Written by | Chu Yunwen
Image source | Internet
In 2021, the normalization of the global epidemic, the continued tension in the chip supply chain, and the environment of the automobile market can be described as severe and complex, but the domestic automobile production and sales have ended three consecutive years of decline, ushering in 3.4% and 3.8% growth respectively, which can't help but make us have a positive outlook for the newly opened 2022.
The growth of China's auto market is inseparable from two major factors, the first is through years of independent research and development and technology learning, and finally ushered in the "outbreak" moment at present. Secondly, it is in line with the overall planning and the current mainstream environment and the development trend of the new four modernizations.
In 2022, China's auto market will further deepen on the foundation laid in 2021.
There is no doubt that new energy will continue to exert efforts in the new year, in addition to independent brands, some traditional car manufacturers' new energy products will also appear more in The country.
Due to the rising market share of new energy products, the voice of independent brands holding many products and new energy technologies in the market will usher in a significant increase, which will play a key role in the future promotion of independent brands in the world.
In addition to the growth point of new energy, with the increase of consumer demand for individualization, in 2022, there will be many models that have only appeared overseas before have the opportunity to enter the country, which will play a positive role in the richness of domestic automotive products and the improvement of product vitality.
Intelligence will also be one of the keywords of the domestic auto market in 2022, domestic technology companies such as Huawei and Baidu have begun to lay out in the product, among which, the automatic driving assistance function will also become one of the key technologies to distinguish the "grade" of the product.
No electricity, no joy
"No electricity is not happy" is the power source of the vehicle, why is it not simply divided into traditional internal combustion engines and new energy sources? Because HEV is not included in the domestic definition of new energy, it is limited to PHEV plug-in hybrid and pure electric technology.
At this point in time, hybridization will be the mainstream in the market. Speaking of hybrid, the Japanese "two fields" is a topic that we cannot avoid, after all, it has taken the lead in bringing hybrid models into more families, taking FAW Toyota as an example, in just 10 months in 2021, the sales of hybrid models will exceed 140,000 units.
If you count GAC Toyota, Hiromoto and Higashimoto, this number will become more impactful. What can be seen from this is the surge in consumer demand for this, the improvement of daily car economy, the improvement of power, and the improvement of car quality, which are all better experiences brought to us by the hybrid system.
In 2021, we have seen the rapid advancement of independent brands in the field of hybrids, the Great Wall's lemon DHT, Changan's iDD, Geely's Thor, BYD's DM-i, the speed of promotion of major brands is actually beyond my imagination, and within a year, they have laid out their own home products.
Among them, the speed of BYD and the Great Wall is relatively fast, the hybrid layout of the Dynasty series, and the full-product DHT of WEY, I believe that in 2022, we will see more independent brand hybrid products launched, and these products will focus more on the affordable price of the public.
This is actually a very important point, before the Japanese car companies firmly control the pattern of the hybrid market, so they have an absolute right to speak in the pricing of products, so the promotion of independent brands in the field of hybrid is not only to break through technical barriers, but also to break the traditional product pattern.
2022 may usher in a significant reduction in the price of hybrid products, which will play a role in the transition from traditional internal combustion engines to new energy.
As for pure electric products, the penetration rate in 2021 has reached 20%, and the 2025 target touched in advance has reached 3.52 million units, an increase of nearly 160% year-on-year, and in 2022, new energy products will undoubtedly show a steady upward trend.
Wuling Hongguang MINI EV has undoubtedly become a blockbuster model in 2021; GAC Aean, Euler, BYD EV, and quickly occupied the home electric vehicle market; Tesla, although the price fluctuated, but the overall price was significantly lowered, and luxury brand fuel vehicles seized the market.
In addition to the brand image in recent years, the more important reason for the increase in sales of pure electric vehicles can be attributed to the decline in the cost of new energy vehicles, and the protection of technology after years of running-in has given consumers greater confidence in products.
For pure electric models, consumers' most concern can be attributed to three points, including "price, endurance and safety", aside from price, the other two points are closely related to new energy technology.
In the previous year, 500KM endurance may be the benchmark for new energy vehicles, then last year, this standard has been raised to 700KM, as for 2022, 1000KM may be the goal that many brands strive to achieve.
At present, what models have announced a range of more than 1,000 kilometers? Models such as AION LX Plus, NIO ET7 and other models have become the focus of many consumers' attention before they are listed, although their prices will be relatively high, but for users who pursue the quality of new energy vehicles, they must be the key models in 2022.
In addition, the price of pure electric products will pay more attention to the mainstream family car market of 100,000 levels, previously, pure electric vehicles are more in the micro scooter or luxury products layout, but in 2022, there will be more household pure electric vehicles into the market, such as BYD Seagull, Yuan PLUS EV, punk cat and other models, can better meet consumer demand.
In general, in the field of hybrid and new energy markets, 2022 will usher in a more rapid development than 2021, especially "civilian" products, the market will change from product outbreak to product popularization.
