The electric drive market in 2021 is still growing wildly, and the market has not yet achieved a high degree of merger and oligopolization.
Author 丨 Meng Hua
Edited 丨tian grass
Produced 丨 Automan Media
In the new energy vehicle market, if the penetration rate can still have a little "trend" meaning, the market share is completely realistic.
According to the China Automobile Association, the market share of new energy vehicles (EVs, PHEV) in 2021 is 13.4%, of which the market share in December was 19.2%, still below 20%. More than 20%, it is only a matter of time, and it is likely that it will be achieved in 2022.
The important components of new energy vehicles, the market is most concerned about the battery. For OEMs, the importance of battery supply deployment even exceeds the deployment of vehicle capacity. Of course, the chip accidentally sang the lead in 2021, but in the long run, the key supply node is still in the battery.
In addition to professionals, the focus of the industry outside and outside, less tracking motors dominated by the electric drive industry. In fact, the fierce competition in this particular field is no less than that of the battery industry. Moreover, no matter what kind of battery scheme is used, the electric drive can not always be saved, every new energy vehicle is, and the electric drive is a necessity.
1
The main player of the electric drive
Generally speaking, the "electric drive" is the electric drive system, which usually contains "big three electricity" (drive motor, inverter, reducer), in fact, there are "small three electricity" (high voltage distribution box PDU, vehicle charger OPC and DC/DC converter). "Small three electricity" is also indispensable, integrated into "charging and distribution three-in-one assembly".
The current trend is gradually evolving towards fusion products, "three in one" ("big three electricity" integration), "six in one" ("big three electricity" and "small three electricity" integration).
At the end of 2020, Huawei released the "seven-in-one", integrating the MCU (micro-control unit) to form an integrated electric drive under chip control; and by-one Dolphin's "eight-in-one" (the vehicle controller VCU is also integrated).
In 2018, a discrete 90kW electric drive system sold for about 11,000 yuan. By 2020, the same manufacturer's 90kW "three-in-one" electric drive will sell for 7500 yuan, a drop of 30%, while the volume and weight have also decreased.
Obviously, integration is a definite direction. The degree of integration is high, which is equivalent to screening suppliers, and if the ability of the main engine factory cannot catch up, it will worry about being subject to the supplier. However, it is impossible for high-performance new energy vehicles not to use "all-in-one", which is not a problem of advantages and disadvantages, which leads to the inability of poor technology OEMs to complete the initial design.
From 2020 to the end of 2021, the cost reduction brought about by integration has become less obvious, because the electric drive has become very complex, and the difficulty of integration in a small space offsets the cost reduction. As integration gets higher, value rises. It can be expected that it is only a matter of time before the global electric drive market enters the trillion-level market.
In 2020, the overall installed capacity of electric drives for new energy vehicles was 1.357 million sets, of which the installed capacity of "three-in-one" electric drive systems reached 506,000 sets, accounting for 37.3%.
From January to June 2021, the installed capacity of electric drives for new energy passenger vehicles was 1.154 million sets, of which 591,000 sets of electric drives were "three-in-one" and above products, accounting for 51.2%. In 2021, the annual output of new energy will be 3.545 million units, and the proportion of "three-in-one" electric drive installed capacity will rise slightly to 55%, but the absolute volume has increased by 2.29 times.
The increase in quantity does not fully explain the importance of electric drives.
Players in the electric drive market include "native electric drive manufacturers", multinational suppliers and OEMs with business expansion. Yes, you read that right, some OEMs develop their own electric drive systems and regard them as their core competitiveness, especially some new forces.
Tesla, Weilai, BYD brand new energy vehicles, as well as some of the Great Wall new energy vehicles, the electric drive is "self-supplied", that is, supplied by its suppliers. More interesting is the Great Wall Euler, its electric drive supplier, both hive electric drive, but also Shanghai electric drive.
2
Domestic singer protagonist
At present, only a few manufacturers have truly mastered the "three-in-one" and "all-in-one" electric drive technology. The reason is that the threshold for developing and producing this technology product is very high, and without strong technical and financial strength, it is impossible to invest in it before the market scale rises.
