The century-old changes in the automotive industry continue to deepen, and the plot will become more and more exciting
Wen | Liu Ding Yin Lu Zheng Hui
In 2021, many positive changes have taken place in China's auto market: sales of new energy vehicles have soared by 158% year-on-year, Chinese brands have been favored by consumers, market share has risen to a record high, and China's auto exports have doubled.
On the one hand, this comes from the continuous years of technology accumulation and R&D investment of Chinese enterprises, and on the other hand, from the gifts of the times: the wave of automobile electrification, intelligence, networking and sharing, which provides rare development opportunities for Chinese vehicle enterprises and Chinese parts and components enterprises.
In 2022, the century-old changes in the automotive industry will continue to deepen, and the five major trends in the automotive market will become more and more obvious:
The market share of new energy vehicles has accelerated;
The competitiveness of Chinese brands has been improved with sustainability;
The adjustment and deepening of the global automotive industry pattern, the ranking of Chinese car companies has been upgraded;
China's parts and components enterprises show a rising momentum;
Automatic driving began to land, and autonomous driving technology became the commanding heights of the industry.
The proportion of new energy vehicles has accelerated
According to the association, the sales share of new energy vehicles in China will increase to about 22% in 2022, continuing the upward momentum in 2020 and 2021.
This goal looks within reach, new energy vehicles include commercial vehicles and passenger cars, in the most important passenger car market, due to the monthly increase in sales, The monthly proportion of December 2021 has increased to 21%.
2021 is the start of new energy vehicles, with the decline in prices, the charm of models to improve, new energy vehicles have a strong substitution effect on fuel vehicles, new energy vehicle sales reached 3.52 million, a year-on-year increase of 158%.
In the field of pure electric vehicles, in 2021, Tesla's domesticAlly produced Model 3 and Model Y models will be lowered to within 300,000 yuan, and BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class models will seize the market, and Wuling Hongguang MINI EV models will sweep the mini car market with high cost performance, with annual sales of up to 430,000 vehicles;
In addition, with the application of new technologies and new car platforms, MODELS such as BYD Han EV, GAC E-An S, Great Wall Euler Good Cat, Xiaopeng P7, and Volkswagen ID Series have won the favor of consumers and sold hotly.
In the field of plug-in hybrid vehicles, due to BYD's innovation in blade batteries and hybrid systems, the price has been pulled down to the same level as the same level of fuel vehicles of the same grade, making its plug-in hybrid models sell nearly 300,000 vehicles in total in 2021, supporting half of the national market segment; coupled with the ideal ONE model growth of 3 times to 90,000 vehicles, promoting the high growth of China's plug-in hybrid market.
Since the second half of 2021, Geely, Changan, Great Wall Weipai, Dongfeng Lantu plug-in hybrid models have been unveiled, in 2022, these new models with similar experience to fuel vehicles, as well as similar prices to the same level of joint venture fuel vehicles, will be able to further promote the heat of China's plug-in hybrid vehicle market.
China only regards pure electric and plug-in hybrids as new energy vehicles, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in 2021, the wholesale sales of pure electric passenger cars and plug-in hybrid passenger cars in the Chinese market will be 2.73 million and 600,000 units, respectively.
In 2022, there will be more popular new energy models on the market, the charm of products will be further enhanced, in addition, the main products of new energy models will also be from the mini car and luxury car market, further penetrate into the price range of 100,000-200,000 yuan.
In the future, under the stimulation of the double integration policy, the new vehicle planning of automakers will also be further inclined to new energy vehicles. For example, in 2020, Weilai Automobile received 517 million yuan of new energy vehicle credit revenue, equivalent to 12,000 yuan per vehicle, while traditional car manufacturers such as Volkswagen, FAW, Changan, geely and so on had to face huge negative integral dissipation pressure.
Under many favorable factors, the market share of new energy vehicles will accelerate.
The competitiveness of Chinese brands has become sustainable
In the midst of the transformation of the automobile market, the performance of Chinese brands is eye-catching.
The market share of Chinese brand passenger cars returned to its all-time best level again in 2021, close to the stage high point of 2017.
However, this recovery is very different from the all-time highs of 2017.
