Weibo hot search screenshot
On the evening of April 3, the topic of "BYD announced the suspension of fuel vehicles" appeared on Weibo's hot search.
BYD officially announced that it will stop the production of fuel vehicles from March 2022. In the future, BYD will focus on pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in the automotive segment. This means that BYD has become the world's first discontinued fuel vehicle company.
BYD bids farewell to the "fuel era"
In fact, in November last year, BYD explicitly announced the suspension schedule for fuel vehicles.
At the then 26th United Nations Climate Change conference, BYD participated in a declaration on accelerating the transition to zero-emission cars and trucks, saying it would stop producing fuel vehicles by 2040 or not. The announcement that the production of fuel vehicles had been stopped before March exceeded most people's expectations.
Look closely at BYD's production and sales report, and its electric steering has long been revealed. Starting from June 2021, the cumulative sales growth rate of BYD fuel vehicles during the year began to turn negative year-on-year. In the whole year of 2021, BYD sold 136,300 fuel vehicles, down 42.54% year-on-year. In contrast, new energy vehicles were 603,800 units, an increase of 218.3% year-on-year.
Throughout the first three months of this year, BYD's sales of new energy vehicles were 286,300 units, an increase of 422.97% year-on-year; while the sales of fuel vehicles were only 5,049 units, a year-on-year decrease of 89.78%. In March, when it announced the suspension of fuel vehicles, its sales of new energy vehicles exceeded 100,000 units, an increase of 346.2% year-on-year.
"In terms of BYD's total car sales in 2021, traditional fuel vehicles account for less than 20%, and the gradual reduction of sales is bound to damage its economies of scale." Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Innovation Center of the North China University of Technology, told Tianmu News that the "double integration policy" of the domestic automobile market (that is, the "Management Measures for the Parallel Management of Average Fuel Consumption of Passenger Car Enterprises and New Energy Vehicle Credits"), fuel vehicles have slowly become a drag on BYD, and the comprehensive electrification turn is also logical for BYD.
The wave of electrification is unstoppable
Picture according to Xinhua News Agency
"Electrification has become an inevitable trend in the future development of automobiles, in addition to BYD, many car companies have also announced the time node of their discontinued fuel vehicles, but the time is only sooner or later." Zhang Xiang told reporters.
For example, Changan Automobile plans to completely stop selling traditional fuel vehicles in 2025; BAIC Group will stop the production and sales of its own brand traditional fuel passenger cars in China by 2025. The timetable of overseas car companies is even lower, Honda has announced that it will stop releasing fuel vehicles in China in 2030; Volkswagen will stop selling fuel vehicles in the EU market in 2035, and other markets are to be determined according to the actual situation; Audi will launch the last new pure internal combustion engine new car in 2025 and stop selling fuel vehicles in 2033.
At the recent China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum, Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, said that as the growth of new energy vehicles accelerates, the competition in China's fuel vehicle market will become more intense. In 2021, there are 85 brands in the traditional fuel vehicle market, of which 34 brands have monthly sales of less than 1,000 units. It is expected that 80% of Chinese fuel vehicle brands will shut down and turn around in the next 3-5 years.
In 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) guided the release of the "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0". According to the plan, by 2035, the automobile industry should achieve electrification transformation, all traditional energy-powered passenger cars are hybrid, new energy vehicles will become the mainstream, and sales of energy-saving vehicles and new energy vehicles will account for 50% each.
In 2020, Hainan Province proposed in the "Overall Plan for the Construction of Hainan Free Trade Port" that fuel vehicles will no longer be sold by 2030.
At the international level, in 2021 the European Commission proposed a legislative proposal to ban the sale of conventional energy vehicles using gasoline or diesel internal combustion engines in the EU market from 2035. The Japanese government has also said that all new cars sold after 2035 will be electrified.
"Under the guidance of policies such as carbon neutrality and carbon peaking, the phase-out and electrification transformation of fuel vehicles have become unstoppable." Zhang Xiang said. (Zhu Gaoxiang)