Introduction: Looking back at 2021, the upward power of Chinese cars.
Over the past few years, self-owned brands have been playing the role of catch-ups. Today, with the wave of intelligent electrification rolling in, independent brands are already in the world's leading echelon; Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, once pointed out that from January to November 2021, the global sales of new energy passenger cars in the generalized sense reached 7.96 million units, of which China's new energy passenger cars accounted for 52%.
Looking back at 2021, chip shortages, the continued spread of the epidemic and the rapid growth of raw material prices have always touched the nerves of the automobile consumer market. Resisting the complex and changeable economic situation inside and outside and the pressure from the supply chain, SAIC Passenger Vehicles has created a record high with a good result of exceeding 800,000 in 2021 and an increase of 22% year-on-year, ranking first in the domestic camp; among them, the annual sales of new energy vehicles were 161,000 vehicles, an increase of 107% year-on-year, and the penetration rate exceeded 20%, ranking among the top six in the world.
In overseas markets, SAIC Passenger Vehicles broke the record of total exports with a record of 290,000 units exported in the whole year, an increase of 68% year-on-year, and won the first place in many industries such as export first, overseas sales of Chinese single car brand, and first place in the market share of Chinese car brands in Europe and Australia.
Under the grand vision of global "double carbon", Volkswagen, GM, Honda, etc. have successively released electrification strategies and "depicted" the Chinese market as the most core battlefield. At the same time, in 2022, with the gradual liberalization of foreign equity ratios, Chinese car companies will face more fierce competition.
And those independent brands that are based in China and rooted in other countries will undoubtedly become a model sample for China's automobile industry.
With five-star quality, pry open the global market
The gradual liberalization of the foreign equity ratio has always sounded the alarm for independent brands to practice their internal skills, and on the other hand, they are also examining whether foreign-funded enterprises have the strength to stand in China. In the face of the pressure brought about by the transformation of intelligence and electrification, some established multinational car companies, such as General Motors and Renault, are comprehensively shrinking their global and Chinese layouts.
In contrast, independent brands are attacking the city in overseas markets. In the past year, BYD, Weilai and Xiaopeng have announced their overseas strategies. In front of them, SAIC passenger car products have successfully entered 66 countries and regions, and have directly competed with international auto giants in many high-energy markets such as Europe and Australia and New Zealand.
It is understood that in 2021, SAIC Passenger Cars ranked among the top ten single brands in 17 countries around the world, creating the best results in the history of Chinese auto brands in overseas markets.
In terms of new energy alone, according to eu-evs data, in 2021, 11 European countries such as Norway, the United Kingdom, and Germany sold a total of 853,075 electric vehicles, and SAIC passenger cars ranked first among independent brands without suspense; in high-energy segments such as Sweden and the United Kingdom, SAIC passenger cars became the leader of independent brands with a market share of 6.3% and 5.8%, and even reached the top 4 heights of the sales list.
Led by the above automobile passenger cars, the overall export scale and influence of China's own brands overseas continue to increase. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers expects that China's overall auto export market will reach a scale of about 2 million vehicles in 2021, and automobile exports will maintain high growth in 2022.
In fact, as early as the 1990s, China's national industry has long recognized the importance of "going out", represented by Haier, Hisense, Huawei, Wanxiang, Shougang and other enterprises, Made in China began its first expedition. In 2001, China joined the WTO, and in October of the same year, carrying China's first batch of overseas passenger cars, a freighter slowly sailed out of Tianjin Port, and China's automobile industry officially set sail.
However, in the following nearly 20 years, Chinese cars have been difficult to get rid of the phenomenon of "water and soil", and in the face of more stringent European standards, independent brands have "repeatedly lost battles". Until 2019, SAIC Passenger Vehicles won the Euro-NCAP crash test five-star safety rating with its MG HS and pure electric MG EZS models. Since then, its excellent safety performance has become one of the european market labels for SAIC passenger cars in overseas markets, and even with the most stringent regulations or certifications such as E-MARK, REACH, ECE R100, GPDR, etc.
(Last year, the roewe iMAX8, the first MPV model developed based on the SIGMA architecture, won the "7G" rating in the crash test of China Insurance Research Institute, becoming the best MPV in the crash test of China Insurance Research Institute in the past.)
In 2021, SAIC Passenger Cars continued its previous strong performance, further encircling the global market with "five-star safety" quality, and its models topped the list of Teknikens Varld's top ten models of the year, the largest automotive media in Sweden, the "Most Valuable Model of 2021" by drive CAR, the authoritative australian automotive media, and the "Best Model of the Year" by "ARETS BIL2021" in Norway.
For many brands, selling products overseas represents success, but in SAIC's globalization strategy for passenger cars, it is not only the export of products, but also the global linkage of technology, design, manufacturing and supply chain. At present, SAIC Passenger Vehicle has built three innovation R&D centers overseas in Silicon Valley, London and Tel Aviv, and has two overseas production bases in Thailand and India.