In 2017, the market share increased, and Chinese brands relied on the first-mover advantage of SUVs. From 2013 to 2017, the total sales volume of China's SUV market from 3 million to 10 million units, Great Wall Motor, GAC Group, Geely Automobile, Changan Automobile and other companies launched Haval H6, Trumpchi GS4, Geely Boyue, Changan CS75 and other explosive models, enjoying the market from scratch, rapid expansion of the dividend, but with the decline in the SUV market boom, its market share has shrunk year after year.
The increase in market share in 2021 comes from the breakthrough of the car market. According to the market retail data of the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the sales volume of Chinese brand cars in 2021 increased by 66.8% year-on-year, while the Japanese,German and American cars both declined.
Cars are the most competitive market and the strongest position for foreign brands. According to the statistics of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the market share of Chinese brands in the car market in 2021 is 32%, which still has a lot of room for improvement, compared with 52% and 68% in the SUV and MPV markets, respectively.
The ability to open up the sales of cars shows that Chinese brands have the competitiveness to challenge foreign brands, and the recovery in 2021 is more gold-rich and sustainable.
In 2022, the car products of Chinese brands will be more abundant, in addition to the BYD Qin series, Changan's UNI-V, Geely's Xingrui, New Emgrand and other models, all have the potential to advance to the top ten of the sales list.
At the same time, Chinese brands are impacting the luxury car market with unprecedented force.
China's luxury car market of more than 300,000 has always been dominated by foreign brands, but Chinese brands will gradually emerge in 2021. For example, the Annual Sales of Weilai and The Ideal Brand, which are priced at more than 300,000 yuan, have annual sales of more than 90,000 vehicles, the newly listed JiKr brand and Lantu brand have also achieved monthly sales of about 3,000 vehicles, and Great Wall Motor's Tank 500 model has also received a large number of orders.
Although the luxury car market has a downward trend in 2021, the luxury car market is still worthy of active challenges by Chinese brands, on the one hand, it can earn huge profits, on the other hand, it can enhance the brand potential and comprehensive competitiveness, and change the image of Chinese brands as cheap and low-quality.
In 2022 and the next few years, more Chinese brand models will impact the luxury car market, such as SAIC's Zhiji brand, Great Wall Motor's salon brand, Changan Automobile's Avita brand, in addition, Lynk & Co, Weipai and other brands will also launch models in the range of 300,000.
The global auto market has accelerated its reshuffle, and the position of Chinese car companies has increased
In 2021, China's automobile exports reached a record high of 2.02 million units, not only more than double the year-on-year increase, but also broke through the bottleneck of about 1 million vehicles in many years.
Of the 2.02 million vehicles, in addition to tesla's Shanghai factory contributing about 150,000 vehicles, the rest are mainly contributed by Chinese brands.
For example, SAIC Motor's export and overseas bases reached 700,000 units, Chery Automobile's exports reached 270,000 units, and Great Wall Motor and Geely Automobile exceeded 100,000 units, and their export and overseas base sales showed high growth.
The reason for the high growth is mainly due to the improvement of the competitiveness of Chinese brand models, and the secondary reason is the reduction of rival production caused by the epidemic.
According to the data of the China Automobile Dealers Association, from January to November 2021, the top ten countries in China's automobile exports were Chile, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Belgium, Australia, Mexico, Egypt, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh and Peru, which accounted for half of China's automobile exports.
In addition, according to the statistics of Soochow Securities Research Institute, in the first three quarters of 2021, car production in Chile, Russia and Egypt markets was not significantly affected by the epidemic, and the improvement of Chinese brands in this market was due to the introduction of new models and the improvement of competitiveness, especially the Chery Tiggo models, Great Wall Haval models, and SAIC MG models performed prominently, and the market share of competitors Suzuki, Kia, Mazda, Honda and Toyota in the corresponding market declined;
In the same period, automobile production in the Australian and Indian markets was affected by the epidemic, and enterprises such as Great Wall Motor and SAIC Motor group seized the market gap by virtue of their supply chain capabilities.
In addition, the growth of the European market is accelerating year by year.
According to the Data of the China Automobile Dealers Association, the year-on-year growth rate of exports to Europe will increase year by year in 2020, and the value of exports to Asia and Africa will decline year by year.
