"Vehicle enterprises should highlight the key layout, rely on the existing production base to gather and develop, and no longer add new production capacity distribution points before the existing base reaches a reasonable scale." At the 8th Electric Vehicle 100 Forum, the relevant person in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission said so.
A stone stirs up a thousand layers of waves. The new energy automobile industry in full swing hides a lot of embarrassment in its development: all over the place, shouting to seize the future industrial highland; there are too few competitive enterprises, and the actual utilization rate of production capacity is low.
On April 1, Tan Xuguang, chairman of Weichai Group, even predicted that new energy vehicles, especially passenger cars, will have a catastrophic overcapacity!
What kind of hidden feelings are behind the development of new energy vehicles?
Industrial layout
Early warning! It can't bloom everywhere
On the one hand, it is a high-pitched advance, on the other hand, it is a production capacity warning, and the new energy automobile industry will usher in the "double heaven of ice and fire".
According to relevant sources from the National Development and Reform Commission, in 2021, the automobile industry experienced adverse factors such as the new crown epidemic and the lack of core short lithium, and the annual production and sales scale recovered to more than 26 million vehicles, ending the three-year decline and ranking first in the world for 13 consecutive years. At the same time, exports exceeded 2 million units for the first time, doubling year-on-year and hitting a record high.
Compared with the early stage of the "13th Five-Year Plan", the proportion of private consumption of new energy vehicles increased from 47% to 78%, and the proportion of private consumption in non-restricted cities increased from 40% to 70%. This reflects that the recognition of the new energy vehicle market has increased significantly, and the endogenous driving force of industrial development has continued to appear.
At this pace, the first to be threatened is the traditional fuel vehicle. Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, said at the Electric Vehicle 100 Forum that with the addition of new energy vehicles, the competition in China's fuel vehicle market will become more intense. In the past year, there are 85 brands in the traditional fuel vehicle market, 34 brands with monthly sales of less than 1,000 units, and 9 brands have disappeared. "I think in the next 3-5 years, 80% of Chinese brands will shut down and turn."
While promoting the accelerated development and growth of the new energy automobile industry, we should also pay attention to the overall improvement of quality and brand. The person in charge also mentioned that in the future, it will adhere to the national "chess game" and focus on optimizing the industrial layout.
On the one hand, in accordance with the principle of main body concentration and regional agglomeration, we will guide the industry to gather in areas and subjects with a good development foundation and sufficient utilization of production capacity, focusing on the Yangtze River Delta, pearl river delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Chengdu-Chongqing and other regions to create an internationally competitive industrial cluster.
On the other hand, encourage and guide key areas to formulate industrial development plans, rely on existing production capacity to develop new energy vehicles, ensure that the project construction is standardized and orderly, vehicle enterprises should highlight the key layout, rely on existing production bases to gather development, and no longer add new production capacity distribution points before the existing bases reach a reasonable scale.
The person in charge also pointed out that new energy vehicles must not be too scattered, encourage a key enterprise to reach a certain scale in one place and then build a second point, and the whole country should make overall planning and not blossom everywhere.
Capacity planning
Blow up! Utilization of only 13%
The new energy automobile industry is pouring in like a tide, except for a few enterprises that have survived, it is more of a "chicken feather in one place".
5 years ago, a wave of new Internet car-making forces rose, and at its peak, there was a grand situation of three or five hundred companies rising together. Under the ripening of capital, the managers and R & D personnel of traditional car companies have jumped ship and joined the "entrepreneurial army", which can double the salary in the blink of an eye.
However, with the decline of subsidies and the intensification of market competition, a large number of new force car companies, including Byton, Sailin, Qianye, Bo County, etc., have gradually disappeared from sight.
How serious is the overcapacity of new energy vehicles?
Wang Fengying, president of Great Wall Motor, once mentioned this situation: by the end of 2020, the total production capacity of new energy vehicles in mainland China reached 26.69 million units per year, and the sales volume of that year was only 1.367 million units. At the same time, car companies with production qualifications have successively built and put into production capacity of tens of millions of vehicles, most of which are new energy vehicles.
In 2021, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in mainland China reached 3.521 million units, and only 13% of the production capacity played a role according to the production capacity of 26.69 million units per year in 2020.
