Looking at the Chinese auto market over the years, foreign brands have a relatively obvious advantage, Japanese cars and German cars compete, American cars follow closely behind, and the competitiveness of domestic cars is relatively low. However, with the development of the automobile industry in the direction of intelligence and electrification, a number of excellent new brands of intelligent electric vehicles have emerged in the market, and at the same time, traditional automobile brands have also followed the development trend of the industry and quickly implemented the strategy of electrification and intelligent transformation.
For a time, the automobile market was short-lived, and you came and went, so it was not lively. If China's automobile manufacturing industry wants to go to the forefront of the world to achieve curve overtaking, it needs to increase its weight and go all out at the levels of intelligence, electrification, digitalization and low-carbon technology. From the perspective of the current stage of transformation of the automobile industry, smart electric vehicle brands have a first-mover competitive advantage.
The golden age of smart electric vehicle development is coming?
In the "14th Five-Year Plan" stage, the government vigorously promoted the intelligent transformation and upgrading of China's automobile industry, advocated improving technological innovation capabilities, built a new industrial ecology, and promoted the integrated development of the automobile industry. In addition, in the context of the strategy of achieving carbon neutrality, the policy has vigorously promoted the transformation of automobile electrification.
At the same time, with the rapid development of 5G, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and other technologies, science and technology has become the core factor to promote the development of automotive intelligence.
In addition, smart electric vehicles have gradually been accepted by consumers, and the willingness to buy has gradually strengthened, and the popularity and maturity of China's smart electric vehicle consumption have been significantly improved, which has further promoted the development of the intelligent electric vehicle industry.
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China's new energy vehicle sales increased from 1.367 million to 3.521 million units in 2021, an increase of 158% year-on-year, a qualitative increase over 2020. At the same time, based on the impact of the overall macro trend, driven by multiple favorable factors such as industry, market and users, and based on our long-term research and insight into the new energy vehicle market, Yiou Think Tank believes that new energy vehicles are expected to exceed 13 million in 2025, achieving a market penetration rate of 44%.
With the promotion of policies, technology, and consumer acceptance and many other favorable factors, China's intelligent electric vehicle industry may usher in a golden period of development. In 2021, the intelligent electric vehicle market sold 1.333 million units, and the intelligent penetration rate of electric vehicles reached 37.9%, an increase of 10.9% compared with 2020.
Yiou Think Tank believes that intelligent technology will continue to mature and will gradually penetrate into low-end models. It is expected that by 2025, the sales volume of smart electric vehicles will reach 8.382 million units, accounting for 61.7% of the entire electric vehicle market. In the process of smart electric vehicles becoming universal, competition between brands will be inevitable.
The pattern of industrial competition has changed, who can take the lead?
Under the change of electrification and intelligence of the automobile industry, the pattern of China's intelligent automobile industry has ushered in great changes. With the transformation of traditional brands and the continuous addition of new power brands, the industrial competition pattern is undergoing a new round of "reshuffle". Forces from all sides have shown their "housekeeping skills" in order to win victory in the chaotic war.
Traditional automobile brands take advantage of their own high production capacity, first of all, through electrification transformation, to produce new energy vehicles to ensure that they have a stable foundation in industrial change, such as BYD, Great Wall and other brands occupy a leading position in the sales of new energy vehicles. Second, intelligent upgrading is achieved by creating core technologies and establishing an intelligent ecosystem.
From the perspective of the sales of some new power brands in the past two years, the sales gap between brands in 2020 is not very obvious, but tesla sales have soared in 2021, reaching 484,000 vehicles, and have opened up the gap with other brands. Tesla took the lead in "occupying" the market.
Xiaopeng, Weilai and Ideal, as the "three giants" of China's intelligent electric vehicles, are stable and steady, with sales of more than 90,000 vehicles in 2021, but Nezha Automobile's sales in 2021 reached 70,000 vehicles, an increase of 361.7% year-on-year, catching up with "Wei Xiaoli". Zero-run cars have also begun to exert their strength, an increase of 278.6% year-on-year, ready to go.
However, from the perspective of sales alone, it is not enough to describe the current competitive landscape of smart electric vehicle brands, such as Tesla, "Wei Xiaoli" and other brands have self-developed automatic driving systems and have a super high carrying rate, making them stand firm in the intelligent competition; BYD's battery technology is also in a leading position; Geely Automobile's architecture system is also its main competitive point.
Yiou Think Tank believes that the competition of smart electric vehicle brands focuses on technology research and development, electronic and electrical architecture, low-carbon concept, service operation, ecological model and other directions.
First of all, driven by the trend of intelligence and electrification, intelligent technologies such as automatic driving, intelligent cockpit, and intelligent network connection, as well as electrification technologies such as three-electric systems and controllers, have become the core competitive direction of the brand. Secondly, in the context of carbon neutral development, brands take carbon indicators as another competitive direction. In addition, due to the gradual "mobile phoneization" of smart electric vehicles, brands are more likely to be close to users, and service operations have become a major competitive direction. Finally, due to the change in the relationship between automobile supply and demand, each brand has established a supply ecosystem, and the ecological layout and ecological partners of the brand will also become an important factor in competition.
In the increasingly fierce competition, which brand is more competitive for car brands? Where is the current competitive direction? How can brands build barriers through their competitive advantage? With the progress of the automotive industry, where is the competitive direction of auto brands in the future? Who will seize the opportunities for development?
Based on the above considerations, Yiou Think Tank is currently writing the "2022 Research Report on the Competitive Landscape of China's Smart Electric Vehicle Brands". The report takes the smart electric vehicle brand as the starting point, and through the study of each brand, it outputs the current development status of China's smart electric vehicle brand. By building an indicator system, the brand competition dimension indicators are quantified, and the competitiveness of each brand is evaluated, so as to achieve in-depth research on the brand competition pattern, and at the same time output corresponding views and insight into brand competition trends.
The following is the framework details of the "2022 China Intelligent Electric Vehicle Brand Competition Pattern Research Report".
The report is mainly divided into three parts, namely the development status of smart electric vehicles, the analysis of the competitive pattern of smart electric vehicle brands, and the competitive trend of smart electric vehicle brands.
In the first part, the report first summarizes the macro situation of the current development of the automobile industry, secondly sorts out the core factors that promote the development of the automobile industry such as consumer demand, policies, technology, and industrial chain, and finally, anchors the research object and research scope of the report based on the above analysis and thinking.
The second part, as the core content of the report, will build a brand competitiveness indicator system, deduce the results of China's smart electric vehicle brand competitiveness indicators, and realize the in-depth study of the competitive pattern of smart electric vehicle brands according to the horizontal and vertical cross-analysis of the indicator results. The brand competitiveness index system will be constructed from five dimensions: market, core technology, strategy, operation and ecology, and through the analysis of the competitive relationship of different brands in various subdivisions, the advantages and disadvantages of each brand in the current automobile industry development and the analysis and research of core competitiveness will be realized.
The third part, based on the analysis of the results of the second part, provides insight into the future competitive trends of automobile brands. Predict the development direction of smart electric vehicle products, technologies, etc., as well as the core competitiveness of brands in the future.