Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said that from the trend of the first quarter of this year, China's automobiles have maintained a stable growth trend. At the same time, taking into account a series of uncertainties, the difficulty and complexity of the current industrial breakthrough are increasing.
The "lack of core" crisis that has lasted for nearly two years has not completely faded, and the rapid rise in the price of commodities such as power battery raw materials has cast a shadow on the global automotive industry that is still seeking recovery.
Due to the sharp rise in production and manufacturing costs, since the beginning of this year, many car companies have successively raised the sales pricing of products, especially new energy vehicle products, which in turn has affected the sales situation in the terminal market. Coupled with the recent outbreak of domestic epidemics, the difficulties of market players have increased significantly, the smooth flow of the economic cycle has encountered some constraints, the new downward pressure has further increased, and the automobile industry has also shown a pressure situation that cannot be ignored.
Recently, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (hereinafter referred to as "CAAM") held a regular press conference to report on the production and sales of automobiles in March and the first quarter of this year, and timely analyze the current situation and trend of industry development.
According to the data, production and sales in March were 2.241 million units and 2.234 million units, up 23.4% and 28.4% month-on-month, and down 9.1% and 11.7% year-on-year, respectively. From January to March this year, production and sales totaled 6.484 million units, up 2.0% y/y, and sales totaled 6.509 million units, up 2.0% y/y.
In the first quarter, production and sales increased slightly year-on-year, and the downward pressure needs to be paid attention to
Since entering 2021, a number of car companies have stopped work and reduced production due to "lack of cores", including Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan, Ford, Suzuki, Volvo and other car companies are deeply involved. After entering 2022, the pessimism brought about by the "lack of core" problem spread throughout the automotive circle.
China's automobile industry has also been greatly affected, and a number of dealers have reported to reporters that due to the low inventory level of models on sale, newly listed models are currently locking orders and retaining customers through deposits, and the delivery pressure is greater.
"Affected by the epidemic, the production capacity and efficiency of automobile manufacturers have decreased, and some car companies have even reduced production and stopped production, which has also led to a large extent that the production and sales of automobiles in March are not as good as in the same period last year." Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Automobile Association, said frankly.
Fu Bingfeng said that in the consumption of automotive products, due to the increase in consumer demand for products, and the epidemic has affected consumers' ability and confidence in car purchases, it is temporarily impossible to achieve smooth transactions of products, resulting in a significant lack of consumption momentum. Therefore, compared with the same period, the overall sales volume of the automobile market showed a certain decline in March.
However, in Fu Bingfeng's view, although the data on China's automobile production and sales in March declined, from the trend of the entire first quarter, Chinese automobiles still maintained a stable growth trend.
Among them, the performance of independent brands is particularly eye-catching. In March, Chinese brand passenger cars performed significantly better than the market, with sales growing rapidly month-on-month and year-on-year.
According to the data, independent brands sold a total of 904,000 units in March, an increase of 42.1% month-on-month, an increase of 21.5% year-on-year, accounting for 48.5% of the total sales of passenger cars, and the share increased by 5.8 percentage points over the previous month and 8.8 percentage points over the same period last year.
In addition to specific data on automobile production and sales, caucus china also announced the loading volume of power batteries in China in March and the first quarter of this year.
The reporter learned that in March, China's power battery loading volume totaled 21.4GWh, up 138% year-on-year and 56.6% month-on-month, showing a rapid growth trend. Among them, ternary lithium batteries loaded a total of 8.2GWh, up 61.2% year-on-year and 40.5% month-on-month.
"In the early days of the 'lack of cores', the first-tier and some second-tier cities showed more obviously because of the strong demand for car purchases. But now, with the increasing price of raw materials such as power batteries, third- and fourth-tier cities are also difficult to escape the problems of 'difficult to order' and 'difficult to deliver'. Liu Zhichao, an analyst in the automotive industry, believes that although the data shows that the loading volume of power batteries is doubling, the escalation of the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine has led to an impact on the supply of non-ferrous metals including aluminum, nickel, copper, etc., which may have a huge impact on the global new energy automobile industry.
"Nickel, as the upstream key raw material for electric vehicle power battery manufacturing, is mainly used in the manufacture of ternary cathode materials in power batteries, and ternary power batteries occupy nearly half of the market share. To a certain extent, this means that the nickel required for vehicle power batteries will be more exuberant. Liu Zhichao analyzed.
Xu Haidong, deputy chief engineer of the China Automobile Association and director of the Industrial Research Department, said that due to the rapid rise in the price of raw materials for power batteries in recent times, it has directly pushed up the manufacturing costs of products on electric vehicles by car companies, which is reflected in the production of automobile companies, and their business activities have been affected to a certain extent, and the overall situation is less than expected.
"The price increase of power batteries and new energy vehicles caused by the price increase of raw materials is expected to be reflected in the second quarter, and at the same time, the installed volume of power batteries will fluctuate again, and the growth of the number may be relatively slow." Xu Haidong concluded.
The wind of "double carbon" blows strongly, and new energy vehicles go to sea
Under the unfavorable background of "lack of cores", soaring raw material prices and local outbreaks of the epidemic, the global automotive industry has fallen into a trough. However, for China's auto industry and major independent brands, there are still some new opportunities.
