In Xiao Lei's view, the "Measures for the Parallel Management of Average Fuel Consumption of Passenger Car Enterprises and New Energy Vehicle Credits" (hereinafter referred to as the "Double Credit Policy") issued by the mainland is an art that pays attention to balance. The so-called double credit policy is fuel consumption and new energy vehicle credits, which are usually referred to in the industry as "fuel consumption credits" and "new energy credits", and collectively referred to as carbon credits.
The specific algorithm of double integration is more complicated, in simple terms, in the indicator of "fuel consumption integral", if the fuel consumption of fuel vehicles produced by car companies is higher than the fuel consumption standard set by the government, negative points will be generated, and vice versa, positive points will be generated. In the "new energy credit", the more the number of new energy passenger cars produced by car companies exceeds the number specified by the government, the more new energy points will be obtained, and vice versa, there will be negative points.
When settling the points, the addition of new energy credits and fuel consumption points shows that car companies have reached carbon emission standards in this year, which means that all car companies must produce new energy vehicles. Car companies that do not meet the standards will face severe penalties, and they can only stop the production and research and development of fuel-intensive models.
New energy vehicle companies earn blood, and traditional car companies lose blood
Car companies that do not meet the double points can not only sit still, they can buy points from the car companies that meet the standards to allow each car company to achieve a balance in terms of carbon emissions, which is the main reason why Xiao Lei is willing to call the double points policy the art of balance.
The so-called balance, then naturally there are profits and losses. For traditional car companies that rely heavily on fuel vehicle sales, carbon credits are the "bottomless abyss" that can suck away their billions or even billions of profits.
FAW-Volkswagen, which ranks first in the 2020 standings with negative points, owes 1.32 million negative points. According to people familiar with the matter, in order to meet the double point policy of domestic environmental regulations, Volkswagen purchased points from Tesla at a unit price of 3,000 yuan / cent. This means that FAW-Volkswagen has spent nearly 4 billion yuan just to make up for the big hole in carbon credits in 2020.
In 2020, Tesla made $1.58 billion (about 10 billion yuan) by selling points, and Tesla's annual net profit that year was only $720 million. In Tesla's carbon trading in 2020, FAW-Volkswagen's "contribution" can be described as a great contribution.
For new energy vehicle companies with almost zero carbon emissions, carbon credits used to be a "wealth-making" campaign that was enough to feed many new energy vehicle companies. Bydir, Wuling, Weilai, Xiaopeng and other low-margin new energy vehicle companies are all through "selling carbon" and state subsidies to maintain their livelihoods.
However, in this "wealth-making" movement belonging to new energy vehicle companies, the revenue quagmire of traditional car companies is short-lived. Today, the carbon integral of the imbalance between supply and demand is enough to make countless new energy vehicle companies mired in the quagmire, and traditional car companies have finally eased up.
The carbon credit is unbalanced, and the new energy vehicle companies are bitter
In 2022, the carbon credits that have fed countless new energy car companies and forced countless traditional car companies to suddenly start a big plunge in price. According to Dong Yudong, head of The Great Wall's electric vehicle brand Euler, at the beginning of 2022, the carbon credit trading price has been reduced to 500-800 yuan / point.
Even if calculated according to 800 yuan / min, compared with the price of FAW-Volkswagen to buy carbon credits from Tesla in 2020 is 3,000 yuan / min, the price of carbon credits has dropped by as much as 73%. What is this concept? We can also take the huge carbon credit transaction between Volkswagen and Tesla in 2020 as an example.
If the unit price of the carbon credit transaction between FAW-Volkswagen and Tesla is 800 yuan / cent, then Volkswagen only needs to spend 1.056 billion yuan to fill the big hole of -1.32 million carbon credits, while Tesla directly earns 2.904 billion yuan less. In 2020, if all of Tesla's carbon credit transactions are traded at a unit price of 800 yuan / min, then it is simply not likely to make a profit in this year.
Of course, with Tesla's profit margin gradually improving in the past two years, Musk is now shouting for the cancellation of new energy vehicle subsidies. It can be seen that even if Tesla does not rely on carbon credits, it can still live a tasteful life. Although it is difficult to make Tesla hurt the bones, it is a fatal blow for new energy vehicle companies that are highly dependent on carbon credits.
Taking the National God Car Wuling Hongguang MINI EV as an example, the media has previously estimated the cost of a Wuling Hongguang MINI EV according to the supplier situation disclosed by SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile, and the results show that the bicycle cost of this car is about 15,000-23,000 yuan.
If we add R&D costs, management, transportation and other expenses, we will find that this god car has no profit at all. In addition, the endurance of Wuling Hongguang MINI EV simply does not meet the standard of obtaining national new energy vehicle subsidies, so carbon credits have become one of the few profit points of this popular pure electric vehicle.
