China's automobile production and sales have remained the world's first for 13 consecutive years (economic focus)

Source: People's Daily

Core reading

China's automobile industry showed a good development trend of steady growth in the opening year of the "14th Five-Year Plan", with annual production and sales of 26.082 million vehicles and 26.275 million vehicles respectively, maintaining the first place in global automobile production and sales for 13 consecutive years. China's position as the world's largest automobile market has been further consolidated, and it is moving towards the world's automobile power.

At present, changan automobile's production lines at the Chongqing Liangjiang plant are at full capacity. "Since the start of construction after New Year's Day, the Liangjiang plant has rolled off the production line with 13,682 new cars. According to the plan, the Liangjiang plant will complete the output of 79,165 units in January. Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, introduced that in the past 2021, the annual cumulative sales of Changan Chinese brand cars exceeded 1.75 million, up 16.7% year-on-year.

The latest data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on the 12th shows that although adversely affected by the epidemic, China's automobile industry still showed a good development trend of steady growth in the opening year of the "14th Five-Year Plan", with annual production and sales of 26.082 million vehicles and 26.275 million vehicles, an increase of 3.4% and 3.8% respectively year-on-year, maintaining the first place in global automobile production and sales for 13 consecutive years.

Consumption and industry are upgraded

On December 26, 2021, the first model of SAIC's new smart electric vehicle brand Zhiji Automobile rolled off the production line. In that year, SAIC Motor delivered more than 5.81 million vehicles at its terminals, an increase of 5.5% year-on-year, maintaining the first place in China for 16 consecutive years. Among them, SAIC's own brand sold 2.857 million units, accounting for 52.3% of the total sales.

"The automobile industry has reversed the downward trend for three consecutive years in one fell swoop, contributing to the sustained recovery of China's industrial economy and stable macroeconomic growth." Wang Weiming, director of the First Department of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that with the gradual improvement of residents' income level, China's automobile market has shown a clear trend of consumption upgrading. In 2021, China's passenger car sales reached 21.482 million units, an increase of 6.5% year-on-year. Among them, high-end brand passenger cars sold a total of 3.472 million units, an increase of 20.7% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 14.2 percentage points higher than that of passenger cars.

"China's automotive industry innovation achievements are full of highlights, and great progress has been made in electrification, networking, intelligent transformation and upgrading." Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, introduced that in 2021, the energy density of China's power battery units will be close to 300 Wh/kg, the system energy density will exceed 200 Wh/kg, and the market for passenger cars equipped with combined auxiliary driving systems will account for 20%.

In addition, the market share of Chinese brand passenger cars increased significantly, with annual sales of 9.543 million units, an increase of 23.1% year-on-year, accounting for 44.4% of total passenger car sales, close to the best level in history, and the share increased by 6 percentage points over the previous year. "China's position as the world's largest automobile market has been further consolidated, and it is moving towards the world's automobile power." Fu Bingfeng said.

The sales volume of new energy vehicles ranked first in the world for seven consecutive years

The product supply is richer, the technical level is higher, and the supporting facilities are more perfect, which promotes the good momentum of china's new energy vehicles to show a good momentum of market scale and development quality in 2021. Guo Shougang, deputy director of the First Department of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, summarized it as "three rapids".

——The scale of production and marketing has grown rapidly. In 2021, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 3.545 million units and 3.521 million units respectively, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year, and the sales volume ranked first in the world for seven consecutive years.

——Rapid improvement of quality brand. In 2021, the average mileage of pure electric passenger cars in China increased from 253 kilometers in 2016 to more than 400 kilometers, consumer quality satisfaction was the same as that of fuel vehicles, and a total of 2.476 million Chinese brand new energy passenger cars were sold, an increase of 1.7 times year-on-year, accounting for 74.3% of the total sales of new energy passenger cars.

-- Rapid growth in product exports. In 2021, 310,000 new energy vehicles will be exported, an increase of 3 times year-on-year, exceeding the total historical cumulative exports. At the same time, the supporting environment for industrial development has been further optimized, and by the end of 2021, a total of 75,000 charging stations, 2.617 million charging piles, 1,298 replacement power stations, and more than 10,000 power battery recycling service outlets have been set up in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and cities.

"China's new energy vehicles have entered a new stage of accelerated development." Fu Bingfeng said that in 2021, the penetration rate of China's new energy vehicle market will reach 13.4%, 8 percentage points higher than that of the previous year. "The targets of 20% and 40% of the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in 2025 and 2030 are likely to be achieved ahead of schedule."

Automobile exports exceeded 2 million units for the first time

On January 6, amid the high-pitched whistle, the first "China-Europe Express Chery Special Train" in 2022, full of 120 cars and car spare parts, drove from Hefei, Anhui Province to Moscow. "In 2021, 32 China-Europe trains will deliver 4,552 new vehicles to the Russian market." Yin Shijun, director of operations of Chery International, said that in 2021, Chery Group exported a total of 269,200 new cars, an increase of 136.3% year-on-year, ranking first in the export of Chinese brand passenger cars for 19 consecutive years.

According to the export statistics of vehicle enterprises, in 2021, China's automobile exports will be 2.015 million units, an increase of 1 times year-on-year. In terms of sub-models, passenger car exports were 1.614 million units, up 1.1 times year-on-year, and commercial vehicle exports were 402,000 units, up 70.7% year-on-year. "In the past 10 years, China's auto exports have been hovering around 1 million vehicles, and in 2021, they exceeded 2 million for the first time, achieving a historic leap forward, reflecting the turning point of the overseas development of Chinese car companies from quantitative to qualitative changes." Fu Bingfeng said.

Statistics show that in 2021, the exports of Chinese brand automobile companies have shown rapid growth. Among the top ten export enterprises, Chinese brand automobile companies such as SAIC, Chery and Changan have grown rapidly year-on-year, and 4 of them have an export growth rate of more than 100%. New energy vehicles exported 310,000 units in the whole year, an increase of 3 times year-on-year, and european markets such as the United Kingdom, Norway, Germany and France have become the main incremental markets.

Fu Bingfeng said that the supply chain of China's automobile industry is relatively complete, which can provide competitive products for overseas consumers in a timely manner. "In the future, China's automobile exports will usher in a period of rapid growth." (Reporter Wang Zheng)

People's Daily (10th edition, January 13, 2022)