Does the market need a motorcycle? The answer is yes.
According to the data released by the China Motorcycle Chamber of Commerce, the production and sales of motorcycles in the mainland will once again recover to 20 million in 2021, the best level since 2014.
To a certain extent, the growth path of electric motorcycles may be able to replicate electric vehicles.
In recent years, electric vehicles are gradually eating away at the market share of fuel vehicles. According to automotive industry data firm LMC Automotive, electric vehicles will account for half of global car sales in 2030. Coincidentally, electric motorcycles also have some growth potential from alternative fuel motorcycles, when the local environmental protection indicators as the entry threshold, fuel motorcycles will inevitably face transformation.
In contrast, the life of two-wheeled electric vehicles is not good: at present, light two-wheeled electric vehicle manufacturers rely on subsidies to eat under the unfavorable conditions of "banning motorcycles", and can only rely on technology to "draw cakes", and core capabilities are difficult to break through for a long time. In order to achieve leapfrog development, light two-wheeled electric vehicle manufacturers undoubtedly need to open up new development routes.
According to the data reported by the China Research Institute of Industry Research, due to the impact of the epidemic in 2020, the global market for motorcycles will show a strong growth of 6.87% in 2021, and the market size is expected to grow from 298.58 billion US dollars in 2021 to 485.67 billion US dollars in 2028. According to the report "2021-2027 Global and China Electric Motorcycle Market Status and Future Development Trend", the global electric motorcycle market is expected to reach 69.3 billion yuan in 2026, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.5%.
The electric motorcycle industry is fully recovering, is it a flash in the pan or another blue ocean? When the ban on motorcycles is still unfriendly, where should electric motorcycles go?
The industry revolution is happening
The sound of motorcycles "returning" has never stopped.
What exactly does a motorcycle mean to consumers? With the development of social economy, people's cognition of motorcycles has long been not "commuting by car" and "cheap and easy to use". Today, when the spending power of "Generation Z" rises, motorcycles become a new way of life. This change in lifestyle can often trigger the restructuring of an industry.
Image source: 123RF
However, although the call for the return of motorcycles is still there, the domestic large-displacement motorcycle market is still not so optimistic, and consumer demand is mainly concentrated on low-end products.
Chen Xuan, head of the marketing department of Suke, said that as far as the global motorcycle industry is concerned, the consumer market situation at home and abroad shows different development laws.
At present, more than 70% of the global two-wheeler market is concentrated in Southeast Asia and China, and the two-wheeler market in these regions is very large, and small and medium-sized displacement models, mainly as commuting tools, are favored by volkswagens. The demand for large-displacement motorcycles above 500cc mainly comes from developed regions such as Europe and North America, and motorcycles are regarded as "big toys" with strong entertainment attributes.
This has also opened the market door for mainland motorcycle manufacturers to a certain extent. In 2021, the export sales of mainland motorcycles reached 8.9746 million units, an increase of 26.57% year-on-year, and the export value was 5.77 billion US dollars, an increase of 41.62% year-on-year.
Although the domestic and foreign motorcycle markets present two very different scenes, the domestic consumers' desire for the "big toy" of heavy motorcycles is obvious.
This can be seen from the eye-catching report card of electric motorcycle sales.
According to the data released by the China Motorcycle Chamber of Commerce, from January to December 2021, the production and sales of motorcycles in the whole industry were 20.1952 million units and 2019.48 million units, respectively, an increase of 12.98% and 12.7% year-on-year. Among them, the production and sales of electric motorcycles were 3.9589 million units and 3.9428 million units, an increase of 3.65% and 3.43% year-on-year.
During the same period, the production and sales of cross-cycling vehicles were 9.0909 million units and 9.0974 million units, an increase of 18.76% and 18.68% year-on-year; the production and sales of scooters were 6.471 million units and 6.4784 million units, up 9.58% and 9.25% year-on-year; and the production and sales of curved beam vehicles were 2.2785 million units and 22.277 million units, up 9% and 8.42% year-on-year.
Judging from the proportion of sales of the three models, the cross-cycling car ranks first with a proportion of 50.95%.
Domestic electric motorcycle sales are gratifying, but also largely affected by carbon neutrality policies.
In February 2021, the Guiding Opinions of the State Council on Accelerating the Establishment and Improvement of a Green and Low-Carbon Circular Development Economic System pointed out that it is necessary to establish and improve the economic system for green and low-carbon circular development to ensure the realization of carbon peaks and carbon neutrality goals.
