The hybrid market, once because of the high technical threshold, the technical route is too complex, and the market is clearly divided into Japanese hybrids and non-Japanese hybrids, and in the eyes of users, the hybrid models on the market can also be divided into oil-driven hybrids, and hybrids that can be charged, whether they can hang green cards is their clear boundary.
Although plug-in hybrid models have also enjoyed a certain degree of policy dividends in the past decade because of the restriction on purchases, it was not until last year that sales in this segment have been qualitatively improved, and this year, new models have begun to be listed together.
In March alone, self-owned brand hybrid models have been launched: Mocha DHT-PHEV, Changan UNI-K iDD, BYD Song MAX DM-i, BYD Destroyer 05.
According to the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in the first two months of this year, plug-in hybrid vehicles sold a total of 160,000 units, a year-on-year surge of 251.1%.
The most representative of the surge in sales is BYD.
In February, BYD's DM model sales accounted for more than 50% of its sales in the month, of which the Tang MD model achieved a single monthly sales of more than 10,000. BYD's sales have maintained rapid growth driven by the MD-i super hybrid model.
In the past, there were Japanese hybrids as a market benchmark, and blocked technical patents, in the past decade, Chinese brands of hybrid models have been folded in the market.
But it seems that overnight, the hybrid technology of independent brands has blossomed, and the first year of hybridization of independent brands has arrived?
Low-carbon, policy orientation under the integral
The plug-in hybrid market has begun to heat up, which is inseparable from the stimulation of policies.
Since 2011, the mainland's "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2011-2020)" has clarified the development direction of plug-in hybrid, that is, Toyota and Honda represented by HEVs are not among the subsidies.
For more than a decade, the development of electric vehicles driven by policies has been obvious to all, while hybrid models have been continuously adjusted in the technical route with the changes in policies in the past decade or so.
Plug-in hybrids are constantly adjusting subsidy standards from fuel saving rates, to pure electric mileage, and then to pure electric mileage and fuel consumption levels, with the aim of raising the technical threshold.
However, in the past decade, there have not been many cities that support plug-in hybrid models to get green cards, and plug-in hybrid models have not increased sales by leaps and bounds under the stimulation of subsidy policies like pure electric models.
Under the big goal of carbon reduction, the strategic position of hybrid is improving.
In 2020, the "Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap" version 2.0 was released, under the large goal of carbon reduction in the automotive industry, hybrids accounted for an increasing proportion of future development, and proposed that in 2025, hybrid new vehicles accounted for 50% of traditional energy passenger cars, 75% in 2030, and reached 100% by 2035.
Excerpts from version 2.0 of the Technology Roadmap for Energy-Saving and New Energy Vehicles
Double integration, carbon reduction, new energy subsidies decline, multi-factor blessing, the development of hybrid has become the inevitable of Chinese car companies.
In the past two years, Among Chinese brands, BYD DM-i, Lemon Hybrid DHT, Geely Raytheon Hi · X, Chery Kunpeng DHT, many brands have come up with self-developed hybrid technology, and are transforming to a more and more integrated series parallel configuration hybrid DHT system.
For users, plug-in hybrid models are gradually achieving a balance between pure electric vehicles and fuel vehicles: pure electric endurance meets daily commuting, fuel consumption is not high in the state of power loss, and green cards can also be hung to save purchase taxes. Simply put, practicality is getting stronger.
Chinese brand hybridization: from controversy to landing
In fact, since the policy began to promote new energy vehicles, there has been a controversy in the mainland about the development of hybrid models: hybrid seems to be a more suitable solution to the anxiety of battery life and emission reduction in the transition period, but how should it be developed?
Previously, some industry experts have interpreted this problem in one step: there is a breakthrough in autonomous hybrid technology, and the policy can be encouraged.
In 1997, toyota's first hybrid model, the first generation of the Prius, had entered the market, and Toyota has since established a hybrid technical barrier. The research and development of Chinese car brands for hybrid has just begun in 2003, including BYD, Geely, Changan, SAIC, etc., the technical direction is very scattered, whether it is technical ability or cost control ability is relatively low, coupled with hybrid model power motor, controller, battery and management system and other key components rely on imports, have restricted the development of Chinese brand hybrid.
In the past, Chinese brands have not created word-of-mouth products in the hybrid market, and many products have long disappeared.
And in the past few years, although plug-in hybrid models have become a path to obtain indicators in limited-license cities, they have not solved the problem of low fuel consumption and cost reduction in actual use, that is to say, the core technology has not been broken.
From BYD's hybrid research and development history, BYD DM system has also undergone three generations of development, from the main attack on fuel economy, to the main attack on power, and then to the third generation to further enhance economic and smoothness, the third generation of DM representative model is BYD Tang DM.
