2021 has become history, China's auto market in the turmoil forward, in the reform of the dream, although bumpy, but the overall remarkable. According to the production and sales data previously released by the China Automobile Association, in 2021, the production and sales of mainland automobiles reached 26.082 million units and 26.275 million units, up 3.4% and 3.8% year-on-year, respectively; of which passenger car production and sales were 21.408 million units and 21.482 million units, up 7.1% and 6.5% year-on-year, respectively. The growth rate is 3.7 and 2.7 percentage points higher than the industry, respectively; there is no doubt that China is still the world's largest single car market and the world's most vibrant car market. From the perspective of annual development, automobile production and sales in 2021 showed year-on-year growth, ending the decline of three consecutive years since 2018, which is gratifying!
Now when we look back at 2021, we will find that although China's automotive industry is in the depths of the water, the pace of progress is unstoppable. Of course, there will also be some discordant voices in the automotive industry in 2021, but we know that the development of any industry will not be smooth sailing. Therefore, standing at the beginning of 2022, it is necessary for us to revisit those "big things and small feelings" that happened in 2021, for convenience, we are divided into two parts, one is from the perspective of the industry, and the other is from the perspective of car companies.
Inventory of major events in the automotive industry
The chip shortage throughout the year has affected terminal delivery
In 2021, one of the words we can often hear is "lack of core", the reason for the lack of core is mainly due to the mismatch between the demand of the automotive industry and the chip industry cycle, coupled with a series of comprehensive factors such as the new crown pneumonia epidemic and the fire of chip manufacturers. The most direct result of the lack of core is to lead to a decline in production and sales of car companies, among which even auto giants such as Volkswagen, Toyota, and Honda are also deeply disturbed. According to the forecast data of AutoForecast Solutions, the cumulative production reduction of the global automobile market in 2021 may reach 11.324 million units, of which the cumulative production reduction of the Chinese automobile market is expected to be 2.148 million units, which is still very alarming.
However, the so-called crisis is also an "opportunity" in the "crisis". Chip shortages and sharp price increases have also made many car companies realize that the supply chain can not rely too much on foreign countries, but should look for suitable chip suppliers in China, or independently develop chips, which is a rare opportunity for independent chip manufacturers. China's chip manufacturing, which is well controlled by the epidemic, has begun to exert force, and many world-renowned suppliers have also come to the door, so that China's chip manufacturing has ushered in a rare opportunity for development, such as the annual growth of mainland integrated circuit sales reaching 20% in 2020, which is three times the growth rate of the global industry in the same period, and the growth rate is expected to be higher in 2021 (the data has not yet been released), and China's new curve overtaking opportunities are in front of us.
"Double carbon" is changing the pattern of the automotive industry, and car companies are meeting the challenges in different ways
From advocating energy conservation and emission reduction to controlling exhaust emissions, to clearly proposing "double carbon" targets, the pattern of the automotive industry is changing, a more radical and obvious example, such as many car companies have announced the "end" timetable of their traditional internal combustion engine models, including some car companies in the mainland. In addition, to reduce the consumption of traditional fossil energy, it is also necessary to solve the problem from the source of the power energy structure, such as increasing the supply ratio of clean electricity such as hydropower, wind power, photovoltaic power generation, and nuclear power generation, and changing the previous single fossil energy structure.
Starting from the national conditions of the mainland, the "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0" released last year, many domestic car companies have opened a route of new energy and hybrid go hand in hand, such as the Great Wall, BYD, Changan, Chery, SAIC, GAC and other independent brands have taken the lead in opening their own hybrid road, and have successively launched hybrid mass production models. It is foreseeable that in the future, the hybrid of traditional internal combustion engines supplemented by electric motors, or new energy vehicles with batteries as the power source, will be the direction of the upgrading and future development of the automobile industry.
The growth of new energy vehicles exceeded expectations, and the new forces of independent brands and car manufacturers bucked the trend
In 2021, the growth of domestic new energy vehicles is a bit unexpected. According to the China Automobile Association, domestic new energy passenger car sales reached 3.521 million units in 2021, an increase of 157.5% year-on-year, and the market share increased to 13.4%, 8 percentage points higher than in 2020. And the market development has shifted from a policy-driven to a new stage of market-driven development, showing a good development situation of both market scale and development quality, laying a solid foundation for the high-quality development of the "14th Five-Year Plan" automobile industry. There are three main factors for the rapid development of new energy vehicles: one is the continuous improvement of consumer acceptance and demand for new energy vehicles; the second is that the "double integration" policy forces OEMs to provide more new energy vehicle products to the market; third, the development of new energy technology and charging infrastructure has further promoted the development of the new energy vehicle market.
