In the past 2021, the automotive market has shown a lot of positive changes.
On the one hand, sales of new energy vehicles increased by 158% year-on-year; on the other hand, Chinese brands were further favored by consumers, and their market share increased to a new historical height.
Among them, it is worth mentioning the hybrid field in the new energy segment.
According to the data, in December 2021, BYD completed sales of 97,990 vehicles, an increase of 77.9% year-on-year. Among them, sales of new energy vehicles were 92,823 units, an increase of 236.4% year-on-year. Boosted by new energy, BYD's annual sales reached 730,093 units, up 75.4% year-on-year.
But in BYD's new energy vehicle sales, the biggest growth rate is not pure electricity.
In 2020, BYD's plug-in hybrids sold only 48,000 units, but by 2021, the hybrid reached a staggering 273,900 units, more than 4 times year-on-year. Although DM hybrid models account for only 45% of the annual sales of new energy vehicles, compared with the 1.4 times growth rate of EV pure electric models, hybrid models are undoubtedly the key to BYD's sales counterattack in 2021.
This also makes hybrid technology the key for Chinese car companies to seek growth, and even surpass foreign investment.
In 2021, the hybrid forces rise
Over the past decade, the mainland hybrid market has developed slowly, starting to climb in 2015, with an average monthly sales of 38,000 vehicles around 2018, and then entered a bottleneck period. Entering 2021, the hybrid market ushered in an explosive period.
According to the statistics of the multiplication association, the retail sales of new energy vehicles in 2021 reached 2.989 million units, of which 2.444 million were pure electric vehicles, an increase of 168.6% year-on-year; the sales of plug-in hybrid models, including range extenders, reached 545,000 units, an increase of 171.2% year-on-year, and the growth rate was higher than that of pure electric vehicles.
If we focus further on the timeline, we can see that the share of plug-in hybrid vehicles has been increasing. According to the statistics of the Association, plug-in hybrids accounted for 15.9% of the overall share of new energy vehicles in December 2020, and by November 2021, the proportion of plug-in hybrid models sales has increased to 19.9%.
The rise of hybrids in 2021 may seem inconceivable at first glance, but after careful consideration, it has its fundamental logical support.
The logic behind the rise of the hybrid
First of all, it is determined by the current situation of the market.
With the sales of new energy models represented by pure electricity increasing year by year, the contradiction between the construction of infrastructure facilities and the slow construction has become more and more prominent, making pure electric vehicles currently unable to completely replace traditional fuel vehicles. Relatively speaking, there are fewer short boards for plug-in hybrids and extenders.
In the past two years, electric vehicle holiday peak travel "charging difficulties", winter endurance sharp reduction and other problems frequently, which makes the use of electric vehicles very limited, just past the Spring Festival, there are still many pure electric car owners to e car submission reflected in the problem of charging difficulties on high speed. It is precisely these problems that have prompted potential consumers of new energy with complex car use scenarios to turn to hybrid vehicles.
Secondly, according to the "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0" issued by the state, the average fuel consumption of new cars in passenger cars (including new energy) in the three stages of 2025, 2030 and 2035 should reach 4.6L, 3.2L and 2.0L per 100 kilometers, respectively, and the average fuel consumption of new cars in traditional energy passenger cars (excluding new energy vehicles) should reach 5.6L, 4.8L and 4.0L respectively. Recently, the state has proposed double carbon targets, so that the rigid requirements for achieving these goals will be further enhanced, coupled with the mandatory requirements of "double integration" that have been announced, the energy conservation and emission reduction of car companies has become imperative.
On another level, the traditional fuel vehicle owners transition to new energy, and the hybrid model is a good undertaking.
As of now, the domestic pure electric vehicle market is still polarized. At one end are more than 200,000 high-end models represented by brands such as Weilai, Tesla, and Xiaopeng, and at the other end are 50,000 and below models represented by Hongguang MINI. In the middle of these two price bands, although there are pure electric brands such as Nezha and GAC Aean, the overall model is less and the brand influence is even less.
However, the price range of 50,000-200,000 is the largest market for domestic fuel vehicles, that is to say, the replacement of pure electric vehicles for traditional fuel vehicles still does not fully touch the core users.
This actually leaves an opportunity for the hybrid route. If the characteristics of pure electric acceleration and good ride are combined with the characteristics of fuel vehicle energy replenishment convenience, it is undoubtedly hybrid. For example, the ideal ONE uses a 40.5kWh large-capacity battery to meet the needs of pure electric commuting in the user's city. Then through the oil-based power generation range extender system, to meet the needs of users long-distance travel.
The ideal ONE range extended electric vehicle is the simplest plug-in hybrid. But because it is too simple, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the range extension system, such as in the power loss, high-speed working conditions, the high fuel consumption of the ideal ONE has always been the focus of criticism. Therefore, the hybrid models that are newly listed later will undoubtedly "play cards" according to the "fuel consumption" short board of the ideal ONE.