The new forces are a special case. When the electric vehicle market first started, the production capacity of the new forces was too small, especially in the car maintenance stage, there was no supplier at all, and it was unreasonable to find a quotation, so it could only be done by itself.
Manufacturers such as Great Wall, BYD, and SAIC Motor have consciously cultivated their own electric drive technology and production capacity at the beginning of the birth of the new energy vehicle market. Multinational manufacturers supply only until these OEMs form their own production capacity.
At present, the electric drive suppliers under the car companies include Fudi Power, Shanghai Transmission, Hive Electric Drive, Weirui Electric, Azure Power, Huayu Electric, etc.
The camp of independent brands is still expanding, huichuan technology, Shanghai electric drive, jingjin electric, Yingboer, CRRC Times Electric, Juyi power, etc., have all received long-term orders.
Huawei is an alternative, Huawei has started from ICT, has occupied a place in the electric drive industry, and has formed its own characteristics in technology. At present, the Huawei DriveONE "eight-in-one" electric drive is used on the Cyris SF5. The new brand AITO jointly released by Huawei and Xilix on December 23, 2021, is also likely to use Huawei electric drives.
Unlike OEMs, which care about "having their own", Tier 1 suppliers pay more attention to the judgment of market trends. Electric drive and fuel drive, there is a small number of technologies with inheritance relationship, BorgWarner, Bosch, Nidec, United Electronics, Valeo Siemens, Weftsoft, ZF, Schaeffler, all invested in the electric drive business, but did not establish an exclusive technology moat.
The reason for this is simple, the manufacturing threshold of electric drives is lower than that of internal combustion engines. Some Tier 1 suppliers that did not have the accumulation of electric drive technology have developed a "three-in-one" system through acquisitions and rapid integration capabilities.
For example, after the acquisition of Remy Motors in the United States and Sevcon in the United Kingdom, BorgWarner has the R & D and production capacity of motors and controllers, integrates the "big three electrics" together, and develops the iDM electric drive assembly.
Suppliers who started with fuel vehicle transmissions have more technical advantages in the field of hybrids, which is the origin of the inheritance relationship between fuel vehicles and new energy technologies. For pure electric, everyone is basically in the same running line.
Many manufacturers have poured into the field of electric drives, and the low threshold is only on the one hand, on the other hand, because there are more market opportunities. In the era of fuel vehicles, 80% of the OEMs produce their own engines; in the field of electric vehicles, the market share of electric drives is almost equally divided.
Throughout 2021, in the domestic electric drive market, Chinese brands have soared and almost completely expelled imports.
In 2021, in China's new energy vehicle market, the market share of domestic independent supporting "big three electricity" will reach more than 95%, basically dominating the world; and "small three electricity" has no accurate figures, and it is estimated that the domestic share of "big three electricity" is lower than that of "big three electricity", the reason will be mentioned later.
3
Electric drive and vehicle brands rose simultaneously
From 2020, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles began to soar, and people suddenly found that the domestic electric drive industry chain has been very complete.
China has formed a complete industrial chain including drive motors, motor controllers, transmissions, electric drive assemblies, major key materials and key devices, and realized localization. Only a few companies use the electric drive solution of multinational suppliers.
But it's a bittersweet market. There are more than 200 electric drive manufacturers, and the orders of the top 20 manufacturers account for more than 70%. Although it has not yet been oligopolized, the market concentration is already relatively high. The commercial vehicle sector is basically 100% localized.
In 2021, domestic electric drive indicators, such as power density, efficiency, system integration, winding manufacturing process, cooling and heat dissipation technology, etc., have reached the global frontier.
Some people believe that it is caused by the widespread use of rare earths in high-speed motors, because China's rare earth crude ore production and processing level are leading the world. In fact, this is the inversion of the cart before the horse, mineral resources and rough processing capacity, never determine the technical level of industrial products. According to this standard, the level of uranium processing in Africa should be the highest in the world.
