Observation chamber
Written by | Liu Jihao
Looking at the newly released January car market data of the Association of Passenger Cars, in the face of the 4.4% year-on-year decline and 0.6% of the month-on-month decline in the passenger car market, no one is surprised, after all, this year's Spring Festival, the end of January in those days of the car market basically no sales.
So, where is the car market in January? Carefully studying the data of major plates, it is not difficult to find these three points: one is the sharp decline in the pure electric plate, the second is the continuous recovery of fuel vehicles, and the third is the stable play of the plug-in and mixed plate. Among them, the author pays special attention to the last aspect, because it may be the dark horse that runs the fastest in the car market this year.
Perhaps you will be surprised, after all, the thigh of the car market is still a fuel vehicle, and the mainstream of new energy is also pure electricity, so why just talk about plugging in?
Why plug-in?
To answer this question, let's first look at a set of data.
According to the statistics of the Federation of Passengers, the plug-in and mixed plate sold a total of 77,000 vehicles in January, although it fell a few points month-on-month, but compared with the pure electricity plate more than 31% of the big fall, has been a lot better, more importantly, the plug-in mix plate year-on-year increase of 207.5%, almost twice the pure electricity.
▲New energy sales data in January, source: The Association of Passengers
Moreover, we can also find through the monthly data of last year that compared with the pure electric plate with great ups and downs, the growth momentum of plug-and-mix is relatively stable (as shown in the figure below), and today's sales scale is more than 3 times that of the same period last year.
▲Sales trend of new energy passenger cars since January 2021, data source: Passenger Association
You may say that the sales scale of plug-and-mix is not even one-third of pure electricity, and it is too early to become a phenomenon. But what cannot be ignored is that in the last month alone, the sales volume of pure electricity is still nearly 5 times that of plug and mix, and if this trend continues to develop, the gap between the two will only become smaller and smaller.
Moreover, the sharp decline in the pure electricity sector in January is by no means an isolated phenomenon.
On the one hand, the one-year chip shortage has largely contributed to the high growth of new energy sources, especially the pure electricity sector. Because the chip is given priority to the supply of new energy vehicles, the industry orientation is so, and the double integral needs of the car companies themselves are also so, and Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, also talked about this in a post a few days ago. However, with the gradual normalization of chip supply, the author recently visited the market and noticed that the suppressed production capacity of fuel vehicles is gradually recovering, and the market pressure on new energy has increased accordingly, and pure electricity, which is 3 times larger than the amount of plug-in and mixed volume, is the first to bear the brunt.
▲Geely's self-developed 7-nanometer vehicle specification SOC chip
On the other hand, the state's subsidies for new energy vehicles this year have declined (the subsidy for pure electric models with a range of 300-400 kilometers is 3900 yuan less, and the endurance of more than 400 kilometers is less than 5400 yuan), which not only accelerates the speed of consumers buying electric vehicles at the end of last two months, releases sales in advance, and the follow-up impact on the pure electricity plate is also inevitable. Moreover, in January this year, many electric vehicle manufacturers have adopted the practice of temporarily retaining last year's subsidies, and further overdrafted the consumption capacity of electric vehicles in the coming months.
Coupled with the superimposed impact of the continuous rise in battery costs, the recent increase in the price of electric vehicles is not a new thing, especially those entry-level pure electric models of tens of thousands to 100,000 or so, and the purchase cost of consumers has risen significantly. However, the subsidy of plugging and mixing only shrank by 2,000 yuan, and it is relatively easy for manufacturers to digest this part of the cost, and the market is basically unaffected.
Based on the above reasons, the author is more optimistic about the opportunity to insert and mix plates, at least for a few years.
From BYD's dominance, see the opportunity to interject
The plug and mix market is not fragrant, BYD has the most say, because his family enjoyed half of the plug and mix market last year, and achieved a super dividend of 467% year-on-year increase in the market segment.
In the January production and sales report released by BYD officially at the beginning of this month, the sales volume of its plug-and-mix models has reached 46,540 vehicles, which has exceeded pure electricity (46,386 vehicles), accounting for more than 60% of the entire domestic plug-and-mix market. It should be known that in the same period of 2021, BYD's plug-and-mix models only sold 5408 vehicles, which is more than one-third of pure electricity sales, and the proportion of the plug-and-mix market is only 20%.
Being able to achieve such a huge reversal in one year represents the true will of consumers in itself. In fact, the point that determines the final judgment of many consumers is the ease of use. Pure electricity can only rely on charging piles, but the reality has taught everyone again and again, there is no problem in the city, running long distances (especially holidays) to open pure electricity is really not a mature option. In contrast, plugging and mixing has no worries in this regard at all, there is electricity charging, no power refueling, no mistake at all.