Independent brands and new car-making forces in the field of new energy performance is particularly eye-catching, independent traditional car companies, especially represented by BYD, Wuling, Great Wall Euler, GAC Aean, etc., new energy vehicle sales have achieved substantial growth; at the same time, Tesla and "Wei Xiaoli" as the representative of the new car-making forces are showing vigorous strength, although facing a series of unfavorable factors such as "battery shortage" and raw material price increases, but fortunately many car manufacturers have laid out in advance, actively responded to market changes, and flexibly adjusted business strategies. Increase the supply chain of strong chain replenishment, and with battery manufacturers, and even battery raw material manufacturers to establish a closer cooperative relationship, to achieve a certain degree of supply security.
Software competition has intensified, and capital is enthusiastic about autonomous driving
Unlike the previous mechanically defined car, today, software-defined cars have become the new consensus of the industry. IBM believes that by 2030, 90% of automotive innovation will come from software; Capgemini SE also expects that by 2030, more than 20% of automotive revenue will come from software. In the face of the industry trend and huge market prospects, technology suppliers and car companies have begun to exert efforts on this track. Including Continental, Valeo, Bosch, etc. are recruiting, and have successively established R & D centers in China; and the main engine factories are not idle, including FAW, SAIC, GAC, Geely, Changan, etc. are actively building their own software teams and increasing research and development efforts. However, with the in-depth development of intelligence and networking, the software architecture is becoming more and more complex, and it is difficult to rely on the strength of a single enterprise, so the ecological cooperation between enterprises is becoming increasingly close and frequent, and the entire industrial chain architecture is being rebuilt.
In addition, although the current policies, regulations, technical standards have not yet been perfected and unified, consumers also have doubts or ambiguity about automatic driving, but it does not seem to affect the capital market's enthusiasm for investment in this field, especially for the relevant core technologies in the field of intelligent networking, as well as the current market demand is large and easy to land technologies, such as visual perception solution providers, chip and computing software providers, full-stack autonomous driving technology solution providers, autonomous driving operators, Special scenario solution providers, etc., with the help of capital, are working towards a more reliable and better user experience, and there will be more technologies in this field in the future in the form of products.
A new round of cross-border car manufacturing has quietly arrived, and the marketing of car companies has completely released itself
Cross-border car manufacturing is not a new thing, the world's popular Tesla and several new car-making forces in the country, in the strict sense, are more or less with the components of cross-border car manufacturing, and in 2021, there have been Baidu, Didi, Xiaomi, 360, Lala, Maverick Electric and other official announcements to build cars or enter the car-making field; around the end of 2021, there are Huawei AITO to ask the M5 to appear, pushing the "Huawei car" public opinion to a climax. Science and technology enterprises cross-border car manufacturing is naturally "profitable", intelligent electric vehicles have a trillion-level market size, this big cake no one wants to turn a blind eye; moreover, Wei Xiaoli and so on have made an example. Secondly, today's car manufacturing threshold has been greatly reduced, and core component suppliers already have strong system integration capabilities, which can achieve mass production and listing of models in a short period of time. Then there is the fact that the structure and attributes of automotive products have become software and content-oriented, and technology companies have great potential; and the profit model has also transitioned from selling products in the past to introducing customers with hardware, and then continuously enhancing new value through OTAs.
On the side of this box, cross-border car manufacturing is in full swing; that side, the marketing of car companies is no longer conformist, but a variety of tricks, and other than mention, in terms of model naming, the performance of today's car companies in various ideas is also amazing. Among them, the Great Wall took the lead in opening the "Pandora's Box", dog series, cat series, coffee series, cannon pickup trucks, mecha dragons, etc., how to catch people's attention and how to come; BYD is no longer conformist, the ocean network is officially established, and the marine life series and warship series are also eye-opening. Not only that, many traditional domestic car companies have also begun to chase the concept of "meta-universe"... Such marketing costs are extremely low, but the traffic is extremely high, the future may have more host manufacturers to follow this form, automobile marketing will enter the stage of a hundred flowers.