Last year, BYD's hybrid technology developed to the fourth generation, and the market effect began to appear. In June 2020, BYD released its dual-mode (DM) technology dual-platform strategy, namely DM-p platform and DM-i platform. Among them, DM-i is an electric-based hybrid technology, when the power is sufficient, the fuel consumption is still maintained in the case of power loss, and the engine maintains an efficient range operation, which is the biggest difference from the oil-based HEV model and the traditional plug-and-mix model in the case of power loss because of the larger weight leading to higher fuel consumption.
The strategic improvement of hybrid at the policy level has promoted the rapid development of Chinese brand hybrid technology.
Since the beginning of 2020, Chinese brands have suddenly emerged a lot of independent hybrid technology. Including the lemon hybrid DHT technology released by the Great Wall in 2020, Geely released the Thunder God Intelligence Engine Hi · X, Changan launched the iDD hybrid system, Chery announced the Kunpeng hybrid DHT technology route, and each model equipped with its hybrid technology began to be listed one after another.
Coupled with the breakthrough of the ideal ONE in the 300,000-level market with the extended range route, the technical route and product definition, as well as the intelligent background, show a new development direction.
If it is said that it was completely policy-oriented and green card before, it can be said that after two years of development, the hybrid technology of independent brands now has market space in terms of product strength.
In this way, the hybrid market has suddenly become a new outlet for Chinese brands. According to the data of the Association of Automobile Associations, from 2018 to 2020, the sales of plug-in hybrid models in the mainland have remained at about 250,000 vehicles, and in 2021, the sales volume of plug-in hybrid models has jumped to more than 500,000 vehicles, of which the increase is mainly from BYD and Ideal.
Can Hybrid build the technical confidence of Chinese brands?
On the one hand, Chinese brands should slowly achieve full coverage of their own fuel vehicle products through hybrid technology, on the other hand, Chinese brands also want to achieve a breakthrough in brand upwards with the help of self-developed hybrid technology. Hybrid has been elevated to a higher strategic significance by Chinese brands.
On the pure electric route, Chinese brands missed the opportunity because of hesitation, and the high-end market was preempted by the new car forces.
However, chinese brands are faster than expected in the development of hybrid technology. Lemon Blend was established from 2018, officially released in 2020, and the first product has been launched in 2021.
Although the R&D cycle is greatly shortened, the market inspection time it faces has also increased.
Although the hybrid technology route is complex, about MD-i, DHT, IDD and other technical suffixes, there are very few users who can know why it is so, but taking the BYD DM-i model as an example, feedback from BYD's 4S store, the DM-i superiority felt by users, is to take into account the experience of electric vehicles and fuel vehicles, which is more practical for users.
Lemon hybrid DHT powertrain Image source: Great Wall Motor official website
Although the maturity of the technology needs to be verified by a market cycle, if the advantages of hybridization are closely combined with the product definition, it is a shortcut to create a blockbuster, and the ideal ONE that revitalizes the extender route is an example.
The diversification of market demand is also inspiring Chinese brands to consider more from the technical route and market segmentation.
However, the analysis from the Federation of Automobile Manufacturers shows that Chinese car companies should adopt a "low-cost high-end" strategy in the development of plug-in hybrids, on the one hand, to control costs, on the other hand, not to take a simple high-end strategy.
The analysis report of the Association pointed out that the fuel vehicles of the joint venture brand are facing the problems of high fuel consumption and low standards, and electric vehicles are difficult to meet the mainstream demand, so the low-cost strategy of independent insertion and mixing can effectively promote the transfer of joint venture fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles.
At the same time, due to the obvious intelligent trend of high-end B-class vehicles, the intelligent process of plug-in hybrid models is relatively slow, and it is difficult to compete with Tesla, Weilai, Xiaopeng, etc., so do not be busy with high-end, but achieve a breakthrough in A-class vehicles, and pragmatically do a good job of replacing joint venture fuel vehicles with independent plug-in hybrids.
Of course, for Chinese brands that invest in research and development efforts and gradually grasp the advantages in the industrial chain, the full penetration of market segmentation with the help of hybrid has begun.
BYD Song MAX DM-i to 140,000-170,000 pricing into the hybrid MPV market, just listed mocha DHT-PHEV, pricing jumped into the 300,000 range, it is said that BYD Tang DM-i four-wheel drive version, pure electric endurance of 252 kilometers of new cars are also on the road, Chinese brands with the help of hybrid high-end path has begun to appear.
BYD Song MAX DM-i Image source: BYD Auto official website
Judging from the performance of BYD's hybrid models last year, it has technical patents, which have core advantages in the industrial chain and have certain cost control capabilities, which is also the reason why BYD has been able to roll out hybrids in its entire range of models. At the same time, BYD's development in the new energy market is also the endorsement of its hybrid technology.
For more Chinese brands, the market verification of hybrid products has just begun.
Starting next year, Shanghai will no longer issue free new energy vehicle licenses for plug-in hybrid models, which also means that plug-in hybrid models will gradually break away from policy support and truly move towards the market.
The power of technology on the market will also be truly exerted.
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