In this way, in the context of carbon neutrality, the motorcycle industry is undergoing a quiet change, and heavy machine electric motorcycles have become a new development trend.
Under this trend, car companies that have enjoyed the dividends of new energy electric vehicles have a more sensitive sense of smell. Nowadays, the electric motorcycle track has also poured in many seeded players, and traditional car companies are one of the most active candidates.
Carbon neutrality targets have a broad impact, with the automotive industry bearing the brunt. Since then, new energy vehicles have become a must-choose direction for automobile manufacturing.
However, the transformation of the industry is not as simple as it seems, when traditional car companies want to get rid of path dependence. The technical research and development of new energy vehicle power batteries and their components is a "roadblock".
People in the relevant industry said that for automobile companies, the human, material and financial resources required for research and development are a huge expense, and they also need to seek new development to supplement the funding gap. The 100 billion-level motorcycle track is profitable, which is a good breakthrough direction. In terms of cost, compared with motorcycles, cars need to purchase a large number of parts, airbags, glass, car engine systems, seats, etc., just from the production cost, it is far higher than motorcycles.
The spring wind power in the motorcycle field, the motorcycle and automobile business as one of Lifan Technology, the profit performance of the two, is the best verification of the above views.
According to data from Huajing Industry Research Institute, Chunfeng Power's revenue in 2020 was 4.5 billion yuan, and the gross profit margin was 29.3%. In the same period, Lifan Technology's financial report shows that the company's motorcycle vehicle and accessories business revenue is 2.56 billion yuan, revenue accounted for 71.3%, gross profit margin of 8.6%, calculated down is also a considerable profit, which may also be why car companies will enter the most direct reason.
In fact, there are not a few car companies that lay out electric vehicle tracks.
Starting in 2021, Honda, Kawasaki, BMW and Ducati are all gradually involved in electric motorcycles. At present, domestic car companies such as Geely, Wuling, and Lynk & Co have announced their entry into the motorcycle industry. Although the above-mentioned domestic car companies have not yet announced the production models, but in terms of the domestic environment and situation, perhaps electric motorcycles are their best choice.
The "savior" of electric two-wheelers
In fact, compared with domestic car companies, electric motorcycles are of greater significance to two-wheeled electric vehicle manufacturers.
Industry data show that the mainland is the world's largest producer and consumer of electric two-wheelers, the national electric vehicle ownership has exceeded 350 million, in 2020 electric vehicle sales reached 47.6 million, an increase of 23%, the next three years of average sales of two-wheeled electric vehicles up to 57 million.
In recent years, the barbaric growth of electric two-wheelers has come to an end, and clear macro and micro drivers have emerged:
On the one hand, in order to actively cope with climate change, the mainland government has formulated the task goal of "achieving carbon peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060", and carbon neutrality and the new national standard have become the key macro factors driving the development of the electric two-wheeler industry;
On the other hand, the changes in the age level, region, personalization and other aspects of electric consumers have increasingly affected the design positioning of electric vehicles by brand manufacturers, especially the intelligent characteristics and the design of the driving experience.
In addition, in order to reduce road traffic accidents, air pollution and noise pollution, since 1985, the mainland has implemented a "ban on motorcycles", which also provides a natural barrier for the development of electric two-wheelers.
In essence, the development path of electric two-wheeler manufacturers has been paved. But for now, electric two-wheeler manufacturers seem to be so well protected that they have been pampered for many years, resulting in their failure to make breakthroughs in key technologies so far.
Looking at the overall situation, the intelligent exploration of various manufacturers began from the owner APP, and all mainstream car manufacturers have equipped their products with the owner APP. According to surveys, the most commonly used by users are device control (proximal/remote), OTA and fault diagnosis. Users activate the owner APP based on these two characteristics, but because the owner APP content is lackluster and the interaction is complex, the user's learning cost rises. This leads to many users activating the APP, the usage rate is very low.
In addition, at present, some electric two-wheelers have done the commercial use of digital car keys, and car owners can unlock two-wheelers through smart phones or wearable devices, etc., and implement related operations on the vehicles, so that the convenience of using the car is greatly improved. However, there are also security risks such as "deep entrance to the operation", "inconvenient operation", "easy to crack and copy", so the car key function has not attracted more users, and there is a big problem in promoting and popularizing.