Inventory of major events of automobile manufacturers
Xiaomi built a car, and "Rebus" went to the sea again
As mentioned above, in 2021, a wave of cross-border car manufacturing boom has risen, which is the most concerned about Xiaomi, which is mainly because of the xiaomi brand's consistent good reputation and Lei Jun's personal influence, in fact, the gossip about millet car manufacturing has long been spread in the industry for several years, only last year Xiaomi was officially determined, and from xiaomi in the official announcement of the car, whether from the capital reserves, research and development team or "Rebbs" the leader, giving people a feeling of "reliable", And Xiaomi car has officially settled in Beijing Yizhuang, according to the plan, about two years later we will see the real millet car, look forward to it.
Tesla is deeply trapped in the "brake door", and various plot reversals refresh the three views
Tesla brake failure incident in 2021 lasted for more than half a year, so far there is no authoritative, definitive answer, and during the Tesla and the user's various counterattacks and rights protection also refreshed the three views of the melon eating masses, the two sides did not compromise, not to calmly solve the problem, but came to a "hard hit", relatively speaking, users are indeed difficult to identify the functional defects of the "autopilot assist system", so in order to avoid similar situations, the state mandatory regulations, since January 1 this year, The new car produced must be equipped with EDR, that is, the "black box", hoping that with this "weapon", there will be a situation similar to tesla brake failure, which is well documented.
Regarding electrification, Japanese brands no longer hesitate
With the in-depth development of electrification, the traditional car company "elephant turn" has become a trend, however, the Japanese brand did not seem to be so active in the past, although including Toyota, Honda, etc., in the field of electrification technology also has a deeper accumulation, but so far, the Japanese brand has not yet a real sense of pure electric vehicles, but, with the turn of the market, especially the Chinese market quickly become the world's largest market for pure electric vehicles, which is the Japanese brand unexpected, now the time is ripe, so Toyota, Honda, Nissan, etc., have also begun to exert electricization, and Toyota and Honda have not chosen to display products at the auto show, but have chosen to show their muscles at one time through the strategic conference, which also indicates that japanese brands have "woken up" and begun to "pick peaches" on the mountain.
They have pointed to the secondary entrepreneurship of high-end, independent traditional car companies
The field of new energy can indeed make a lot of achievements, especially many new car-making forces have begun to break the wrist with the BBA, and the independent traditional car companies that boast more car-making confidence seem to be "swung together", but obviously their own brands do not have such a high brand premium, what to do? Create another high-end brand! So in 2021, we see Geely Extreme Kr, Dongfeng Lantu, SAIC Zhiji, Changan Avita, Great Wall Salon, etc., in the future, BYD will also launch high-end new energy sub-brands, some of which have entered the mass production car delivery stage, but overall, the independent traditional car companies incubate high-end new energy brands are generally slower, but things have two sides, which also makes users feel more down-to-earth, and this year will be a key year for these brands to form technology and brand core capabilities.
Marketing overturned, car companies should be cautious in the future
Although The Chinese auto market is a thriving scene on the surface, it is also impossible to avoid the emergence of "black cuisine", a series of negative events, not only to hurt the rights and interests of consumers, but also to cause invisible harm to the brand. For example, Evergrande's financial "thunder", even if Evergrande Automobile is listed in the future, how many users dare to buy it? There is also the mercury incident of the ideal car and the fatal incident of Weilai's "automatic driving assistance system", which is not handled properly and has also caused certain harm to the brand. In addition, car companies should also be cautious in choosing a spokesperson, for example, Wang Lihong was exposed to cheating in marriage just after becoming an Infiniti spokesperson, and had to quickly terminate the contract; and after Wu Yifan's accident, Nezha Automobile actually had employees who wanted to ask Wu to serve as a brand spokesperson, and the brain circuit was simply strange; and Rolls-Royce actually asked the "black material internet celebrity couple" to endorse, which is also a big fool in the slippery world, attracting a lot of criticism... Therefore, car companies still have to be careful not to challenge people's psychological limits, once the defense is broken, I am afraid it will be too late to regret it.
Written in the end: In fact, the big events in the automotive industry in 2021 are far more than above, and like all industries, there are bittersweet and bittersweet, there are also sorrows and joys, but no matter what, the pace of the automotive industry will not stop. 2021 has passed, 2022 has come, and it will be a wonderful year.