In addition to the product itself, charging and replacing will also be one of the main projects to be promoted in 2022, in the past year, with the increase in the ownership rate of new energy vehicles, there have been obvious problems such as charging difficulties and slow charging when traveling during holidays, which has seriously affected the experience of using pure electric vehicles.
For charging, the number of charging piles is not proportional to the number of pure electric vehicles, and not only is the amount small, the charging time is difficult to guarantee, and there are charging piles that cannot be used due to lack of maintenance in many areas, if you want to further promote the popularity of pure electric vehicles, this must be changed in a short period of time.
At this time node, it is also a good time to promote the replacement of electricity, because at present, the domestic has not yet rolled out a complete industrial chain for power exchange, but for problems such as the non-uniform specification of domestic power batteries, as well as the resistance of some car companies to power exchange, there will be a certain improvement in 2022.
Autonomous driving assistance leads the intelligent rollout
With the rapid advancement of electrification, the intelligence of vehicles is also in full swing with the east wind.
It can be seen that at present, domestic technology companies have begun to participate more and more in the design and manufacturing of automobiles, for example, AITO has been equipped with Huawei's Hongmeng intelligent cockpit, which has also reached the "ceiling" level in many media mouths, and Huawei will also promote the automatic driving assistance and other functions of the vehicle in the future.
Yes, intelligent driving assistance will become an important part of vehicle intelligence, which can not only be used as an important basis for product "level" differentiation, but also can affect the future development direction of the entire automotive industry, perhaps beyond electrification, bringing more far-reaching changes.
In the past year, we have seen many models and brands launched an arms race at the hardware level, such as the number of lidar serving high-end intelligent driving assistance, which has become the capital and advantage of some brands in publicity, there is no doubt that although these hardware has not yet played the time, but this is paving the way for high-end driving assistance.
At this time, some people will say that this is the brand for the future of automatic driving to do technology accumulation, in fact, for this point I think it is still necessary to be more rigorous, do technical accumulation is no problem, but whether it can make automatic driving achieve, or draw a big question mark.
Even in the future, I think that automatic driving is a small-scale application, and it will not form the order of civil mass production, so it should be equipped with a high-level driver assistance system on top of the mass production vehicle to reduce the fatigue of the driver when using the car, and improve the safety level of the active safety system.
At present, Mercedes has been equipped with a system that can achieve L3 level automatic driving assistance in mass production cars, but it needs to be used in the case of laws and regulations and regions, which has actually released a signal that high-end driving assistance will become a configuration that luxury cars are proud of.
And with the development of this technology, the relationship between high-end intelligent driving assistance and cars may become the relationship between software and mobile phones, that is, to become a software supplier, so we can now see many car companies and software companies cooperation, such as the extreme krypton brand and Waymo, WEY and Zhixing, etc., are to occupy the commanding heights of the industry in the early stage.
More tolerant of "niche"
Niche products have always lacked vitality in the domestic market before, the main reason is that the domestic automobile market started late, consumers lack some of their own judgment on the product before, easy to form some herd mentality.
We sometimes link the niche with personalization, indeed, there is a certain correlation between the two, but the scope of the niche will be covered by personalization, personalized products are only a kind of niche products, in addition to design, positioning, can also be the product for the performance of the focus.
In the development of products in recent years, we can see some trends, that is, consumers attach importance to performance, due to the younger consumers, this point is also valued by more and more manufacturers. In some new car previews, we have seen some exciting news, which also makes the domestic car market in 2022 more exciting.
Although the growth rate of new energy products in the domestic market is very fast, it does not affect the pursuit of hard-core fuel vehicles by a considerable number of consumers with driving feelings.
Play attributes have a heavier position in the hearts of this category of people, Dongfeng Honda or will introduce the Honda Civic TYPE-R in 2022, this name should not be introduced too much, many JDM fans in the heart of the god car; Toyota's new GR 86 introduction, and GR Yaris rumors; and the modern N series may also appear in the domestic market.
For people who really like cars, this is undoubtedly a good phenomenon, because a mature car market not only needs models with sales as king, it needs a more diversified product layout, and a market environment that can meet the needs of more people.
At this time, we have to mention the word car culture, which was mentioned many years ago, but what about the culture of a market that does not even have a complete product? Perhaps from 2022 onwards, the phenomenon of domestic consumers envying overseas riders will no longer exist.
Optimism goes hand in hand with risk
First of all, the impact of the epidemic will continue, and the recent global geological disasters have occurred frequently, and if some parts production areas suffer from geological disasters, it will have an impact on the global automotive supply chain.
Chip shortage is a headache for many car companies in 2021, this situation will inevitably continue in 2022, but compared to last year, this phenomenon has been paved in the minds of car companies, so there will be experience in coping, but the upstream links such as raw materials are still a relatively large risk point.
In the development process of automobiles for more than a hundred years, there is no smooth sailing, every time node is an opportunity and risk coexist, for the automotive market in 2022, positive or will be greater than pessimism. 【iDailycar】