On January 12, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers released 2021 car sales data showing that in 2021, China's automobile sales reached 26.275 million units, an increase of 3.8% year-on-year, ending the downward trend of three consecutive years since 2018. The reason why the overall automobile market growth has turned from negative to positive, new energy vehicles have contributed great strength.
In 2021, new energy vehicles will live up to expectations and become the biggest highlight of the auto market throughout the year. According to the data, the annual production and sales of new energy vehicles were booming, of which sales reached 3.521 million units, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year, ranking first in the world for seven consecutive years; the market share reached 13.4%, 8 percentage points higher than the previous year. Since March 2021, the monthly sales of new energy vehicles in China have exceeded 200,000, more than 300,000 in August, more than 400,000 in November, and 530,000 in December.
Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, believes that in 2021, new energy vehicles have shifted from policy-driven to market-driven new development stages, showing a good development situation of both market scale and development quality. Guo Shougang, deputy director of the First Department of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, believes that in addition to the scale of production and marketing, the quality and brand of new energy vehicles are also rapidly improving. The data shows that the average mileage of pure electric passenger cars has increased from 253 kilometers in 2016 to more than 400 kilometers in 2021, consumer quality satisfaction is the same as fuel vehicles, Chinese brand new energy passenger car sales account for 74.3% of the total sales of new energy passenger cars, and many models sell more than 10,000 monthly sales.
Looking at the overall new energy vehicle market, the sales volume of new energy passenger vehicles in 2021 reached 3.334 million units, an increase of 167.5% year-on-year, accounting for about 94.7% of the overall new energy market; the annual sales of new energy commercial vehicles was 186,000 units, an increase of 54.0% year-on-year, accounting for about 5.3% of the overall new energy market. From the data point of view, new energy passenger cars have played a huge role in pulling.
From the sales data of car companies released by the Association of Automobile Manufacturers a few days ago, it can be seen that most car companies have achieved triple-digit growth in new energy vehicle retail sales in 2021 compared with the previous year, such as BYD's annual top new energy vehicle sales, with sales reaching 584,000 units, SAIC-GM-Wuling New Energy sales reaching 431,000 units, Tesla China temporarily ranking third with 321,000 vehicle sales for the whole year, and the sales volume of China's new power brand "Wei Xiaoli" in 2021 is close to the top ten retail sales of new energy vehicle companies. In addition, in the top ten car companies in the list, in addition to Tesla, the remaining 9 are Chinese brands, in the past year, the take-off of Chinese brand new energy has boosted the penetration rate of new energy passenger cars.
Image source: Multiplying Association
Ma Lin, head of corporate communication at Weilai, said a few days ago that the significant increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China is 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 supplement system, the experience of electric vehicles has become better and better. Ma Lin believes that in 2022, Weilai, Xiaopeng, Ideal and many traditional car companies will have more than 200 new products entering the market, and these new products will be more advanced in technology than fuel vehicles, so the penetration rate of new energy vehicles will continue to increase rapidly in 2022.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Vehicle Joint Association, is also more optimistic about the growth trend of new energy vehicles in 2022, and his judgment is that according to the new standard of new energy vehicle subsidies this year, although the subsidy standard will decline by 30% on the basis of 2021, but while maintaining the current purchase subsidy technical indicator system framework and threshold requirements unchanged, the subsidy scale will also be from the original expected upper limit of 2 million to no limit, and will run through the whole year of 2022, this huge favorable policy will bring a huge increase to the new energy vehicle market.
It is reported that the original association expected the sales of new energy passenger vehicles in 2022 to be 4.8 million, but has now adjusted the expectations to more than 5.5 million, and the penetration rate has reached about 25%. In addition, the association expects that the overall domestic new energy automobile market sales are expected to exceed 6 million in 2022, with a penetration rate of about 22%.
Compared with the forecast of the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the forecast of the China Automobile Association is slightly more rational. Caambiz predicts that the overall domestic new energy vehicle sales will reach 5 million units in 2021, an increase of 47% year-on-year, which is the result of a combination of favorable and unfavorable factors in the market.
In fact, the development of the new energy vehicle market in the short term is still facing multiple challenges, such as "lack of core", in the past year, China's market reduction caused by "lack of core" is about 1.3 million, and the constraints of chip shortage are still continuing. Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, believes that in the first half of this year, the pressure of China's automobile market being constrained by "lack of core" is still relatively large, and before the end of the year, the chip supply will reach a tight balance.
In addition, the key components and raw materials supply of new energy vehicles also have hidden worries, last year there have been a number of car companies in the supply of batteries and the delivery efficiency slowed down, that in this year's new energy vehicle demand significantly increased, whether the supply chain can keep up with the test.
Based on the hidden worries of the above new energy market, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has recently given a signal of full support. Guo Shougang said at the press conference on the development of the automobile industry in 2021 that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will focus on four tasks in the field of new energy vehicles.
First, strengthen overall planning and coordination. Give full play to the role of the inter-ministerial joint conference mechanism for the development of energy-saving and new energy vehicle industries, formulate policies and measures to support accelerated development, and maintain the effective convergence of the policy system. Coordinate and improve the ability to guarantee key resources, strengthen communication with Qinghai, Sichuan, Jiangxi and other provinces and cities, and coordinate and accelerate the development of domestic lithium resources. According to the requirements of the "1 + N" policy system of the double carbon target, organize the preparation of a green and low-carbon development roadmap for the automobile industry.
The second is to accelerate the promotion and application. Accelerate the construction of charging and replacing infrastructure, continue to carry out the pilot work of new energy vehicles going to the countryside and replacing electricity, start the pilot project of fully electrifying vehicles in the public domain, and promote the increase of the proportion of new energy vehicles in urban public transportation, rental, logistics and distribution. It is hoped that all localities will introduce more preferential policies for parking, charging and other use links, and optimize car purchase restriction measures.
The third is to promote cross-border integration. Promote the integration and development of electrification and intelligent networking technology, accelerate the application of new technologies such as 5G information and communication, vehicle-road collaboration, and develop more functions suitable for consumers such as leisure and entertainment, life services, and automatic driving.
The fourth is to improve product quality. In terms of quality and safety, low temperature application and other aspects, higher standards and stricter requirements are put forward, and special actions for the upward development of Chinese automobile brands continue to be carried out.
From the above point of view, the demand for new energy vehicles in China continues to increase, the market level has been on the new technology and new models, the national level is also vigorously supporting the development of new energy vehicles, in this context, the rapid take-off of new energy vehicles is an inevitable trend.