Behind this is of course the blessing of Tesla's Shanghai factory exported to Europe, but it can not rule out the improvement of Chinese brand grade. In the past, the main force of Chinese brand exports was low-end models, relying on some poor countries and irregular markets such as Asia and Africa, and in 2021, Chinese car companies have opened up a situation in the European market. Geely Automobile uses Volvo channels to open up the European market and actively enhance the popularity of its Lynk & Co brand, Great Wall Motors is also marketing its new Euler and Wei brand models in Europe, and the new force Wei Xiaoli has also successively laid out in Europe.
The increase in market share, the impact on the luxury car market, and the launch of exports have all confirmed the improvement of the competitiveness of Chinese brands, and the main reason behind it is that Chinese brands have been more actively invested in research and development in the past few years and more actively laid out the new energy vehicle track.
For example, Geely Automobile learned from Volvo and launched its own SEA vast platform, Great Wall Motors broke through large-displacement fuel engine technology and laid out lithium batteries, GAC Aean invested 3 billion yuan to develop GEP pure electric vehicle platform around 2017 and iterated many times, and new car-making enterprises have been established and continuously improved products and technologies.
In 2021, the new energy vehicles of Chinese brands have been iterated many times, setting off a market boom, and the cost continues to decline, while Volkswagen's ID series has just been listed in China, and Toyota's pure electric vehicle BZ series needs to wait until 2022 to be listed.
Under the century-long changes in the automotive industry, the global automotive market is accelerating its reshuffle.
On the one hand, the sales growth of traditional automobile brands has slowed down, or even declined, and due to the drag of their own burdens, the pace of transformation of new energy vehicles has been slow; on the other hand, new brands have developed rapidly. For example, Tesla's global sales surpass Volvo in 2021, according to the current growth rate, it is likely to surpass Audi in 2022, and even chase BMW and Mercedes-Benz, changing the global luxury car brand pattern.
In 2022 and beyond, Chinese auto brands can be expected to occupy a better position in the global automotive industry pattern.
China's parts and components enterprises have shown a rising momentum
For many years, although the Chinese auto market accounts for one-third of the world's sales, Chinese auto parts companies have always been at a low level. According to the ranking of the world's top 100 parts and components companies compiled by China AutoMotive News, only one Chinese company ranked in the top ten in 2020, while the top 50 except for 5 Chinese companies are almost all European, Japanese and American companies.
However, the strength and weakness of auto parts companies also change with the rise and fall of vehicle companies. According to the list of the top 100 compiled by Nikkei Chinese Network, from 2000 to 2020, due to the decline of traditional American car companies, the number of American companies in the world's top ten parts list has decreased from 6 to 1; and with the rise of the Volkswagen Group, the number of European parts companies in the top ten list has increased from 2 to 5.
Is it possible for Chinese parts and components companies to rise by taking advantage of the century-old changes? There is already a bit of momentum to be seen.
First, the curing system of the global automotive parts supply is being broken from the outside and inside. Over the past hundred years, vehicle brands and parts companies have formed a pyramid-like tight system, and the global parts competition pattern has solidified, especially Japanese companies, such as Toyota Motor, have formed a closed kingdom with parts giants such as Denso and Aisin Seiki through family and capital ties, and it is difficult for outsiders to get opportunities.
Externally, global auto companies have reshuffled, driving the development of emerging parts companies. For example, Tesla's Shanghai factory has continuously improved the localization rate, previously announcing that it would reach 90% by the end of 2021, and planning to increase it to 100% in the near future.
Tesla does not stick to the supplier audit system of traditional car companies, and mainly selects suppliers based on the criteria of cooperation, response speed, and R&D strength, which is extremely beneficial to Chinese parts and components companies.
The development of Chinese parts and components companies with Tesla as the main customer has also begun to accelerate, such as Tuopu Group and Xusheng Shares, whose total operating income in the first three quarters of 2021 has increased by more than 80% year-on-year, and is much higher than the growth rate of the same period last year.
From 2010 to 2020, the global smartphone penetration rate increased from 19% to 80%, driven by Apple, China's mobile phone parts companies rose with it, such as Goertek's total operating income climbed from 2.6 billion yuan to 57.7 billion yuan, from a private small factory to a global leader.
In the next decade, Tesla plans to increase sales from the current 1 million or so to 20 million vehicles, coupled with the joint pull of other Chinese new energy vehicle companies, China's auto parts industry will have the opportunity to achieve rapid development.
