Why are pickup trucks restricted in China? The roots are because of its "truck identity".
Heavy trucks may crush the road bridge, truck emissions are large, dust may pollute the air environment, truck models are large, blind spots may have greater traffic safety hazards, so trucks will be restricted in most cities. Pickup trucks have been included in the category of trucks for nearly 30 years, and naturally they have drawn a clear line with ordinary family cars.
However, starting in 2022, the pickup truck market will usher in three opportunities for "identity transformation":
1. The first sound, standardized and scientific technical standard for pickup trucks in China, "General Technical Conditions for Multi-purpose Trucks", will be officially implemented on May 1 this year.
2. Pickup trucks are included in the 2022 new version of the "Provisions on the Responsibility for Repair and Replacement of Household Automobile Products", which is commonly known as the "three guarantees" policy.
3. The electrification of pickup trucks completely removes the hat of high fuel consumption, high emissions and high pollution of pickup trucks.
If pickup trucks are gradually moving closer to passenger cars at the regulatory and consumer levels, if emission pollution can no longer be used as a reason for pickup truck restrictions because of the emergence of electrification, will the pickup truck market usher in an inflection point of growth?
To answer this question, you must clear a logic: whether users will buy a pickup truck because of electrification, or buy an electric pickup because they need a pickup.
What is the growth point of the pickup truck market?
Although since 2016, all parts of the country have begun to lift or partially lift the restrictions on pickup trucks entering the city, but the local policies are not uniform, unclear and thorough, resulting in the potential of the pickup truck market, still staying on the promotional materials of some car companies, and the actual response of the consumer market is obviously disproportionate.
One of the key points is: What is a "pickup truck"? The "General Technical Conditions for Multi-Purpose Trucks", which will be implemented on May 1 this year, clarifies this definition.
According to this technical condition, the pickup truck must have double row seats, the spacing of the seats should be large enough, the front of the car should be long enough, the height of the car should not be super high, the cargo compartment should not be super long, and the cargo compartment can only be opened on one side of the rear railing, and it must have sufficient passability parameters. In short, in the future, models that can be called "pickup trucks" will move closer to high-end and passenger use, and even infinitely closer to "an SUV with a cargo compartment".
Speaking of this, the growth point of the pickup truck market is also very clear, that is, the demand for passenger use. This demand comes from the passenger upgrade of the original tool car users, and also from the expansion of the passenger car market brought about by the enrichment of the car scene after the passengerization of pickup trucks.
For the former, the users of micro-customers, micro-cards, light passengers, and light trucks will all be the potential import groups in the pickup truck market; for the latter, the user group that pursues "play + practicality" is the largest increment.
And the premise of all this is because the pickup truck is "compliant".
According to the China Automobile Association, China will sell 554,000 pickup trucks in 2021, accounting for 2.1% of total car sales. If you refer to the 16.5% penetration rate of pickup trucks in the US market and the penetration rate of 3.5% in the Japanese market, taking into account geographical characteristics, economic development level and lifestyle, the future penetration rate of pickup trucks in the Chinese market should be between Japan and the United States. The relaxation of policies and the clarity of standards will play a decisive role.
At this point, we can discuss what electrification can bring to the pickup truck.
What does electrification of pickup trucks mean?
If we look at the United States, where the pickup truck market size and culture on the other side of the ocean are extremely developed, we will find a very interesting phenomenon - the number of optional models of electric pickup trucks may be more than the gasoline full-size pickup truck.
Tesla Cyberruck, Ford F-150 Lightning, General Purpose HUMMER EV, Rivian R1T... There are also "new forces" including Bollinger, Lordstown, Nikola and others who are not well known to the Chinese.
But the question is, what incentive does the U.S. market, which is neither short of oil, nor large displacement, nor limited, have to buy an electric pickup truck?
The answer must be: an electric pickup is a better pickup.
For example, electrification can bring more powerful dragging ability, can discharge externally and enrich travel scenarios, has a stronger level of intelligence, has higher energy efficiency and brings lower transportation costs, can change the form of vehicles with stronger modularity to enhance personality, and so on.
However, it must not be because the electric pickup truck just replaces the engine with a motor. In doing so, it will only infinitely enlarge the current disadvantages of electrification - short endurance, expensive price, reduced passability and reliability - and the result is that it can neither attract users of fuel pickup trucks nor other users to pay attention to pickup trucks.
Speaking of which, it seems that I feel that these words have been heard somewhere. Yes, this is exactly how the popularity of electric vehicles in the passenger car market has been achieved over the past few years. Those "oil to electricity" models are loud again, at most, they can only hover on the edge of the market, and the models that really make the electric vehicle market expand rapidly are all new products that are "completely different from fuel vehicles".
That is to say, when pickup trucks have gradually moved closer to passenger cars in terms of policy supervision and consumer cognition, then the electrification path of the pickup truck market is bound to converge with passenger cars. The product experience of electric passenger cars also applies to electric pickup trucks.
Therefore, the Fuel Pickup Truck Market is mature enough in the United States to also be able to take a step forward in the field of electric pickup trucks. However, for China, where the pickup truck market is in the ascendant, is it possible to use the opportunity of the pickup truck to gradually lift the ban and enter the vision of household consumption, so that the fuel pickup truck and the electric pickup truck can develop simultaneously?
Judging from the two aspects of supply and demand, it is not optimistic.
First look at the demand. As previously analyzed, the increase in demand for pickup truck passengers comes from two aspects, of which the tool car upgrade user pursues practical and cost-effective, and the electrification under low cost is currently difficult to meet, and for the play-type personalized users, the additional added value brought by electric has not established a strong enough perception at present.
Let's look at the supply. Based on the terminal insurance volume of the domestic pickup truck market, the top four Great Wall, Jiangling, Jiangxi Isuzu and Zhengzhou Nissan occupy 78% of the market share, and the electric pickup products of these four companies are either missing or are still in the market test stage of "oil to electricity". Obviously, in the face of the possible inflection point, no head pickup truck is willing to take risks.
Just as the electric passenger car market needs a number of new car-making forces to enter as catfish in order to stir up the entire environment, the electric pickup truck market also needs such catfish. Perhaps Tesla will still play this role, and when Tesla Cyberruck starts mass production in 2023, the 1.2 million orders accumulated so far will be possible to refresh the values of the global electric pickup truck market?
Domestic pickup market leaders cannot ignore this potential interloper.
Write at the end
In the past, we did not need pickup trucks because the demand for pickup trucks was suppressed, and it was impossible for a large consumer group of family cars to pay attention to this category. In the past five years, the regulatory policy of pickup trucks has been gradually relaxed, and under the impetus of a number of good products, pickup trucks have begun to enter the vision of some early adopter family car consumers. In the future, the pickup truck market will continue to grow rapidly, relying on the acceleration of the passengerization process, whether it is at the policy regulatory level or at the level of consumer cognition.
Electrification should play a role in the pickup truck market, in fact, no different from the passenger car market. If electrification can make pickups into better pickups, then electric pickups have a point of existence. Otherwise, electrification will not produce a visible bonus to the pickup.