Face the joint venture, the autonomous hot battle in the hybrid
In terms of classification, hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles (HEVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV) are both hybrid, but HEVs cannot be charged with charging guns, which are called oil-electric hybrids. But THE PHEV can be charged with a charging gun, called "plug-in mix". In terms of technological maturity, Japan's "Ryota", Nissan and South Korea's Hyundai Kia have a large first-mover advantage. However, with the enhancement of independent product research and development strength, the advantages of Chinese brands in this field are becoming more and more obvious.
The most representative is BYD's DM-i super hybrid technology. Different from the "oil hybrid" route centered on the engine in traditional hybrid technology, BYD's DM-i super hybrid has chosen the "electric hybrid" route based on electric drive.
DM-i super hybrid technology, is based on large-capacity batteries and high-performance high-power motors, relying on high-power high-efficiency motors for driving, the main function of gasoline engines is to generate electricity in the high-efficiency speed zone, do not need to fully take into account high and low-speed performance, only need to directly drive the vehicle at the right time, by changing the traditional hybrid technology to the engine-based design, thereby significantly reducing fuel consumption, to achieve more electricity, less oil, so that the use of gasoline is more efficient.
In addition, in addition to bydir's existing dynasty-series DM-i models, the first PHEV model destroyer of the warship series under the product sequence of Ocean Network, the destroyer 05, bydie's existing DM-i technology has been debuted at the Guangzhou Auto Show. The DM-i super hybrid system on the destroyer 05, including the Snap Cloud-Plug Hybrid 1.5L high-efficiency engine, the EHS electromix system, and the matching customized blade battery, is also a new car worth paying attention to.
There is BYD in the front and the Great Wall in the back.
Great Wall's Wei brand of Macchiato, is the first model equipped with lemon hybrid DHT technology, the launch of HEV and PHEV two power architectures, both have a fairly strong power output; in addition to the launch of Macchiato DHT PHEV, Great Wall also released a latte DHT model. At present, the Mocha, Latte and Macchido that Weipai is selling correspond to the original fuel models VV7, VV6 and VV5 respectively. In addition to the mocha also retaining the pure fuel version, the latte DHT and macchiato DHT only sell hybrid models including DHT and DHT-PHEV models.
This also marks that Weipai has become the first brand in China's traditional car companies to successfully transform new energy.
Recently, Geely also released the Thor God Intelligence Hi · The DHE15 (1.5TD) hybrid special engine under X has an engine thermal efficiency of up to 43.32%, creating the highest thermal efficiency record of the world's mass-produced hybrid engine. It should be known that the thermal efficiency of the BydIR DM-i super hybrid system is 40% of the Xiaoyun-plug hybrid 1.5T engine used; and the A25B/A25D engine equipped with the Toyota Camry hybrid model is 41%, so Geely's 1.5T engine will definitely be a big attraction in thermal efficiency.
This means that the troika of independent brands has begun to compete in the hybrid market.
In addition to BYD, Geely and great wall, the layout of other independent brands in this field is also full of highlights.
For example, the Blue Whale iDD hybrid system released by Changan Automobile is officially called a set of global intelligent oil-electric dual-drive system with mature technology and perfect experience. The so-called global domain, which covers the "full speed domain, full field domain, full temperature domain, full time domain", which is also the advantage of the Blue Whale iDD hybrid system compared to the traditional PHEV hybrid system. The system mainly involves four parts, high-performance Blue Whale engine, high-efficiency Blue Whale electric drive transmission, ultra-large capacity PHEV battery and intelligent control system.
Chery also previously released the full-featured hybrid configuration Kunpeng DHT, the entire system can achieve single/dual motor drive, range, parallel, engine direct drive, single/double motor energy recovery, driving / parking charging and other 9 working modes of automatic switching.
So far, independent brands have formed a multi-point advantage in the field of hybridization, which may not be to trigger another "inner volume", but to form a win-win situation for the "outside".
Now, in addition to the Japanese system, foreign car companies in Europe and the United States have basically given up on the "hybrid" route. Volkswagen, for example, is fully promoting its pure electric ID. family. Skip the hybrid and go directly to pure electricity, perhaps not because the technology of the hybrid-specific engine and gearbox is not in place, but largely because they feel that the input-output ratio is not high.
But the problem is also here, the length of the transition period of the hybrid market is not the evolution speed of the engine and gearbox, but depends on the technical iteration of the power battery. As long as the power battery cannot make the endurance and replenishment of pure electric vehicles comparable to that of fuel vehicles, the hybrid market is still promising. And this is where the opportunity lies for Chinese brands.
Write at the end:
Times can always be developing, so that people can see where the real opportunities are.
In the field of pure electric vehicles, Chinese brands have seized the opportunity of "lane change overtaking", and now it seems that the development of hybrid technology will be another new opportunity for Chinese brand car companies, how to break the traditional advantages and technical barriers of foreign brands, the rise of Chinese car companies in this battle.
From pure electricity to hybrid, independent brands are catching up from catching up to comprehensively surpassing.