The author | Mr. Dongguan Da
Produced by | Electric Guild
The North American electric vehicle market has recently become a "fragrant feast" for all parties to compete.
Recently, the Volkswagen Group plans to invest at least $7.1 billion in North America by 2027 to build local electric vehicle production capacity, including a battery plant and a large-scale electrification upgrade of its assembly plants in Puebla and Silao, Mexico.
At about the same time, it was reported that CATL was also considering spending $5 billion to build a battery factory in North America to supply local customers, including Tesla.
It is understood that the new plant of CATL in North America has an annual production capacity of up to 80 GWh, and will produce nickel-manganese cobalt batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries in the future, and will eventually employ more than 10,000 workers.
One is an international car giant, one is a global power battery overlord, and the two scramble layouts seem to reveal a signal: the spring of the North American electric vehicle market is coming.
North America is the world's third largest automotive market after Asia and Europe. Today, the process of electrification of cars in this market is also accelerating.
For the North American market, pickup trucks are one of the most popular models for car owners, and as more and more automakers begin to introduce electric versions of pickup trucks, electric vehicles have also ushered in a major breakthrough moment in North America and are expected to become mainstream in 2022.
Wedbush Securities, a well-known investment firm, expects the North American auto industry to invest $500 billion over the next five years to achieve the transition to electric vehicles. In the United States alone, some automakers already plan to build more than a dozen new electric vehicle factories and battery factories.
"By 2025, the sales of new electric vehicles in the US market alone are expected to reach 5.5 million, and the demand for power batteries may exceed 300GWh."
"This is perhaps one of the greatest industrial changes in the history of capitalism." Scott Keo, CEO of Volkswagen Group USA, inc., said, "The investment is huge and the task is daunting. ”
The continuous development of electric vehicles is already reshaping the North American automotive industry
Tesla is the biggest beneficiary and the biggest threat to the established order of the automotive industry. Under Elon Musk's leadership, Tesla successfully delivered nearly 1 million vehicles in 2021, a 90 percent increase over 2020.
Although Tesla is still small compared to traditional car giants, it has a clear lead in the field of electric vehicles, and the growth rate is also quite fast.
Wall Street's valuation of Tesla is about $1,000 billion, ten times more than general motors in the United States. That means Tesla, which is building factories in Texas and Berlin, Germany, can easily expand.
At Tesla's current rate of growth, it will surpass General Motors in five years.
Tesla's minimalist cars are basically only most popular in coastal cities and suburbs, and as more and more models such as electric pickups and electric SUVs are on the market, American consumers who are not interested in Tesla have also expressed great interest in more options.
Porsche's first pure electric car, the Taycan, starts at about $83,000. Its sales in 2021 surpassed the Porsche Classic Sports car 911. Last year, Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles and electric vans sold nearly 100,000 units, an increase of 90% compared to 2020.
Ford will soon also be on sale with an electric version of the F-150 Pickup Lightning. For decades, the F-150 has topped the U.S. auto sales charts. Ford's initial plan is to produce 75,000 lightning units a year, but demand for the car is very strong, and Ford is speeding up production to double production.
According to Ford's pricing scheme, lightning starts at $40,000 and tops out at more than $90,000. After orders exceeded 200,000, Ford suspended Lightning's scheduled service. Hau Thai-Tang, Ford's chief product platform and operations officer, even said:
"As long as it can be produced, we can definitely sell it."
In 2021, if it were not for production constraints, electric vehicle sales in the United States could be higher.
Keo, ceo of Volkswagen U.S., said volkswagen sold about 17,000 ID.4 all-electric SUVs in the U.S. last year, but its sales could have quadrupled that number.
Mike Sullivan is the owner of the car dealership chain LAcarGUY. Within weeks of the Volkswagen ID.4 pure electric SUV arriving, all the ID.4s in the store were sold out. He said: "When the car was in the store, it was the best-selling model in the store. ”
This year, Volkswagen will produce ID.4 pure electric SUVs in Chattanooga, a commercial and industrial city in southeastern Tennessee, rather than importing them from Germany, so the market supply side will also increase further.
Whether compared with Europe or the Chinese market, electric vehicle sales in the United States will continue to show a high growth trend.
In this context, the leading enterprises in the automotive industry chain from China, Europe, Japan and South Korea began to intensively lay out the North American market. Especially in 2022, including Volkswagen, Toyota, CATL, Envision Power, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, LG New Energy, Panasonic Battery, SK on, Samsung SDI and other companies, have taken North America as a key market for future investment.
With the acceleration of electrification in the North American market by local car companies and foreign auto industry leaders, North American electric vehicles are bound to enter the fast lane.
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