According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in August this year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles continued to set a new record, exceeding 300,000 for the first time. Based on the key node of explosive growth, as a rising star in the field of commercial vehicles, Geely Commercial Vehicles' long-range vehicles have achieved "late start first", and from January to August, Geely Commercial Vehicles has taken the top spot in the field of new energy light trucks with a market share of 25.6%, and its performance is remarkable.
"Nuggets" new energy truck market new blue ocean
At the just-concluded 2021 World New Energy Vehicle Conference, Xin Guobin, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, pointed out that new energy vehicles are the main direction of the transformation and upgrading of the automobile industry, and are also an important choice for China to achieve carbon dioxide emission reduction goals and high-quality industrial development.
Under the background of the "double carbon" goal, new energy commercial vehicles have entered a new stage of accelerated development, which can be seen from the recently announced policies: just a few days ago, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Commerce issued a circular to identify 16 cities such as Xiamen and Tianjin in Fujian province as the first batch of "green freight distribution demonstration cities". Counting the major cities in the country, more than 40 cities have adjusted the right-of-way policy for new energy commercial vehicles and vigorously promoted the construction of charging piles. This means that the standardized green freight distribution system is constantly improving, the proportion of new energy vehicles in the field of logistics and distribution will be further improved, and the new energy logistics vehicle market will become a new blue ocean.
According to Roland Berger's forecast, according to the conservative estimate of the size of the commercial vehicle market in 2020, the penetration rate of new energy commercial vehicles will reach 20% in 2030, and the annual sales volume will reach one million.
In this market full of opportunities, who can get the biggest share of it? Many commercial vehicle companies have preemptively laid out: launched a full range of new energy logistics vehicle models, joined hands with upstream and downstream enterprises to build a platform... Among these commercial vehicle companies, there is one company that has taken a different path, that is, Geely Commercial Vehicle.
Geely Commercial Vehicles has developed so far, has the largest new energy commercial vehicle research institute in China, accumulating nearly 2,000 R & D engineers. It has formed two major technical routes of the urban commercial vehicle system with pure electricity and range extender power system as the core, and the highway commercial vehicle system with methanol M100 clean energy and charging and replacing technology as the core, and the products cover the whole series of commercial vehicles such as heavy trucks, light trucks, small micro trucks, van logistics vehicles (VAN), and buses. Driven by the concept of "zero carbon development", Geely's commercial vehicle sales and market position have increased significantly in just a few years. From January to August this year, Geely's new energy commercial vehicle heavy truck and light truck products increased by 237% and 1174% year-on-year, respectively, and the market share reached 21% and 25.6% respectively, and the head position of long-range vehicles in the new energy commercial vehicle market has initially taken shape.
"This year, Geely Commercial Vehicles will comprehensively enhance its marketing capabilities, create top-notch products, consolidate its leading position in the traditional market, and make comprehensive breakthroughs in market segments and regional markets." Fan Xianjun, president of Geely Commercial Vehicles, publicly stated that the heavy-duty truck business will enter the first echelon in 2030, with sales of more than 100,000 vehicles.
The forward-looking layout and technical precipitation behind the first chair
The data shows that in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, the market share of long-range vehicle new energy light trucks has reached 39.9%, while in Chongqing, this figure has reached 53%.
Latecomers came to the fore, thanks to the forward-looking strategic layout of specific routes. "Since its establishment, Geely Commercial Vehicle Group has always taken the technology of green new energy as the leading technical direction for entering the field of commercial vehicles." Wang Yanbin, vice president of Geely Commercial Vehicle Group, said.
Just in July this year, the remote Xingzhi, which was created for the first time by applying the exclusive intelligent architecture "Cloud World" of new energy light trucks, signed 5,500 orders with JD Logistics, Suning Tesco, Shanghai Light Journey and other companies as soon as it was released. This model is the first new energy light truck model to apply battery collision power outage, C-WTVC working condition endurance of more than 260 kilometers, in the field of light trucks is currently in a leading position.
In August, the list of three hot new energy pure electric commercial vehicles for remote vehicles was "The Seventh Batch of New Energy Light Truck Operation Incentive Models and Production Enterprise Qualification Identification List in Beijing".
The release of two major events has revealed a heavy signal to the outside world: this is a deep recognition of the quality of the vehicle, and it also implies the development trend of future logistics commercial vehicles - efficient, intelligent and low consumption.