In 2020, Wuling Hongguang MINI EV sold a total of 113,000 units, bringing 440,000 new energy points to SAIC-GM-Wuling. SAIC-GM-Wuling only relies on the Wuling Hongguang MINI EV to reverse the carbon integration situation of the entire SAIC Group in one fell swoop.
It is worth mentioning that even after filling 174,000 points for SAIC, SAIC-GM-Wuling still has 266,000 points left, which is 800 million yuan based on the market situation of 3,000 yuan per minute at that time. If these points are calculated at 800 yuan, then the remaining 266,000 points of SAIC-GM-Wuling are only worth 212 million yuan.
Compared with Tesla, which no longer needs to rely on subsidies and carbon credits to achieve profitability, and Wuling, which has a smaller volume of new energy vehicles, the situation of domestic new energy vehicle giant BYD is more embarrassing.
According to BYD's 2020 annual report data, its revenue in the year was 156.598 billion yuan. Among them, the revenue of automobile business and related products was about 83.993 billion yuan, accounting for 53.64%; the revenue of BYD's mobile phone parts, assembly and other products reached 60.043 billion yuan, an increase of 12.48% year-on-year, accounting for 38.34%; the revenue of secondary rechargeable batteries and photovoltaic business was about 12.088 billion yuan, accounting for 7.72%, an increase of 15.06% year-on-year.
The above set of revenue data looks really beautiful, but BYD is notorious for increasing revenue and not increasing profits. Although its revenue in 2020 is as high as 156.598 billion yuan, the net profit attributable to the mother is only 4.234 billion yuan, and the non-net profit attributable to the mother is only 2.954 billion yuan.
Next, we will substitute the new energy vehicle credits into it, and we can see how much impact this has on the domestic new energy vehicle giant BYD. In 2020, BYD's new energy vehicle points reached 754,000 points, second only to Tesla in the positive points ranking of that year.
If calculated according to the unit price of 3,000 yuan / minute, then 754,000 new energy points will bring BYD up to 2.262 billion yuan in revenue; if calculated according to the unit price of 800 yuan / minute, THEN BYD can only get 600 million yuan.
So the question is, why has the price of carbon credits plummeted? The answer is simple, that is, there is an imbalance between supply and demand. Why is there an imbalance between supply and demand? Because with the rapid development of the new energy automobile industry, more and more car companies produce new energy vehicles.
As we all know, car companies exist for the purpose of making profits, and naturally they do what they see to make money. Just as the so-called lessons of the past car, the master of the rear car, when FAW-Volkswagen paid a huge price in order to fill the point loophole, many traditional car companies that also lacked layout in the field of new energy vehicles were also thinking of a way out.
Traditional car companies have entered the game, and the carbon credits are unbalanced
With the release of the "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Route 2.0" released by the mainland in October 2020, it encourages the development of plug-in hybrid technology, and also gives hope to traditional car companies that are not good at pure electric vehicles.
In terms of plug-in hybridization, BYD has taken the lead in launching DM-i super hybrid technology. It is worth mentioning that the reason why BYD can truly transform into a new energy vehicle company accounting for more than 90% of new energy vehicle sales is that DM-i super hybrid technology is indispensable.
It is no exaggeration to say that it is the success of BYD's DM-i super hybrid technology that has driven the transformation of the entire Chinese traditional car company to the field of hybrid. After DM-i, Great Wall Motors launched the hybrid DHT architecture, Chery launched the Kunpeng DHT system, Changan launched the Blue Whale iDDJISHU1, and Geely also launched the Leishen Zhiqing Hi· X Modular hybrid platform.
In terms of pure electric vehicles, the success of Wuling Hongguang MINI EV has also allowed many traditional car companies to see the development prospects of small electric vehicles. In addition to the Wuling Hongguang MINI EV, which has long occupied the top of the new energy vehicle sales list, Euler Black Cat and Chery Ice Cream have also created sales myths.
It is worth mentioning that a number of traditional car companies that were not cold to new energy vehicles originally entered the field of plug-in hybrids, and the launch of pure electric vehicles is not because these models can bring them much profit, but can bring them a large number of new energy vehicle credits to avoid repeating the mistakes of FAW-Volkswagen.
However, it is these traditional car companies that do not aim to make money and only want to earn some new energy points to stop losses have entered the field of new energy vehicles, resulting in an imbalance in the supply and demand relationship of carbon credits.
For example, FAW-Volkswagen, which lacks a new energy vehicle layout, has placed as many as -1.32 million negative points in 2020. Today, two years later, FAW-Volkswagen has launched new energy vehicles including ID.4 CROZZ, ID.6 CROZZ, Polaris Pure Electric and Magotan GTE Plug-in hybrid. Although the current sales volume of Volkswagen Group's new energy vehicles is not too high, it may make up for the negative carbon emissions brought about by its sales of traditional fuel vehicles.