In the long run, electric two-wheelers can not develop for a long time, transformation is imperative, electric motorcycles are undoubtedly a new breakthrough.
There is still a need to break the game
Looking at the big picture, the motorcycle industry is replicating the wave of electrification in the automotive industry.
At this stage, the electric motorcycle industry is still in its infancy, and the industry is looking forward to the existing electric motorcycle brand to run out of the head enterprise like Tesla, and drive the transformation and upgrading of the entire industry through the "catfish effect".
Electrification has eliminated the technological generation gap between Chinese and foreign motorcycle companies. In recent years, the mainland has accumulated a lot of intelligent network technology, and for Chinese motorcycle companies, this is undoubtedly a very important advantage in the market where technology is used as the right to speak.
Including Loncin, Lifan and other moribund and even strategically abandoned the motorcycle business, the former giants have also returned to motorcycles in the new wave of electrification, through transformation and upgrading, from "traditional motorcycle manufacturers" to "electric motorcycle manufacturers".
At the 2021 China Motorcycle Expo, Lifan launched four electric motorcycles and released a new strategy for the intelligent electrification of the motorcycle industry. Chongqing Zongshen, which is relatively stable, has been laid out in advance and achieved balanced development between electric motorcycles and traditional motorcycles.
However, to become an electric motorcycle head manufacturer is not a one-time achievement, in fact, it will be a relatively long process.
In Chen Xuan's view, the breakthrough three-electric technology and intelligence will be the driving force of electric motorcycle manufacturers in the competition. However, at present, in the technical difficulties that electric motorcycle manufacturers need to break through, the core key is to be able to overcome application limitations such as specific scenarios, temperature and high endurance battery system technology.
Chen Xuan said that fuel motorcycle consumers are obsessed with speed performance, and advanced power systems are the key to enabling them to choose electric motorcycles.
Car companies have long been plagued by the high cost of batteries, and the electric motorcycle industry is no exception.
At present, the two-wheeled electric vehicles in the mainland are mainly divided into lead-acid battery two-wheeled electric vehicles and lithium battery two-wheeled electric vehicles, and the cost of batteries accounts for 30%-50%. Due to the cheap price and high stability of lead-acid batteries, they have always been the main type of battery used by two-wheeled electric vehicles in mainland China, but they are easy to pollute the environment during the manufacturing process.
In addition to the disadvantages of more expensive and poor stability, lithium batteries have the advantages of small pollution, high energy density, long life and support for fast charging, prompting the government to actively promote the alternative use of lithium batteries in the two-wheeled electric vehicle industry to lead-acid batteries.
For the current widespread problem of the cost of electric vehicle batteries, Chen Xuan said that in addition to the technical breakthroughs at the supply chain end and the reduction of the impact of international raw materials on the cost of battery cells, downstream host manufacturers must also participate in the research and development of battery system technology, and change the effective control rate and service life of the battery from the application side.
It is understood that at present, many electric motorcycle companies have launched a wide range of cooperation with power battery manufacturers. Among them, Suke has cooperated with CATL to develop battery technology and develop more advanced battery control systems to reduce battery costs.
In addition, the digital transformation of electric motorcycles is also the key to the urgent need for innovation of electric motorcycle manufacturers.
With the maturity of basic technologies such as 4G/5G, Internet of Things, distributed operating systems, artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud technology, the intelligentization of electric two-wheelers is also more selective, and the industry has also made many attempts, and many products equipped with internet access capabilities and basic voice interaction capabilities can be introduced to the market.
At present, the intelligent technology of domestic electric motorcycles is mainly applied in both safety and experience.
From the experience point of view, the current main application of technology is self-balancing assisted driving, but due to the special attributes of motorcycle heavy experience, the auxiliary driving function that can be applied to the car seems to be not very ideal on two-wheeled electric motorcycles, and the technology is currently in a conservative promotion stage.
End
"The market needs stories, and the ups and downs are the climaxes."
When motorcycles experience ups and downs and then encounter a wave of electrification, will they be like a fish? It also needs the "recruit veterans" on the track to answer.
But for now, we have reason to believe that electric motorcycles will bring new growth to the motorcycle industry. We can expect that Chinese motorcycles will stand on the world stage with a new look and tell new stories.