In terms of green and intelligent manufacturing, the "cloud world" architecture created by Geely Commercial Vehicles has realized the intelligence of the whole industry chain from research and development to manufacturing to application. Taking remote Xingzhi as an example, the exclusive architecture of new energy light trucks developed in a completely forward direction adopts the electronic and electrical architecture derived from passenger cars, which can meet the needs of a variety of new energy power routes such as pure electricity, extended range, hydrogen fuel cells, etc., and is also equipped with advanced functions such as electronic fences, intelligent monitoring of vehicles and drivers.
In terms of technical reserves, relying on the strong technical background of the Central Research Institute of Geely Holding Group, Remote Auto has established a Hangzhou R&D center focusing on the development of new energy and intelligent technologies for commercial vehicles, and established two major technical routes, one is the urban commercial vehicle system with pure electric and extender e-GAPF power system as the core, and the other is the technical route of highway commercial vehicle products with methanol clean energy and charging and replacing technology as the core.
"In the future, every remote Xingzhi light truck will make the dynamic management and ecological interconnection of 'people, vehicles and roads' possible." Fan Xianjun said. From hardware-defined cars to software-defined cars, the introduction of smart architectures has also brought new thinking to the commercial vehicle industry, which will lead commercial vehicle intelligence into the 2.0 era.
The ecosystem strategy has been comprehensively upgraded
Under the background of the goal of "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality", a new green freight industry chain is taking shape. How to improve the efficiency of urban freight distribution is a key consideration in the industry. At the recent Chuanhua Group Supply Chain Conference, Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holding Group, proposed that Geely Commercial Vehicles is gradually shifting from "car" as the center to a new model with "goods" as the center and vehicles as the carrier, creating greater value for users through operation, and finally realizing the transformation to a smart green transportation technology integrated service provider, and promoting the zero-carbon reform of the global supply chain logistics system. To this end, Geely Commercial Vehicles continues to innovate business models, aim at user needs, and form a green capacity ecology with new energy commercial vehicles as the core.
As early as 2017, Geely Commercial Vehicles and Chuanhua Zhilian jointly invested in the establishment of Green Huilian, which has landed regional operation centers in 27 cities so far, operating more than 8,000 vehicles. At present, the smart car networking platform has been able to realize the leasing business, management, settlement and other all online, charging, after-sales and service station settlement can also be solved through the system. In terms of model categories, Green Huilian has gradually expanded from the original 4.2-meter light truck to all categories of models, covering micro-surface, mid-surface, micro-truck, light truck, van cargo, refrigeration, flat plate, high column, etc., to achieve full scene coverage of urban distribution.
From automaker to operator, Geely Commercial Vehicle's ambitions go far beyond that. After four years of development and precipitation, in April this year, the strategy of Green Huilian was upgraded again, and Yang Dong, vice president of Geely Commercial Vehicle Group and general manager of Green Huilian, publicly announced that he would "move from an operator to an operation platform". This means that the three-level architecture of the whole network operation platform + regional operation center + regional operator will be fully constructed, and the replicable operation model will be fully open to the industry in a productized manner.
At the same time, Geely Commercial Vehicle has established companies such as All-Things Friendly and Sunshine Mingdao through investment holdings, laid out a new energy intelligent logistics ecosystem, and has now mastered the core advantages of "intelligent power exchange + clean energy supply network + closed-loop scenario + intelligent operation platform", providing customized full-life cycle comprehensive services for heavy trucks in ports, mines and other scenarios.
Geely Commercial Vehicles not only provides a simple vehicle trading business, but also provides a "car + station" ecological model for changing heavy trucks and methanol heavy trucks, which users can rent on behalf of or lease through all-weather friendliness. With the help of green transportation capacity and smart car networking ecosystem, operating enterprises can achieve reasonable distribution of transportation capacity through big data and the cloud, realize intelligent dynamic management of goods and drivers, and help user enterprises achieve cost reduction and efficiency increase.
Long-distance vehicles are committed to becoming a comprehensive service provider of smart green transportation technology, and around this goal, we will continue to make efforts in new energy commercial vehicle products and green logistics ecology. Next, the remote car will also release a concept heavy truck, which supports pure electricity (including power exchange), extended range hybrid, methanol and other new energy power forms, and provides users with a caravan-like experience through automatic driving technology and luxury cockpit.