Behind these forward-looking layouts is the support from the strength of SAIC's passenger car system.
The architecture is the ship, and the technology is the sail
From the first industrial revolution initiated by Britain in the 1760s, which pioneered the replacement of manual labor by machines, to the 200 years of the 21st century, there has been a revolution in steam technology, power technology, computers and information technology. The development of the first three industrial revolutions has brought about earth-shaking changes in the world.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution took the stage against the backdrop of combining digital technologies for communication with software, sensors and nanotechnology in cyber-physical systems. Digitalization has penetrated into all fields, and in the automotive industry, a storm of change about digitalization, intelligence and electrification is also rapidly brewing and fermenting.
In the face of the industry's "new four modernizations" trend, SAIC Motor Passenger Vehicle has comprehensively promoted digital transformation in the past year, and built a four-in-one full-service chain digital intelligent transformation and innovation model of "digital research and development + intelligent manufacturing + digital supply chain + digital marketing", thus creating a number of industry firsts and uniques. For example, it became the first car company in the world to obtain cmMI-DEV V2.0 ML5 level evaluation certification, won the title of "2021 National Quality Benchmark", and won the 8,000 enterprises in the country to win the 2021 national "Intelligent Manufacturing Benchmarking Enterprise"...
Under the great change, SAIC Passenger Vehicles has made every effort to sprint to the new track of "electric intelligent network connection", accelerate the transformation of key technologies of new energy and intelligent networked vehicles, and create a new generation of electric intelligent vehicles with "data determining experience and software-defined cars" with users as the center.
In the field of intelligent driving, different from the intelligent driving that prevails in the market, which is based on vision and supplemented by radar, SAIC Passenger Vehicle has created a full-stack self-developed high-level intelligent driving solution PP-CEM, and built the world's only all-weather, all-scene, over-the-horizon, multi-dimensional "six-fold fusion perception system". In the field of smart cabins, SAIC Passenger Cars is driven by user experience, relying on the world's largest semantic library built by SAIC million Internet owners and Ali's 300 million intelligent families, realizing the self-evolving AI semantics of T+X, and launching the first heterogeneous fusion intelligent cockpit system Roselle OS in China, opening the first year of emotional intelligence of intelligent cockpits.
As one of the earliest car companies in China to lay out new energy, SAIC Passenger Vehicle has independently mastered the core technology of Sandian and reached the world-class level. In the middle of last year, the new generation of pure electric platform began to shine, in the battery safety issues that consumers are most concerned about, and the current mainstream battery system products in the market only pay attention to the cell or module level protection is different, which is characterized by comprehensive protection from the module to the system, and through the five major means of "pre-guidance, guidance, lying, isolation and dredging", to achieve the goal of "zero heat runaway" and ensure high safety.
Under the wave of technological upgrading, car-making architecture, as one of the core technologies in the automotive industry, has become an inevitable move for powerful car companies. In 2022, SAIC Motor Passenger Vehicles will achieve mass production of a new generation of pure electric architecture. Combining SAIC's nearly 20 years of experience in exploring new energy and intelligent networking, the new generation of pure electric architecture is the product of the wave of intelligent electrification, with the dual characteristics of electricity and intelligence, and is also a key step in the electrification transformation of SAIC passenger vehicles.
Prior to this, SAIC Passenger Vehicles has launched the SIGMA architecture. The SIGMA architecture supports fuel, hybrid and hydrogen all-energy drive forms, offering 9 power types and 18 power combinations. More importantly, the SIGMA architecture meets the requirements of the global 100+ market regulations, and the proportion of high-strength steel applications exceeds 80%, which makes the models born based on the architecture have the strength to reach the world's highest safety star and insurance star.
After the mass production of the new generation of pure electric architecture, SAIC Passenger Vehicle will become one of the few car companies in the industry with a dual five-star architecture. The two five-star architectures will form a super product incubator for SAIC Passenger Vehicles, exerting the maximum effect of platformization, modularization and architecture, and helping SAIC Passenger Vehicles to further leverage the global market.
Technology and innovation are the core strength of a car company to do a good job and continue to improve. Because of this, SAIC Passenger Vehicles has made its full transformation into a high-tech company, and last year won the 2021 EDGE AWARDS "Automotive Technology Index - The Most Influential Enterprise in the Automotive Industry of the Year" award, as well as the "2021 Potential Car Company" and other technology awards.
Looking back on 2021, with the construction of a full-field technology base, forward-looking intelligent network connection, and new energy technology layout, SAIC Passenger Vehicles has continuously made breakthroughs upwards and achieved a take-off in sales and word of mouth.
Looking forward to 2022, in the complex external environment, relying on the wave of intelligent electrification and the advantages of dual-architecture car manufacturing, SAIC Passenger Vehicles will further lead China's independent brands to reshape the global automotive industry pattern.