As the main trend of the current development of the automobile industry, new energy vehicles continued to maintain a growth trend in the first quarter of this year. In March, production and sales of new energy vehicles totaled 465,000 units and 484,000 units, up 11 times year-on-year.
The reporter learned that the production and sales of pure electric vehicles were 376,000 and 396,000 units, an increase of 11 times year-on-year; the production and sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles were 89,000 and 88,000 units, respectively, an increase of 1.6 times and 1.4 times year-on-year.
In fact, in the first quarter of this year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 1.293 million units and 1.257 million units, respectively, an increase of 1.4 times year-on-year. Among them, the production and sales of pure electric vehicles reached 1.036 million units and 10.07 million units respectively, an increase of 1.3 times year-on-year.
"It can be found that new energy vehicles are developing rapidly with a doubling trend." Xu Haidong said, "New energy vehicles not only continue the development trend in 2021 and maintain rapid growth, but also the market's attraction index and impact factor weights continue to increase." ”
Xu Haidong said frankly that at present, new energy vehicles have become the biggest highlight of the automotive industry, and its market development has shifted from policy-driven to market-driven new development stages, showing a good development situation of both market scale and development quality.
More importantly, the total sales of new energy vehicles in 2021 reached 3.521 million units, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year, and the market share reached 13.4%. With the implementation of the "carbon peak, carbon neutrality" goal in the market, Chinese automobiles will continue to accelerate the electrification transformation and increase overall sales.
Fu Bingfeng expects that the annual production and sales of new energy vehicles will reach 5 million units in 2022, and the leading role in the world will be further highlighted.
Another engine that drives the market upwards is "cars going to sea". In March, auto companies exported 170,000 units, down 5.5% month-on-month and 28.8% year-on-year. Among them, the export growth contribution of new energy vehicles was 17.4%.
In the first quarter of this year, mainland auto companies exported 582,000 vehicles, an increase of 58.3% year-on-year. By model, passenger car exports increased by 61.9% y/y to 452,000 units, while commercial vehicle exports increased by 47.2% y/y to 130,000 units.
"Overall, China's auto exports still maintain a high growth trend." Fu Bingfeng told reporters that he had expected that in 2022, mainland automobile exports would usher in a period of rapid growth, with a growth rate of about 20%. "Judging from the relevant data in the first quarter of this year, the overall export of automobiles has far exceeded 20%, which is very surprising."
Xu Haidong believes that with the continuous development of the epidemic in foreign markets and the continuous changes in the political situation, the advantages of Chinese automobiles are more prominent.
Listen to more industry voices and blow the "rallying call" of industrial chain collaboration
As an important pillar of the national economy, China's auto industry is in a critical stage of transformation and upgrading and moving towards high-quality development.
In 2021, automobile production and sales ended the decline for three consecutive years, achieved positive growth, and made a good start in the opening year of the "14th Five-Year Plan", contributing to the sustained development of China's industrial economy and stable macroeconomic growth.
However, in Fu Bingfeng's view, although the automobile production and sales ushered in a good start at the beginning of the year and the development momentum was good, considering a series of uncertainties, the difficulty and complexity of the current industrial breakthroughs are increasing, bringing new problems and challenges to the stable, orderly and healthy development of the industry, and will also have an impact on the annual sales trend and even the process of subsequent industrial upgrading and transformation.
"The China Automobile Association will hold two large-scale industry conferences with different positions at the nodes where more than half of the year is running, and work with relevant management departments, enterprises and participants in the automotive industry chain to discuss the major plan of stable growth." Fu Bingfeng introduced.
It is understood that the two conferences are "2022 China Automotive Forum" and "The First China New Energy Intelligent Networked Vehicle Ecology Conference and 2022 China Automotive Supply Chain Conference". It is understood that these two conferences have their own emphases and will play different roles for different levels and fields of the industry.
According to reports, the China Automotive Forum is a comprehensive industry top forum, is the largest and highest level of the annual industry event sponsored by the China Automobile Association, based on the global perspective and macro vision, pay attention to the overall industrial development, discuss major common topics, pay attention to cross-border exchanges and cooperation, covering government, enterprises, learning, research and research fields, condensing the wisdom of the whole industry, and helping the construction of an automobile power.
The China Automotive Supply Chain Conference pays more attention to the healthy development of the industrial chain itself, safety and controllability, creates a good ecology of collaborative innovation and win-win cooperation in the industrial chain, and is committed to building a communication platform for all parties in the industrial chain, promoting the transformation of technological achievements, and displaying the latest innovative achievements and advanced technologies in the industrial chain.
"The '14th Five-Year Plan' is a key window period for the high-quality development of the automobile industry, and at an important node in 2022, in the face of so many influencing factors, how to seek progress in stability has become a serious issue facing the entire industry." In this context, 'listening to more industry voices and condensing more industry forces' will surely become the source of power for the sustained and good development of the automobile industry. Fu Bingfeng concluded.
China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Zhang Zhenqi Source: China Youth Daily
Source: China Youth Daily
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