Internally, the shift from automobile production to a horizontal division of labor is also subverting the current curing system.
The number of parts for pure electric vehicles is reduced by half compared with that of fuel vehicles, and the versatility of each part becomes stronger, so the vehicle companies coordinate the performance of different parts by controlling the software, and continuously upgrade the software to improve the quality of the vehicle, and the hardware product module is entrusted to external enterprises for production.
For example, Sony, which has just released a pure electric vehicle "VISION-S", outsources production to Austrian manufacturer Magna Steyr, and focuses on the overall concept, sensors and artificial intelligence; Toyota Motor has also divided labor with the outside level in the process of electric vehicle transformation, such as its choice to cooperate with SoftBank to develop autonomous driving technology, cooperation to seek BYD's battery technology, and so on.
Former Suzuki Motors President Suzuki Osamu believes that if the horizontal division of labor model progresses, "the existing industrial pyramid will disintegrate."
Second, with the improvement of technological strength, Chinese parts and components companies are accelerating import substitution and grabbing market share. For example, the vehicle head-up display (HUD), the domestic market was previously dominated by Japan Seiki, Denso, Continental Group and other enterprises, in the first half of 2021, the Shipments of Chinese parts and components company Huayang Group jumped to the third, with a market share of 24%, similar to Japan's Seiki and Denso.
Toyota Motor Procurement Chief Masayoshi Shirayanagi said in 2020 that Toyota's supporting enterprises have become more and more difficult in recent years due to the competition of Chinese companies; Haruki Tsujimura, former deputy general manager of Toyota Motor (China) Investment Co., Ltd., said, "Compared with the changes brought about by the wave of electric vehicles, the threat of competition among Chinese companies is greater." ”
Third, the demand for fuel vehicle-related parts has decreased, while the application of new components such as autonomous driving software, chips, sensors, power batteries, and integrated molding die castings has increased, providing new opportunities for Chinese companies.
For example, Huawei and Baidu will strive to play the role of a Tier 1 supplier in 2021, promoting their software technologies and solutions to vehicle companies and challenging giants such as Bosch and Continental.
Another example is the power battery, in 2022, BYD, China Innovation Aviation, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Ewell Lithium Energy, Hive Energy and other Chinese enterprises will open a wave of expansion and expand their production capacity advantages in China and the world.
In the fields of lidar, autonomous driving chips, and integrated molding die castings, Chinese companies have also emerged.
The increase in sales of new energy vehicles, the application of new technologies, and the development of horizontal division of labor have given Chinese parts and components companies the opportunity to stand on the same running line with international giants, and their future performance is worth looking forward to.
Autonomous driving technology has become the commanding heights of the industry
Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess expects that autonomous driving will trigger more drastic industry changes than the electrification of cars.
Toyota Motor President Akio Toyoda announced in January 2018 that toyota motors will be transformed into a mobility service company and will be automobileized.
According to Tesla's vision, the future will create a travel platform, Tesla owners can share vehicles, access to the travel platform and become self-driving taxis, making money for owners and travel platforms; in addition, cars with automatic driving functions will become interactive terminals similar to smart phones, Tesla will create a software system similar to Apple, providing shopping, entertainment and many other services.
This means that vehicle companies will rely more on software and travel services to make profits and build a software service empire in the future, so software capabilities and autonomous driving technology have become the commanding heights that car companies must compete for, and with the development of horizontal division of labor production mode, the importance of supply chain integration capabilities has declined.
Therefore, vehicle companies have increased their investment in autonomous driving and unmanned taxi fleets. For example, Volvo set up Zenseact, an autonomous driving software research and development company, GUANGZHOU AUTOMOBILE Group invested in the establishment of a travel platform, Ruqi Travel, and cooperated with Wenyuan Zhixing to develop autonomous driving technology; Geely Automobile promoted its Krypton brand to cooperate with Waymo to build a driverless taxi fleet.
Toyota Motor, in particular, has even begun to build a "Woven City" in order to promote transformation, and has set up two autonomous driving development centers in Silicon Valley and Japan, focusing not only on the performance of vehicle autonomous driving, but also on the comfort brought by autonomous driving to passengers.
Entering 2022, the transformation of vehicle companies will continue to accelerate.