Obviously, this is the result of being driven by the vehicle market. The largest single market and the most active production of new energy vehicles are equivalent to the stable generation of a large number of customer orders. Several large multinational manufacturers have only formed a complete capacity in recent years, and there is no generation difference between Chinese enterprises. When everyone starts from a similar starting point, market factors play a decisive role.
In October 2021, the top 10 Three-in-One power enterprises of Fordy Power, Nidec and Tesla, the market size of "three-in-one" products was more than 10,000 sets, and the cumulative share reached 46.8%, of which the "three-in-one" installed capacity of Fudi Power was nearly 40,000 sets.
If you talk about motors alone, the installed capacity of Fordy motors is 70,000 sets. With the support of customers such as SAIC-GM-Wuling and Xiaopeng Motors, Founder Motor ranked second with a score of nearly 40,000 units. Huichuan and Sunshine Electric Power both ranked second and third with a market share of 8.8%. The monthly sales of Hongguang MINIEV are enough to drive Shuanglin Automobile, Sunshine Electric Power, Yangteng Electronics, Yingboer, Wuling Industry and other enterprises to harvest large orders.
However, "three-in-one" and above products need to be matched at high-end prices, and the current market division is 200,000 yuan. Above this price point, basically seek to match the "all-in-one"; below this price, the vast majority of them can only be equipped with discrete parts.
There are actually not many types of electric drive solutions, and the battery (and PACK) technology route is full of flowers. At the same time, the power battery and packaging scheme have been highly standardized, but the electric drive is far from standardized. Although there are shelf products, they are more customized according to customer requirements.
4
Who leads the technology trend
But no matter what the solution, the technology development trend in the industry is still quite clear.
The motor is moving towards high-speed development, especially the performance of high-end electric vehicles, the current top of the industry is Tesla in 2021 released Model S Plaid torque up to 1424N ·m, which is the fuel vehicle can not be expected to back the indicator. The closest to it is the Porsche Taycan Turbo S with a torque of 1050 N·m.
Generally speaking, on the 700N·m, it is worth bragging about in performance. This competitive situation has forced suppliers to increase power weight/volume density and motor speed, which has brought a series of engineering challenges, but it has not prevented the top speed from increasing all the time.
The momentum of motor flattening is now an industry trend, which can reduce copper loss, improve thermal conductivity efficiency and lower NVH performance. Tesla, SAIC BJEV, Chevrolet Volt, Toyota Fourth Generation Prius, Great Wall Hive, Dongfeng Lantu, Porsche Taycan, Volkswagen ID.4, Han GT, Geely Kr platform, all use flat-line motors. If the mid-to-high-end new car in 2021 still uses a "traditional" round-line motor, it will be laughed at by peers.
Packaging IGBTs and FWD (freewheeling diode chips) into modular products can make the integrated core powertrain less expensive in weight and volume than mainstream products. In 2020, it is a fashionable choice.
However, in the summer of 2021, silicon carbide (SiC) schemes are rapidly emerging. The reason is that the IGBT operating temperature must be below 200 °C. For new energy brands that intend to fight on 800V high-voltage charging in 2022, it is a bit insufficient. This year, if the new car does not have a fast charge, they are embarrassed to develop the conference.
What voltage and power can be called fast charging? This definition is also "rolled up" with competition.
In 2020, 120kW and 400V voltage are superchargers. At the end of 2021, 6C (60A charge and discharge current) charging has been on the mass production car, the corresponding power is 480kW, 800V voltage. It is said that 8 minutes from 0 charge to 80% of the power, basically 6C charging. GAC Aean has released this satellite, and it is expected that a number of technical control brands will follow up in 2022 and deploy 6C charging on mass production vehicles.
This requires the "small three electricity" to use silicon carbide single crystal material, the advantages are: 5 times smaller than the IGBT volume, 5-10 times faster switching frequency, lower loss, the key is to adapt to high temperatures; the disadvantage is one: expensive.
The application of silicon carbide will be the focus of competition for new technologies of "all-in-one" electric drives in 2022. The Chinese brand lags behind foreign countries in the research and development and production of silicon carbide power devices by about two or three years. Therefore, the deployment of silicon carbide "small three electricity" is also slower than that of multinational brands.
