From chasing to surpassing, a legendary industry revolution is happening right now.
Time back to six days ago, in the Fanghua Hall of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, a high-level forum entitled "Greeting a New Stage of Market-oriented Development of New Energy Vehicles" was in full swing.
Different from the slightly gloomy weather in Beijing, the guests attending this year's China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum invariably listed "outlook" and "confidence" as keywords for speech. Miao Wei, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, is passionate - "We have the confidence and ability to continue to fight the second half of the development of new energy vehicles, achieve high-quality development of the automobile industry in the change, and finally achieve the goal of building an automobile power!" ”
Extraordinary strength comes from excellent strength. In 2021, in the domestic market, the market share of pure electric vehicles in China will reach 81%, the proportion of Chinese brands of plug-in hybrid vehicles will reach 78%, and the ideal and BYD-related models will win the first place in market segment sales, breaking through the "joint venture encirclement" of the high-end passenger car market. At the same time, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in the mainland reached 3.545 million units and 3.521 million units respectively, with production and sales increasing by about 160% year-on-year, and the growth rate far exceeded that of Germany, the United States, japan, etc., and the total production and sales volume has ranked first in the world for seven consecutive years.
From staggering to catching up, local new energy vehicles have gradually stepped out of the outside world's doubts, step by step, and are clearing the fog, slowly ushering in the highlight moment of "curve overtaking".
A latecomer to the industry
Not the cradle of the industrial revolution, nor the century-old experience of developing related industries, China can definitely be classified as a "latecomer" in the field of car manufacturing - in 1956, 70 years after the birth of the world's first car, the first domestic car liberated CA10 before the assembly line was opened, and even textbooks characterized the matter as "ending the history of China's inability to manufacture cars".
In the 1980s, joint venture car companies were born one after another, in the 90s, the civil construction car industry started hard, and at the beginning of the new century, the market blew up and developed extensively, and around 2015, the first round of industry reshuffle began. "The tide recedes, only to know who is swimming naked", after the elimination of a number of marginal enterprises, BYD, Geely, Great Wall and other independent brands have gained a firm foothold, at the same time, the planning of new energy has gradually been put on the agenda by enterprises.
In fact, on the track of new energy vehicles, China also does not have much of an advantage - network data shows that in 2014, the sales of electric vehicles in the United States have exceeded the 100,000 mark, and there are more than 20 models on sale, and models such as Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volanda are popular in North America.
Looking at The country, in 2014, Xiaopeng Automobile was established, Weilai Automobile was born in November of that year, and ideal automobile landed in July 2015... In the traditional car-making camp, in addition to BYD, which started with batteries, only Chery and BAIC have come up with "simple" test water products, and most of the other brands of new energy models still do not have mass production conditions.
Wan Gang, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology, defined 2015-2019 as the "market cultivation stage with industry as the main body" - although the market penetration rate is only 1%-5%, although there is no mastery of the "core technology", but thousands of engineers have faced difficulties, Li Xiang, Li Bin, He Xiaopeng and other entrepreneurs have broken the problem to start, a new force of home car manufacturing has risen, and the curtain of the era of new energy is slowly being opened.
The national strategy refers to the direction of the enterprise, and the "latecomers" have begun to catch up.
From following the standard to defining the standard
China has never lacked examples of "counterattacks".
Television sets were invented by the British in 1925, and it was not until 1958 that the mainland achieved domestic production, and more than 70 years later, the production capacity of Chinese mainland LCD panels has accounted for more than half of the world. More than a decade ago, Apple in the United States and Samsung in South Korea rolled up the trend of smartphones; more than a decade later, 7 of the top ten mobile phone brands in the world in 2021 have come from China.
For the development of new energy vehicles, Chinese brands must not only lead the way on other people's tracks, but also define new ways to play the game. After 2019, the mainland new energy vehicle market has entered a stage of rapid market development with users as the main body. Under the background of many manufacturers' "thousand sails racing", a number of innovations oriented to user needs have spurted out, promoting China's trams from "people without me" to "people have me excellent".
