Driven by the demand for car purchases before the Spring Festival, the new energy vehicle market ushered in a good start in the first month of this year, with a penetration rate of 16.6% exceeding that of the same period in previous years by more than 10%.
Wen | Guo Yu
Editor| Zhao Cheng
Although the arrival of the Spring Festival holiday caused a loss of about 15% of car production and sales in the last few days of January, the peak car buying season a few years ago, dealer terminal promotions, and the continuous improvement of chip supply still brought a "good start" to the passenger car market in January.
On February 14, the Association announced the production and sales of the national passenger car market in January 2022. Production of narrow passenger cars (sedans, MPVs, SUVs) in January was 2.059 million units, up 10.4% year-on-year and down 16.5% month-on-month, and retail sales were 2.092 million units, down 4.4% year-on-year and 0.6% month-on-month, the data showed the data showed.
For the results of the year-on-year and month-on-month decline in retail sales in January, Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Joint Association, explained that due to the suspension of production lines before the Spring Festival holiday, coupled with the fact that consumers generally buy cars a few days in advance, it is expected that about 15% of the production and sales losses will be brought about in January due to the Spring Festival factor.
Cui Dongshu predicts that the national passenger car production and sales will face better opportunities in February. Although the epidemic, the Beijing Winter Olympics and the Spring Festival holiday have made the recovery of various production and life slow and cautious, most of the migrant workers returned to the big cities after the holiday, and the wave of car purchases before the start of school in previous years should still exist, and some car companies will transfer the undelivered orders from last year to this year, so the national automobile production and sales in February are worth looking forward to. On the other hand, wholesale and retail sales in February 2021 are at an all-time low, so year-on-year sales in February this year are expected to usher in positive growth.
New energy vehicles sold 347,000 units in January
BYD won the championship
New energy vehicles are still the popular fried chicken in the passenger car market, and retail and wholesale sales in January hit a new high in the same period.
Retail sales of new energy passenger cars in January increased by 132% y/y to 347,000 units, and wholesale sales increased by 141.4% y/y to 412,000 units, according to the Association.
▲ Image source multiplication association
Cui Dongshu believes that although there are still epidemics in China from time to time, especially in first-tier cities as the main battlefield of new energy vehicles, flexible epidemic prevention measures have no obvious impact on residents' travel and car purchase consumption.
It is understood that the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" proposes that by 2025, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in the mainland will reach about 20% of the total sales of new cars.
Combined with January sales data, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the month was 16.6%, compared with 6.8% in the same period last year. Among them, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles of independent brands is 31.4%; the penetration rate of new energy vehicles of luxury brands is 10.2%; while the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in mainstream joint venture brands is the lowest, only 2.5%.
According to the model, the dumbbell structure of the pure electric market has improved. Among them, A00-class wholesale sales of 105,000 vehicles, accounting for 32% of the pure electric market share; A0-class wholesale sales of 51,000 vehicles, accounting for 15% of the pure electric market share; A-class electric vehicles accounted for 22% of the pure electric market share; B-class electric vehicle wholesale sales reached 101,000 units, down 14% month-on-month, accounting for 30% of the pure electric market share.
The performance of the new car-making forces in January is still eye-catching, but the familiar "Wei Xiaoli" ranking is undergoing changes.
13,000 units, which is the delivery result of defending champion Xiaopeng Automobile in January, with deliveries up 115% year-on-year. In the past year, Xiaopeng Automobile won the annual sales championship of new forces with a record of 98,000 units. Up to now, Xiaopeng Automobile has delivered more than 10,000 yuan for five consecutive months. As of the end of January 2022, the cumulative delivery volume of Xiaopeng Automobile in history has exceeded 150,000 units.
In January, the second place was the ideal car, delivering 12,000 units, an increase of 128.1% year-on-year; relying on an ideal ONE model to hit the world's ideal car, so far has delivered more than 10,000 vehicles for three consecutive months, and the cumulative delivery has exceeded 130,000 vehicles. According to the new product plan officially released by Ideal Auto, it is expected that a full-size luxury range extender SUV will be launched this year.
Nezha Automobile once again squeezed into the top three, delivering 11,000 vehicles in January, an increase of 402% year-on-year; official data shows that Nezha Automobile delivered nearly 70,000 vehicles in 2021, and in November, December and January 2022, it achieved deliveries of more than 10,000 vehicles for three consecutive months. In addition, NIO ranked fourth with monthly sales of 9652 vehicles, followed by Zero Run, delivering 8085 units.
