Written by | Little devil
Since the car entered the era of electrification, many experts and forecasters have believed that Tesla will soon be ousted from the hegemony of traditional car companies. After all, Tesla has been established for less than 20 years, which traditional car manufacturer is not more experienced and senior than its car manufacturing?
But until today, we have not seen traditional car companies successfully "encircle" Tesla, on the contrary, it has been sitting firmly in the top position of the electric vehicle market.
Why have traditional car companies been unable to do Tesla? Maybe after reading the relevant research of the German Automobile Management Center (CAM), you will have more insights.
CAM will release an annual "Electric Vehicle Report" to analyze the development trend of the world's major electric vehicle markets, in this report has a more important component - the "Annual Innovation Ranking", so that the public can understand the performance of car companies in the innovation ability of electric vehicle technology in a more intuitive form.
In this innovation ranking, CAM's research team systematically recorded the cumulative innovation strength of more than 30 automotive groups and about 80 auto brands in the field of battery electric vehicles from 2012 to 2021, and ranked them based on originality and customer revenue.
Compared with the 2021 innovation ranking, the 2022 edition has added more individual series of innovation evaluations, and some new car companies have also been included in the list.
In the new edition of the Innovation List, Tesla won the top spot with an absolute lead, while the runner-up and third place were won by the traditional manufacturers Volkswagen Group and Hyundai Group, respectively.
Tesla has further expanded its leadership position in the field of electric vehicles with a super high index value of 175.8 points.
Compared to the previous list, the U.S. electric vehicle maker's index value has improved by 23.1 points, and it has opened an absolute gap of 38.6 points with the second-place Volkswagen Group, so it has become the only automaker to win the "Top Innovator" designation.
A large part of the reason for tesla's significant increase in the value of the innovation index is that it has increased the battery life and output power of the Model 3/S/X/Y through the software OTA in 2021. After the upgrade, the endurance of all vehicles is about 10% improved, and the output power is increased by 3%-5% according to different models.
The Volkswagen Group ranked second with a score of 137.2 points, although it was opened by Tesla, but it was the only car company on the list with a score of more than 100 points besides Tesla, so the Volkswagen Group won the title of "Fast follower". However, compared with 2021, Volkswagen has only improved by 10.6 points, and the gap with Tesla continues to widen.
One of the innovations of the Volkswagen Group is the upgrade of the Porsche Taycan, in which the front motor can be almost completely disconnected under certain operating conditions to reduce power consumption, making the four-wheel drive model more economical than the rear-drive model.
However, it should be pointed out that Volkswagen's latest version 3.0 vehicle software upgrade is not included in this score, because it only includes technological innovations by the end of 2021, and it is expected that the new software update will be placed in the evaluation in 2023.
Hyundai-Kia finished 3rd with a slim margin of 76.9 points, and the South Korean manufacturer improved its index value by 19.5 points in this year's selection, and its innovative gains were mainly attributed to the recognition of the DC fast charging performance of the Genisesee G80e and GV60.
BYD ranked Fourth with a score of 76.3, up 13.8 points from last year. The innovation benefits of the self-owned manufacturer are mainly due to its new small electric vehicle Dolphin, which is the first new car based on BYD's e platform 3.0, which has 800V high-voltage flash charging technology and can be adapted to BYD's lithium iron phosphate blade battery.
Kia's new generation Niro
BYD seals
Both HYUNDAI-Kia and BYD have earned the title of "Fast Follower", but it remains to be seen how the showdown between the two will continue.
After all, Kia's EV6 GT and the new generation of Niro electric vehicles have entered the quasi-listing state this year, and BYD in addition to the 800V electric SUV Yuan Plus, which has been put on sale, also has the heavyweight product of The Seal, a medium-sized pure electric sedan that Ocean Network will launch soon.
The remaining top ten car groupings have all earned the title of "Follower".
Judging from their new scores this year, most of the car companies have made great efforts in innovation performance, such as the 5th place Geely Group has an increase of 20.9 points this year, and its innovation income mainly comes from the two brands of Extreme Kr and Pole Star; SAIC Motor Has risen to 7th because of the gain of 22.7 points; BMW in the 8th place is the most advanced in this car company, compared with before, its index value increased by 25.7 points, even surpassing Tesla, and its ranking also jumped from the previous 13th place to five places.
Four STLA pure electric platforms
Mercedes-Benz Group is in 9th place with 15.4 points. The only outlier in the top ten is the 6th-ranked Stellantis Group, which has only 5.3 points of innovation growth, but before the merger in 2021, PSA Group and FCA Group both had a lot of innovation index accumulation.
The Stellantis merger also announced four new STLA eviction platforms last year. However, its innovative performance can only wait until the future new car lands.
Renault and GM, on the other hand, seem to have put a little less effort into innovation. Renault slipped from 5th to 11th, and while the Dacia Spring is a cheap and energy-efficient electric SUV, it hasn't delivered much innovation gain in terms of technology, with Renault's innovation value growing by just 4.5 points last year.
GM's performance is slightly better than Renault's, but its 6.9 points growth value can not avoid it from the previous 6th place to 10th place, although the Chevrolet Bolt EUV, Chevrolet Patrol (MENLO) and Buick Micro Blue 6 have improved battery life, but in CAM's view these are just to avoid its fall worse in the leaderboard.
Although Renault and GM have some regressions, at least in the field of electric vehicle innovation, these two manufacturers are still slowly advancing. Some traditional car companies have been directly labeled as "Laggard" by CAM because of their lack of innovative performance, including Tata, Ford, Nissan, Mazda, Toyota and Honda.
"Two fields" became the bottom car companies in the 2022 innovation rankings, of which Toyota's innovation index value was only 4.7 points, and Honda's was 2.8 points.
Although the two car companies are still very strong in terms of sales performance, it is not difficult to see that the two Japanese car companies are still very negative and resistant to the treatment of electric vehicles. Because they have been focusing their research and development on hybrid technology, they have been left behind too much by other competitors.
Fortunately, Toyota has recognized the mainstream trend in the market and launched its first electric TNGA model this year, the bZ4X, which should help its innovative performance.
Compared with the "no thought of making progress" of some traditional car companies, the innovative performance of new force car companies is still very powerful. For example, Rivian, who made the list for the first time, scored 13th with an index of 22.9 points, while Lucid, who also joined as a new player, ranked 16th with an index value of 15.6 points.
Although GAC is not a new power company, it has only entered the ranking this year, its index value is 7.2 points, ranking 22nd, and it is estimated that its main contribution comes from Aian Automobile.
Also on the list for the first time are the domestic new power car companies Weilai (10.0 points, 19th), Xiaopeng (7.7 points, 21st), aiways (5.6 points, 23rd).
From this list, it is not difficult to see that only car companies with stronger innovation ability can become market leaders in the field of electric vehicles, which is not only applicable to Tesla, but also for our domestic independent brands.
The reason is very simple, the smaller the capital and manpower invested by car companies in products, the less innovative technology that can be produced, and the products with mediocre performance naturally cannot produce market competitiveness that boosts sales, of course, in this way, car companies not only can not talk about what leads the market, survival may become a problem.
With the advent of the era of electric vehicles, the automobile industry structure has changed, for the traditional car companies that are accustomed to the dividends of fuel vehicles, if they are not willing to come up with the necessary resources and capabilities to promote research and development and innovation in the field of electric vehicles, they are bound to pay a heavy price. 【iDailycar】