This is why the domestic share of "small three electricity" just mentioned in this article is lower than that of "big three electricity", the reason is that the pace of competition in cutting-edge technology of charging, most manufacturers have not fully kept up.
In 2022, models using silicon carbide electronic control include NIO's ET7, Tesla Model S plaid (imported), and BYD-Han. Bydir-Han can use silicon carbide at a price of 200,000 yuan + because BYD has its own silicon carbide production capacity. This once again confirms the significance of the main engine factory to swim in the electric industry chain.
5
Alternative advantages for multinational suppliers
The fact that multinational suppliers have not achieved market dominance in the domestic electric drive market and have not achieved technological dominance seems to be a historic scene.
However, if you think that Bosch, Continental, BorgWarner, ZF and other established manufacturers "stop this ear", it is a bit shallow. They are creating a new track, which is to integrate electric drives into the "self-driving package".
Most of the entrepreneurial brands incubated by "new forces" and state-owned enterprises shout the tone of "full-stack self-research". After all, this is their "technical man-made". If autonomous driving capacity building relies entirely on suppliers, what is the difference between new forces and traditional enterprises?
However, in terms of supplier capabilities, the only suppliers who have made mature plans for autonomous driving and come up with mass production systems are Bosch and Continental. Domestic law currently only allows L2, so a bunch of brands are playing L2+, quasi-L3, L2.99. There is no need to distinguish between this in detail until the law allows high-level autonomous driving.
The intelligent driving solution of multinational first-tier suppliers embeds image algorithms, various radar sensors, and data processing systems, which are highly integrated with electric drives and braking systems, and are in the forefront of reliability and practicality. This is undoubtedly to tell the main engine factory that to buy all, the automatic driving system is not only sold.
As long as multinational suppliers remain leaders in the comprehensive capabilities of image recognition and autonomous driving, they will not be completely lost in the electric drive market. As long as autonomous driving is regarded as a core competitiveness by consumers, multinational suppliers have the opportunity to "come back".
Consumers in 2021 have not yet thought so. For autonomous driving, they will not rely on it unconditionally, and most people do not feel that they should choose products based on this standard. This gives Chinese suppliers a certain amount of time.
Radar can be bought and deployed by anyone, but the recognition ability depends on the algorithm and computing power. Mobileye and Bosch are both stronger, and Mainland is also a heavyweight player, but slightly inferior to the previous two. The advantages of Mobileye's visual algorithms and hardware level accumulation are very obvious, but when it comes to integrating a full set of actuators (electric drive and brake), it can only be left to the sage.
The power of Bosch and Continental in hardware and underlying algorithms ensures their right to speak on automatic driving. Once they are strong enough, customers must buy the entire large system (complete solutions for electric drive, braking and autonomous driving) to provide all the technical support. That's the equivalent of a showdown.
So far, large multinational suppliers have not done so. One is that pigs are going to be fattened and killed, and the other is that they are not strong enough to say one thing or the other. However, the main engine factory also "prejudged" the "pre-judgment" of large suppliers, resolutely went upstream, insisted on software and algorithm self-research, and did its own soft and hard integration. At least some of them (even if the reliability of mass production is insufficient) can also get the bargaining chips. If you are afraid that there is nothing, you can only be slaughtered.
The electric drive market in 2021 is still growing wildly, quite similar to the battery industry in 2017. That is, when the giants are rising, but have not been able to obtain most of the right to speak, small and medium-sized suppliers are still living well, because the market demand is still there, and the market has not yet achieved a high degree of mergers and oligopolization.
The hope of large factories is to establish complete patent barriers through automatic driving capacity building and isolate the entry of small motor factories. OEMs want PK, but also have to find a way to bypass the patent.
Fortunately, autonomous driving is still very immature, neither forming a dominant technology path, nor standardizing, and there is still a lot of room to be used. Therefore, it is expected that there is little hope that multinational suppliers will regain China's lost ground in 2022.
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