation of historical data, the historical data of some high-fault models in the early stage is brought in, which affects the reasonable cost and guarantee of high safety and low failure after the improvement of the model.

Cui Dongshu suggested that the insurance industry should use closer data information in new energy vehicles and extend analysis with shorter-term data. Lower premiums. At the same time, vehicle enterprises are encouraged to establish their own insurance varieties, expand the insurance business of vehicle enterprises, and establish their own low-premium insurance system supported by data.

In addition, Cui Dongshu also said that the state should also give effective support to some problems in the insurance of new energy vehicles, so as to prevent the emergence of new energy vehicles due to the high price of new energy vehicle insurance, resulting in the emergence of new energy vehicles can afford but can not afford to use the situation.

Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, believes that this is a necessary process for the new energy vehicle industry to be formalized.

Previously, new energy vehicles have been applying the insurance policy of fuel vehicles, which has led to serious losses in insurance companies and dissatisfaction of car owners. According to him, the risk rate of new energy vehicles is now higher than that of fuel vehicles, reaching 85%. On the other hand, the owner experience is not good. Many car owners encounter electric vehicles naturally and explode, and they cannot get compensation from insurance companies. Therefore, this exclusive insurance can eliminate consumers' concerns, so that everyone can buy new energy vehicles and open new energy vehicles with more confidence.

As for the question of whether premiums are increasing or decreasing, Gu Yue, chairman of China Pacific Property & Casualty Insurance Co., Ltd., put forward a view. He believes that one is from the car and one is from the person. In the traditional business model, more emphasis is placed on empirical data and historical data, but in the new environment, smart travel data is real-time, dynamic and continuous, so how to develop from the original from the car to the person to the real-time dynamic continuous comprehensive, from the original unified pricing to the personalized pricing of thousands of people, is a big challenge.

Whether it is the subsidy decline until it eventually disappears, or the release of exclusive insurance for new energy vehicles, it means that China's new energy vehicle market is stepping out of the "greenhouse", facing market competition, and embarking on a formalized and refined development track. The current short-term capital market killing does not affect the long-term optimism of the new energy vehicle track.