In fact, the "Great Leap Forward" of new energy vehicle planning has been stuck for a long time. As early as ten years ago, when the Guangdong Electric Vehicle Development Action Plan mentioned that guangdong's electric vehicle planning capacity was 200,000 units, a company in Zhuhai Yintong proposed to build a new energy vehicle project with an annual output of 500,000 vehicles. For another example, the "Zhejiang New Energy Automobile Industry Development Plan" plans for 60,000 vehicles in 2015, but Shaoxing plans for 450,000 vehicles and Jinhua plans for 105,000 vehicles.
In Jiangsu, a number of new car-making forces have emerged on a whim, and almost every prefecture-level city is actively promoting the landing of new energy vehicle projects.
However, policy is also the first to put the "brakes" here. At the beginning of 2021, the Jiangsu Provincial Development and Reform Commission issued the "Notice on Effectively Strengthening the Supervision and Management of Investment Projects in the Automobile Industry and Risk Prevention and Control", which pointed out that only 5 of the 33 vehicle companies in Jiangsu have a capacity utilization rate higher than the national average. Not only is there a problem in the production capacity planning of the new car-making forces, but even traditional car companies have also been recruited. Baiqi BJEV Changzhou Branch, Dongfeng Motor Changzhou Branch and other car companies have exposed problems such as serious delay in construction progress and low capacity utilization.
Statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers show that in 2021, among the 98 car companies in the statistics, there are more than 50 car companies that produce less than 1,000 vehicles per month, and nearly 20 car companies are already in a state of suspension, with 0 cars produced per month.
The person in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission has solemnly stated the problem of overcapacity in new energy vehicles, but what is surprising is that there is no strict "constraint" on the new wave of car-making forces that are scrambling to get started. For example, before the problem of old production capacity was solved, technology giants such as Xiaomi and Baidu announced that they had "built cars", and they did not give a clear attitude towards this.
There are many new forces coveting the "cake" of the new energy vehicle market, how to balance the contradiction between car-making enthusiasm and overcapacity? It is necessary to plan from a long distance.
Market landscape
straddle! Technology goes hand in hand with brand
Although China's new energy automobile industry leads the world and is even expected to achieve "curve overtaking", China's new energy automobile industry still inevitably encounters bottlenecks in technology and brand.
For example, the lack of key components may make it difficult for enterprises to operate, the most typical case is the lack of cores since the epidemic, although independent brands have been able to alleviate sales pressure with a more flexible attitude, but the loss is profits.
In addition, the key elements in batteries such as lithium carbonate are also very dependent on foreign countries, and in the upstream and downstream industrial chains, China's new energy vehicle companies obviously feel "unable to speak" and are easy to fall into the dilemma of "losing money and making money".
Enterprises must have enough profits to survive and develop well. The "fight" of new energy vehicles must achieve breakthroughs in key components. Otherwise, the car is sold a lot, but the real "fattening" is the suppliers.
Of course, there is also a welcome flip side. The new energy vehicle market is driving the overall sales of automobiles up, the "head effect" is more obvious, there is no lack of winners such as "Wei Xiaoli", the annual sales volume has approached 100,000 vehicles, stepping over the "life and death line". But it is worth noting that there is still a significant gap between them and Tesla's 320,000 vehicle sales in China.
In addition, for new energy vehicle companies that "plan" for huge production capacity, once the factory is completed, it will immediately become a solid "hard cost", and if the production capacity cannot be rationally utilized, it will become a huge burden on business development, become "non-performing assets", and even drag down the enterprise. The Association has also issued an early warning: the automotive industry should solve the problem of overcapacity of traditional vehicles while preventing overcapacity of new energy vehicles.
"We will strictly implement the regulations on the management of investment in the automobile industry, strengthen the cleaning up and rectification of illegal projects for new energy vehicles, investigate and deal with violations such as unapproved construction, batch zero construction, and construction while approving in accordance with laws and regulations; standardize the merger and reorganization of vehicle enterprises, and vigorously promote the withdrawal of backward enterprises and ineffective production capacity."
The transformation of traditional car companies must first revitalize the original production capacity resources, and it is no longer a new thing to rebuild the production line of fuel vehicles for new energy vehicles. In the new track of electrification, a new round of "big fish eat small fish" industry mergers and acquisitions, resource integration or will be more normalized, the mainland automobile industry is entering a new stage of survival of the fittest, stock competition.