The reason why the plug-in and mixed models in previous years was not much on the volume had a lot to do with the technology itself.
In the past, including BYD, the plug-in and mixing technology of major car companies was basically based on the engine, once the battery power was low, the power became weak, the chicken did not say, the fuel consumption would also increase sharply, and the consumer experience was not good. But now the plug-in mixing technology has evolved, the general use of dual motor system, into the motor drive-oriented, the task of the engine is mainly to generate electricity, only in some scenarios that require high-power output (or high-speed direct drive) will participate in driving the wheel, Honda i-MMD, BYD DM-i, Great Wall DHT and so on.
As the earliest car company in the new energy industry chain of independent brands, BYD has applied the new technology to the main models such as Qin, Tang and Song for the first time since the official mass production of DM-i at the beginning of last year, and has changed the state of the past few years in only two or three months, and the sales volume has reached a new high month by month, and it has been 11 consecutive increases since the beginning of last year, and has driven the entire passenger car plug-in and mixed plate to rise steadily.
▲Bydir sales trend since January 2021, data source: BYD production and sales express
It is worth noting that BYD's current plug-in and mixed models have almost completely replaced the traditional fuel vehicles, and it sold 100,000 less fuel vehicles last year, but it doubled the more than double the plug-and-mix here; in January this year, BYD's fuel car sales shrank to only more than 2,000 vehicles, 20,000 fewer than the same period last year, but the plug-and-mix plate sold more than 40,000 more.
In terms of contribution to enterprises, BYD contributed more than 70% of the increase of more than 300,000 vehicles last year; in January this year, BYD achieved an increase of 50,000 vehicles, and the plug-and-mix further contributed 80%.
Plug in, is really quite fragrant!
In the battle of chaos, who can stay out of the traditional car company?
Seeing BYD eating spicy, I believe that any car company will be hungry, especially the traditional car companies.
Under the ultimate goal of global carbon neutrality, national emissions regulations are tightening like a tight curse. In the domestic market, the realistic pressure of the double integration policy, the survival consideration of comprehensive cost, every traditional car company is facing an important choice, is it a step in place to directly dry pure electricity? Or do you continue to extend the life of your internal combustion engine with the help of electric motors?
Under the laws of business, I believe that no player dares to bet his life on any side. After all, the policy does not explicitly prohibit the internal combustion engine, but only requires you to meet the emission standards, then, while embracing pure electricity (or hydrogen energy) in a limited way, a certain degree of electrification is a more secure option for the present and foreseeable future, so is the plug-in hybrid (including PHEV and REEV), and the same is true for HEVs that cannot be externally charged.
In the national "Roadmap 2.0 for Energy-saving Vehicles and New Energy Vehicles", it has also been clarified that three electrified models of pure electricity, plug-in hybrid and hybrid are several major categories that can survive in 2035.
There is a demonstration effect of BYD there, and other players are actually already rubbing their hands. Great Wall's high-end brand WEY based on the DHT hybrid system to create a plug-and-mix model Macchido, Mocha has been seen; Changan high-end model UIN-K iDD version has also started pre-sale. Not only that, the DHT hybrid architectures such as Geely Leishen Power and Chery Kunpeng Power released by mainstream independent brands at the end of last year have also clearly put forward the planning of plug-in hybrid models.
As for the joint venture brands, not to mention, whether it is the main market force such as Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda, or the representative of the BBA, they have already laid out in the plug-and-mix market, and the 5-series plug-and-mix version of BMW even sells quite well.
Inserting this road, any traditional car company can not bypass.
『 Final Remarks 』
The power of example is there, the dual pressure of policy and cost is also there, in the face of the irreversible trend of new energy, no matter how attractive the pie drawn by some manufacturers, their actions have shown their attitude - if the future and the present must be grasped, then the insertion is the so-called "shortcut".
Of course, the word "shortcut" is only relative to pure electricity, if there is no strong technical foundation, then this road may be full of thorns, persistent such as BYD, is not also dormant for more than ten years, after three generations of iterative upgrading of interpolation and mixing technology, to have today's jianghu status?
The author boldly predicts that when the chassis is made this year, the market size of the domestic plug-in and mixed plate will at least double that of last year, reaching a volume of about 1.2 million vehicles.
The spring of the plug-in market is getting closer and closer, and players are hurrying to get on the car.
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