As the pace of new energy transformation of traditional car companies is getting faster and faster, their demand for new energy credits is becoming smaller and smaller, and the market for carbon credits has also plummeted. Under such circumstances, bydir, Wuling New Energy, and other new energy vehicle companies that originally relied on "selling carbon" for a living will naturally become more and more torturous.
In addition, the subsidies for new energy vehicles have declined, and factors that are not conducive to the development of new energy vehicles such as raw materials and chips for power batteries have emerged in an endless stream, and the cost of new energy vehicles has risen sharply compared with 2020. Today, carbon credits have changed from a good medicine for new energy vehicle companies to a deadly poison. In this context, most new energy vehicle companies have entered the darkest moment.
The carbon integral is balanced, and there will be pain after taking a strong drug
In fact, for the current imbalance of carbon integration, the mainland has long had a corresponding strategy. However, in Xiao Lei's view, such a corresponding strategy is not only a very painful and fierce medicine for new energy vehicle companies, but also a good medicine for the right medicine. Why is it a strong dose? In order to maintain the balance of carbon credits, the mainland has revised the carbon credit rules, which has greatly increased the difficulty of new energy vehicle companies to obtain carbon credits.
As early as June 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology adjusted and modified the dual credit policy. Among them, it is clear that from 2021 to 2023, the assessment requirements for the credit ratio of new energy vehicles are 14%, 16% and 18% respectively. The proportion of new energy vehicle credits has become higher, which means that the difficulty of car companies to obtain new energy credits has also increased. Only when the new energy credits of car companies reach a certain standard, they can obtain new energy credits.
In addition, the points corresponding to the endurance of different new energy vehicles have also changed. For example, before that, a pure electric vehicle with a range of only 100km can obtain 2 new energy vehicle credits, and if the endurance reaches 150km, it can obtain 2.6 new energy points, which is also the main reason why many traditional car companies, including SAIC-GM-Wuling, are crazy to manufacture short-endurance small electric vehicles.
Nowadays, pure electric vehicle points with a pure electric endurance between 100-150km have been cut off, and they can only obtain 1 new energy point. In addition to small electric vehicles that focus on 100-150km endurance, the points for electric vehicles that focus on long endurance are also limited.
Among them, the pure electric endurance of 600km models originally could obtain 8 new energy points, but now can only obtain 3.4 new energy points, a drop of up to 57.5%, the points reduction is second only to the 150km endurance model. It can be seen that mainland policies do not encourage car companies to blindly develop pure electric vehicles with long endurance.
It is worth mentioning that compared with pure electric vehicles that are doubly difficult to obtain points, it is much less difficult for plug-in hybrid models to obtain new energy vehicle credits. Selling a plug-in hybrid model was originally able to obtain 2 new energy credits, which is equivalent to a 100km small electric vehicle, but after the policy revision, its adjustment rate has only dropped by 20%.
This also means that car companies can still get 1.6 new energy vehicle credits for each plug-in hybrid model, which is equivalent to pure electric vehicles with a range of 200km. In Xiao Lei's view, in addition to the technical threshold, the favorable carbon integration policy is also the main reason why traditional car companies have vigorously developed plug-in and mixing technology in the past two years.
In Xiao Lei's view, the increasingly stringent "Measures for the Parallel Management of Average Fuel Consumption of Passenger Car Enterprises and New Energy Vehicle Credits" makes it more difficult for new energy vehicle companies to obtain new energy credits, but it can also balance the current situation of the carbon credit market and promote the sales of new energy vehicles.
On the one hand, at the moment of rapid growth in sales of new energy vehicles, the increasingly stringent rules can reduce the rapid growth of new energy vehicle credits to a certain extent, so as to balance the integration of new energy vehicles and fuel consumption, and restore the carbon credit market to normal levels.
On the other hand, if new energy vehicle companies want to obtain more new energy credits, they must sell more high-quality and environmentally friendly new energy vehicles. In fact, the same is true of traditional car companies, which want to reduce the output of negative points, and they can only produce and sell more environmentally friendly models.
summary
As the number of new energy credits that can circulate in the carbon credit market gradually decreases, and the number of car companies that do not meet the standards gradually increases, the carbon credit will once again form a balance. Even so, Xiao Lei does not think that the unit price of carbon credits in the future can return to the price range of up to 3,000 yuan / min in 2020. Therefore, for most new energy vehicle companies, relying on "selling carbon" for a living is not the right way after all, these car companies still need to find a path that is truly suitable for themselves and can be profitable.
As the automotive industry gradually advances towards the goal of "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality", there will only be more and more new energy vehicles in the future, and the value of carbon credits will become smaller and smaller even after reaching equilibrium. When the world has achieved the goal of "carbon neutrality", carbon credits will completely lose their significance and officially enter the annals of human environmental protection.
Note: The material for this article comes from the Internet