It is worth mentioning that traditional car companies in the new energy sector is also continuing to exert efforts, in January the wholesale sales of manufacturers exceeded 11,000 enterprises, in addition to the aforementioned Xiaopeng Automobile, Weilai Automobile and Nezha Automobile, BYD new energy vehicle sales in the month was 93,000 units, won the top of new energy vehicle sales; Tesla sales of 60,000 units ranked second; SAIC-GM-Wuling sales of 40,000 vehicles, ranking third; in addition, Chery Automobile sales of 21,000 units, Geely Automobile 17,000 units, GAC Aian 16,000 units, SAIC Motor's passenger cars totaled 14,000 units and Great Wall Motor's 13,800 units.
▲Cartography Guo Yu
According to the analysis of the Federation, with the decline of new energy subsidies and the rise in raw material prices, the price fine-tuning of some models in the early stage brought about a temporary downturn in orders, and the price acceptance of new energy vehicles recovered after the Spring Festival, coupled with the fact that many new energy vehicles still have a backlog of undelivered orders in the early stage, so the sales of new energy models in February were significantly less affected.
The fuel vehicle market continues to be sluggish
BMW Brilliance bucked the trend and entered the top ten
At the beginning of 2022, the competitive landscape of head car companies has been adjusted.
In terms of retail sales of passenger cars in the narrow sense, compared with December last year, Changan Automobile rose from fourth place to "eye of the list", SAIC-GM-Wuling lowered its ranking by two places, SAIC-GM-Wuling and FAW Toyota both fell out of the top ten, and the seat was given to Changan Automobile and BMW Brilliance.
It is worth noting that BMW Brilliance is entering the top ten of the list for the first time. In January, the retail volume of mainstream joint venture brands fell by 17% year-on-year and fell by 7% month-on-month, BMW Brilliance's contrarian upward trend was eye-catching, and its January sales rose 20.4% year-on-year, second only to BYD. This is also a signal of the strong growth of luxury cars in the new year, and data from the Association shows that luxury cars achieved retail sales of 290,000 units in January, although down 5% year-on-year, but up 18% month-on-month.
Independent brands BYD, Changan Automobile, and Geely Automobile all took the lead in the start, especially BYD, ranking first with a year-on-year growth rate of 126.7%. At the moment when joint venture brands such as FAW Toyota are slightly silent, the breakthrough of independent brands is worth looking forward to.
The increase in the proportion of new energy products is undoubtedly an important chip for the sales of independent brands. According to the data of the Association of Automobile Associations, IND's pure electric vehicle sales in 2021 increased by 186.8% year-on-year, and the sales of plug-and-mix models increased by 444.6%, and the market share has accounted for 12.5% and 41.8% respectively. Changan Automobile's pure electric vehicle sales in the whole of 2021 rose by 252.9%, not losing the momentum of the new power brand.
Of course, the rise of the new energy market also means that the sales of traditional fuel vehicles are bleak. According to the data of the Association of Automobile Associations, the traditional fuel vehicle market continued to decline, with a year-on-year decline of 8% in 2019 and 2020, a year-on-year decline of 6% in 2021, of which in December last year it fell by 22% year-on-year.
In this regard, Cui Dongshu believes that the significance of fuel vehicle consumption cannot be ignored. "At present, some consumers still buy fuel vehicles is still a low-cost feature, and many of the independent brand A-class cars of traditional fuel vehicles are below 80,000 yuan, which is also a great price advantage." However, with the rise in the cost of use, many entry-level consumers cannot afford to buy fuel vehicles, while mainstream electric vehicles are more expensive, so car purchase consumption is inhibited. Encouraging household fuel vehicle consumption is still of positive significance at this stage. ”
In addition, the analysis of the Association pointed out that the production and use of fuel vehicles contribute greatly to tax revenue. "In 2021, the national tax revenue was 17,273.1 billion yuan, an increase of 11.9% year-on-year; of which the domestic consumption tax was 1,388.1 billion yuan, an increase of 15.4% year-on-year." Vehicle purchase tax was RMB352 billion, down 0.3% year-on-year. The current car purchase tax is mainly contributed by traditional fuel vehicles, and with the decline in the market size of traditional fuel vehicles, the tax on fuel vehicles is also decreasing. ”