Source of this article: Time Weekly Author: Liao Wei
In 2021, China's auto market ended its annual sales volume since 2018.
According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in 2021, China's automobile production and sales were 26.082 million units and 26.275 million units, an increase of 3.4% and 3.8% respectively year-on-year. Among them, the production and sales of passenger cars reached 21.408 million units and 21.482 million units, respectively, an increase of 7.1% and 6.5% year-on-year, an increase of 3.7 and 2.7 percentage points higher than that of the industry.
As the hottest track in 2021, the performance of new energy vehicles is very eye-catching. According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in 2021, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 3.545 million and 3.521 million units respectively, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year, and the market penetration rate reached 13.4%, 8 percentage points higher than in 2020.
On January 14, Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, told the Times Weekly reporter, "China's new energy vehicle market is in the stage of transition from policy-driven to market-driven, and the transition can be smoothly realized." Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, also said, "China's total automobile production and sales have ranked first in the world for 13 consecutive years, and have made great progress in 'electrification, networking, and intelligence'." China's status as an automobile power has been further consolidated and is moving towards an automobile power."
Independent joint ventures are polarized
Last year, the independent brand camp achieved a gorgeous counterattack. According to the data of the China Automobile Association, its market share rose from 38.4% at the end of 2020 to 44.4%, close to the best performance in history, while the market share of German, Japanese and Korean brands declined by a certain extent, and the share of American and French brands rose slightly.
According to the sales ranking of the Association, among the top 15, 6 joint venture car companies, including FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC-GM, Dongfeng Nissan, Dongfeng Honda, and Guangqi Honda, showed a year-on-year decline, while Changan Automobile, SAIC-GM-Wuling, Great Wall Motor, BYD, chery Automobile, etc. all achieved a year-on-year increase of more than 13% last year.
In this regard, some insiders told the Times Weekly reporter that there is such a big differentiation between the joint venture brands and the performance of independent brands last year, mainly depending on the coping strategies of both sides under the supply of chips. German and Japanese brands have tilted chips to more profitable cars and other markets, while their own brands have relied on more flexible strategies to ensure chip supply.
"The strong rise of independent brands is mainly due to the obvious increase in the new energy market of independent brand head enterprises, such as BYD, SAIC Passenger Car and other traditional car companies' new energy products in 2021 showed a high growth trend." Cui Dongshu said, "The rise in the share of American brands stems from the acceleration of product introduction by brands such as Lincoln, and the sudden rise of the French system is attributed to the hot sales of accurately positioned products such as Versailles."
It is worth mentioning that the market share of the independent brand camp has increased last year, and the share of the joint venture brand camp has shrunk, but although the scale of the head enterprises of the two camps is gradually approaching, there is still a more obvious gap.
According to the data of the Association, Geely, Changan and Great Wall sold 1.21 million, 1.11 million and 940,000 vehicles respectively last year, while FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC-GM sold 1.77 million units, 1.45 million vehicles and 1.27 million units respectively. Specific to the model, the data of the car emperor shows that based on the sales volume in the past year, among the top 20 models, only The Wuling Hongguang MINI EV, Haval H6, Changan CS75 PLUS, Wuling Hongguang, and Boyue are independent models.
"At present, the shortage of chip supply has been significantly alleviated." Cui Dongshu said. With the "lack of core" crisis that plagues joint venture brands gradually pass, some insiders are worried that in this context, Volkswagen, GM, Toyota and other brands will gradually increase their volume, and the market share of independent brands will face a certain degree of compression. However, the success of Wuling Hongguang MINI EV and BYD Qin PLUS DM-i has provided new ideas for independent overtaking joint venture brands.
New energy takes off, BYD forces Tesla
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, 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 market penetration rate reached 13.4%, 8 percentage points higher than in 2020.
For the reasons for the sharp increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, Ma Lin, head of corporate communication of Weilai, recently told the Times Weekly reporter that "the significant increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles is on the one hand because the product strength of new energy vehicles has surpassed the same price of fuel vehicles, on the other hand, with the gradual improvement of the whole society's energy replenishment system, the use experience of electric vehicles is getting better and better."
BYD is in the limelight in 2021. According to the data of the Association of Automobile Associations, BYD's wholesale sales in December were 93,338 vehicles, occupying the first position in the sales of new energy passenger cars that month, as a reference, Tesla China's wholesale sales reached 70,847 units in the month, and SAIC-GM-Wuling was 60,372 vehicles.
It is reported that under the general trend of the industry, with blade batteries and DM-i hybrid systems, BYD's sales have continued to reach new highs since the second half of 2021. According to the data, BYD's cumulative sales in 2021 were 723,700 units, an increase of 73.5% year-on-year, and for the first time squeezed into the annual list of car companies in the association. Among them, the sales volume of new energy vehicles reached 584,000 units, accounting for more than 80%.
With the help of new energy Dongfeng, Xiaopeng, Weilai and Ideal, the new forces of head car manufacturing, have successively reached the milestone of 100,000 mass production in 2021 and completed the small goal of more than 10,000 monthly deliveries, and the delivery volume of the three companies last year exceeded 98,000 vehicles, 91,000 vehicles and 90,000 vehicles respectively, with a year-on-year increase of more than 100%.
It is worth mentioning that the current new energy vehicle market in China still presents a structure of "two large ends and small in the middle", which is more obviously different from the mature oil truck market. Some brokerage research reports pointed out that this is mainly due to the relatively high cost and no advantage in the market compared to oil vehicles. However, with the advancement of technology and the reduction of costs, more and more car companies are gradually focusing on the intermediate market of 100,000 yuan to 200,000 yuan.
It is understood that BYD yuan PLUS EV, zero-run C01, Changan C385, Honda e: NP1 and e: NS1, Nezha S, Eulerpunk cat and lightning cat and other 100,000 yuan to 200,000 yuan parity new energy vehicles will be intensively listed. Anxin Securities issued a document saying that in 2022, the parity of large single products is dazzling, 100,000-200,000 yuan BEV sales are expected to double. Combined with the product strength and competitiveness of each new model, it is expected that the 100,000-200,000 yuan pure electric vehicles in 2022 are expected to exceed 1.3 million, reaching 1.33 million, an increase of 108% year-on-year.
In addition, while continuously launching new products into the hinterland of fuel vehicles, their respective main brands have also continued to strengthen their deep cultivation of the high-end market. It is reported that in 2022, WEILAI will have 3 NT2.0 products, including ET7, and xiaopeng G9, ideal X01, SAIC Zhiji L7, Great Wall Salon Mecha Dragon and other main high-end market products have been listed and delivered.
"These new products will be more technologically advanced than fuel vehicles as a whole." We believe that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles will continue to increase rapidly in 2022. Ma Lin said. For the development prospects of new energy vehicles in 2022 and the next few years, many car company leaders, including Wang Chuanfu, He Xiaopeng and Li Bin, have publicly expressed optimism. CICC Research Report also pointed out that looking forward to 2022, it is expected that the demand for the automotive industry will grow steadily, the penetration rate of new energy will increase rapidly, the intelligence will accelerate, and the industrial transformation will arrive.