The Volkswagen Group and Bosch reached a cooperation on January 25, 2022 to jointly develop autonomous driving technology, and Xiaopeng Motors plans to enter the field of self-driving taxis in the second half of 2022 to improve the stability and safety of its autonomous driving algorithms.
Due to the death of NIO's self-driving car accident in 2021, self-driving technology has been criticized for a while, but as a key technology for the next round of change, its development will only move forward, not backward. On December 18, 2021, NIO launched a new model, the ET5, declaring that it was "born for autonomous driving".
2022 will be the year of autonomous driving.
Musk said at Tesla's fourth-quarter 2021 earnings conference that the development of the fully autonomous driving kit FSD will be completed in 2022. After years of development, Tesla FSD has been iterated many times, and the number of test vehicles has increased from a few thousand in 2021 to the current 60,000, which is close to practical application.
In addition, in December 2021, Mercedes-Benz's L3 autonomous driving system passed the approval of the German Federal Motor Transport Authority, which means that in the first half of 2022, the Mercedes-Benz S sedan equipped with this system will become the world's first L3 level autonomous driving model that can be legally launched on the road.
In January 2022, Volvo also unveiled its L3-level autonomous driving system, ride Pilot, which is expected to be available in 2023 on the next-generation XC90 pure electric model with its SPA2 platform.
L3 level of automatic driving is a watershed between human and machine-led driving, after the automatic driving, the driver can completely free their hands and feet, completely by the system to perform acceleration, deceleration, lane change, turning and other operations.
In 2022, independent autonomous driving research and development enterprises will also contribute to the momentum.
Born from Google's Waymo, the technology accumulation is relatively deep, in 2020 released its fifth-generation autonomous driving suite Waymo Driver, on the one hand as a supplier to Volvo, Daimler and other vehicle companies to provide technology, on the other hand, it operates its own self-driving taxi fleet, truck freight fleet;
Baidu launched the unmanned driving project in 2013, the current test mileage of 21 million kilometers, is the only enterprise to reach the same level as Waymo, its self-driving taxi is also in the first echelon in China; in July 2021, Yuanrong, which began to operate the autonomous taxi team in the bustling section of Futian District, Shenzhen, has completed 40,000 orders and launched a front-loading autonomous driving solution with a cost of only 10,000 US dollars, which is the lowest in the industry.
Although electrification has brought about a reshuffle of the global automotive landscape, the game is not over, and the emerging vehicle brand, although temporarily dominant, may soon face the next industry disruption.
According to the number of patents applied for in autonomous driving-related technologies from 2014 to 2018 compiled by Nikkei Chinese Network, according to the regional ranking, China has the most, with 3283, Japan second, with 2173, and the United States third, with 2132.
Although China's overall number is the first, but the vehicle company is not strong, if according to the ranking of enterprises, Toyota ranks first, four of the top ten are Japanese companies, four American companies, only one Didi Chuxing is a Chinese company.
Risk points
Although the new energy vehicle market is good, there are still hidden worries in the global auto market in 2022.
First, financial markets are volatile or damage consumer markets. At the beginning of 2022, the global stock market suffered a heavy setback, if the impact on the macroeconomic and financial system is too large, it may have an impact on consumer car purchase plans and new car consumer loans, thereby changing the prosperity of the new energy vehicle market;
Second, extreme natural disasters such as the eruption of Mount Fuji have disrupted supply chains. The eruption of a volcano in Tonga has raised fears of an eruption on Mount Fuji in Japan, and Toshiji Fujii, director of the Mount Fuji Institute of Science, said it would not be surprising at any time. Once it erupts, semiconductor parts companies and auto parts companies at the foot of Mt. Fuji will be affected, and Toyota Motor's "weaving city" may also be affected;
Third, the price of raw materials has risen and there is a shortage. Chip shortage has damaged the development of global auto companies in 2021, although the industry has to deal with experience and psychological preparation, but due to short-term expansion difficulties, 2022 will still be troubled; in addition, the global power battery expansion led to a shortage of upstream resources, in the financial market sharp changes in 2022, the fluctuation of raw material prices, will also be a hidden danger in the industry.
What is certain is that the plot of the century-old changes in the automobile industry will become more and more exciting.
The author is a researcher and journalist at Caijing, editor: Mark
Caijing Industry Research Center focuses on the capital market, discusses the success or failure of companies, explores the rise and fall of the industry, discovers value, and warns of risks
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