Taking the extended range electric as an example, although the earlier foreign products have certain electric functions, the end time is less than 50 kilometers, which cannot meet the needs of pure electricity use, and the effect on reducing carbon emissions is more general. Based on the big data of user demand, Ideal Auto put forward the technical route of "urban electricity consumption and long-distance power generation", and mass-produced the world's first extended range electric vehicle with a range extension of more than 150 kilometers. Since its launch in 2019, the cumulative delivery volume of the car has reached nearly 150,000 units, winning the first place in the sales volume of medium and large SUVs in the Chinese market in 2021. In actual urban use, ideal ONE has reduced carbon emissions by about 76%.
Coincidentally, BYD, which is also rooted in the hybrid track, also came up with the latest hybrid technology - DM-i in 2021. EHS electromechanical coupling unit, hybrid blade battery pack, Snap Cloud-plug hybrid special 1.5T engine, 12V lithium iron phosphate battery... BYD's complete hybrid system has broken the monopoly of Japanese brands on high-end hybrid technology, and has driven the popularity of plug-in hybrid models with civilian pricing. Soon after the launch, the BYD DM-i series needed to wait in line, and the related models were sold overseas this year.
How to solve the problem that the charging time of lithium battery is too long? The idea given by Weilai is - to change the power. 10 special bolts fixed, intelligent automatic loading and unloading, a song of time mileage "full blood resurrection". At the same time, the modular design leaves the possibility of upgrading the vehicle battery. According to network data, as of March 30, 2022, WEILAI has built a total of 881 substations nationwide, including 235 expressway substations. The plan that once deterred Tesla has become a reality here.
In addition to the whole vehicle, domestic power batteries such as Ningde Times, Hive, and Sunwoda have quickly conquered the market, and self-developed electric drive systems such as Huichuan Power and Huawei have been praised by the industry, and the production of range extenders, electronic control modules, etc. is independently controllable. From following the standard, to "eating through" the standard, to tackling the "future standard", the "latecomers" are redoubling their efforts towards "catching up later".
Stand higher, see farther
Since the launch of the major special project of electric vehicles in the 863 program (2001), the road of new energy vehicle manufacturing in the mainland has gone through more than 20 years. Once, Wan Gang, who was still working as an engineer at Audi, compared the development of new energy vehicles to "overtaking in curves", but from the current point of view, it seems that this matter is more than just the "overtaking" of an industry.
"The 'double carbon' strategy is related to the overall situation and is an important strategic measure to drive the high-quality development of various industries and maintain economic growth, social tranquility and ecological civilization." At this hundred forum, Wan Gang once again proposed to strengthen the top-level design, break through key links, and comprehensively promote the automotive industry towards carbon neutrality!
The transport sector has always been a major carbon emitter. It is estimated that the carbon emission of A-class fuel vehicles with an average fuel consumption of 6.31L/100km is 1.626 tons, while the carbon emissions of A-class electric vehicles with an average fuel consumption of 14kWh/100km are only 952kg per 10,000 kilometers. In contrast, new energy vehicles can currently reduce carbon emissions by about 42%.
Of course, it is still not enough to achieve the "double carbon" goal - on the one hand, the "coal power" used in the mainland should be transferred to "green electricity" as much as possible, and the energy supply to vehicles with the help of renewable energy; on the other hand, the power of science and technology should not be underestimated. Taking the R&D progress revealed by Ideal Auto at the forum site as an example, its new generation of range extension technology and new intelligent operation mode are expected to achieve zero traffic emissions in the core area of the city, and the carbon emissions of comprehensive urban operations may also be reduced to more than 90%.
In addition to "double carbon", ensuring national energy security has also become a development goal. Li Xiang, founder and chairman of Ideal Automobile, put forward the idea in his speech: when the traditional central energy network temporarily fails or there is a gap, the function of discharging energy supply may be undertaken by new energy vehicles - such a distributed energy system will become an organic component of the national macro energy supply system, serving the overall situation with flexible, efficient and modular characteristics, and further optimizing the future energy supply system of the mainland.
Opportunities and challenges coexist, and vents and risks coexist. The proposition that belongs to new energy vehicles will not end here, and it is expected that there will be new achievements in the new year, and it is even more expected that Chinese trams will continue to write a legend that is getting higher and higher!
