Ignition Dimension (ID: chaintruth) original
Produced by Burning Finance
Author | Cao Yang
Edit | Rao Xiafei
New energy vehicles have never lacked news, but there has been a lot of news related to them in recent days, and it seems that each one has earned the attention of netizens and car owners, and has caused quite a stir in the car market and capital market.
On April 9, WEIO motor said on its official APP that due to the epidemic since March, the company's supply chain partners in many places have stopped production and have not yet recovered. Affected by this, NIO vehicle production has been suspended, and many users' vehicles will be delayed in delivery.
One day after the announcement, WEILAI issued the "Explanation on the Price Adjustment of NIO Products", saying that due to the impact of the rise in global raw material prices, from May 10, 2022, NIO will make appropriate adjustments to the prices of its products.
Source/NIO APP Burn Finance Screenshot
After the two announcements, the U.S. stocks of Chinese new energy vehicles fell before the market. Among them, Weilai (NIO.US) fell 9%, Xiaopeng Automobile (XPEV.US) fell more than 7%, and Ideal Automobile (LI.US) fell more than 6%. As of the close of the US stock market on April 16, Beijing time, WEILAI reported a total market value of 19.65 US dollars / share, with a total market value of 32.46 billion US dollars; Xiaopeng Automobile reported 26.93 US dollars / share, with a total market value of 23.08 billion US dollars; Ideal Automobile reported 25.71 US dollars / share, with a total market value of 26.56 billion US dollars.
Contrary to the decline of U.S. stocks and Chinese stocks, in the days when Weilai issued the above announcement, new energy vehicles have just ushered in the "first shot of BYD's discontinued fuel vehicles". On the day of the news release, bydy (002594.SZ) stock price rose to close at 241.9 yuan / share, compared with the previous trading day (April 1) at the close of the company's market value in the A-share market increased by more than 17.3 billion yuan, ranking first in the market value of Chinese automobile companies.
In fact, since the launch of new energy vehicles, the discussion of fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles has never stopped. Li Bin, the founder of Weilai Automobile, once said, "I can't understand at all, why do you still buy oil trucks now, in addition to smelling some gasoline, what else is good?" Listen? ”
This time, the discussion of "whether the fuel vehicle is completely gone" is more intense, and in the eyes of the industry, even if the new energy vehicle may replace the fuel vehicle, the replacement of the market will be a long process.
Car companies have successively stopped production of fuel vehicles
BYD, which won the title of "the world's first car company to stop production of fuel vehicles", not only made it on the hot search with the announcement of by #BYD to stop producing fuel vehicles, but also received nearly 400 million reads and more than 15,000 discussions.
In fact, under the increasingly stringent carbon emission regulations and global carbon neutrality targets, it is only a matter of time before car companies stop production of fuel vehicles. In November 2020, the General Office of the State Council issued the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" that clarified:
"From 2021, the proportion of new energy vehicles in the public sector of the national ecological civilization pilot zone and key areas for air pollution prevention and control will not be less than 80%. By 2025, the average electricity consumption of new cars for pure electric passenger cars will drop to 12.0 kWh/100 km, and the sales volume of new energy vehicles will reach about 20% of the total sales of new cars. By 2035, pure electric vehicles will become the mainstream of newly sold vehicles, public domain vehicles will be fully electrified, fuel cell vehicles will be commercialized, and highly autonomous vehicles will be applied on a large scale. ”
As a result, BYD announced on April 3 that "according to the needs of strategic development, BYD Automobile will stop the production of fuel vehicles from March 2022." In the future, BYD will focus on pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle business in the automotive sector, not only the time point for domestic car companies to stop selling fuel vehicles has been clarified, but also the timetable for overseas head car companies to stop production of fuel vehicles has also become clearer.
According to public information, the world's leading car companies are divided into comprehensive suspension of sales and partial suspension of sales in some regions when formulating the time point for discontinuing fuel vehicles. At the time node, most of the domestic car companies are located in 2025, while overseas car companies are basically concentrated in 2035 and 2040 after 2030.
Among them, BAIC Group, Changan Automobile and Nissan Automobile will fully stop selling fuel vehicles in 2025. Mercedes-Benz and Honda cars were discontinued in 2030 and 2040 respectively. Toyota Motor plans to take the lead in stopping the sale of fuel vehicles in China, Europe, and North America by 2030. In 2035, its brand Lexus will stop selling fuel vehicles. The EU as the first market for the sale of fuel vehicles includes bmw group, Volkswagen, kia companies. At the time node, BMW is 2030, and the other two are 2035.
In addition to the above car companies, including General Motors, Ford, Jaguar, Volvo and traditional luxury brands Aston Martin Rapid E, Maserati Alfieri, etc. also announced that they will stop selling fuel vehicles in the future. At the same time, the market has also given a positive cooperation. According to incomplete statistics from Combustion Finance, including Norway, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, California, Germany and India, the united states, they will ban the sale of fuel vehicles. It is worth mentioning that the Uk has stopped selling not only fuel vehicles, but also oil-electric hybrid vehicles.
Looking at the timetables of the above car companies, it is not difficult to find that although "stopping the sale of fuel vehicles" may have become inevitable, there is still a big difference in time.
Guo Qinghui said bluntly that major car companies have only issued a ban on combustion at this stage, and have not yet stopped production of fuel vehicles. On the one hand, policy factors and increasingly serious environmental problems have led countries to introduce regulations to develop new energy vehicles to varying degrees, forcing car companies to ban combustion. On the other hand, the outside world is generally optimistic about the development of new energy vehicles, especially the capital market, which makes traditional car companies face great threats and have to develop new energy business.
Lin Jiang, a professor in the Department of Economics at Lingnan College of Sun Yat-sen University, said bluntly in an interview with the media, "We are very sure that fuel vehicles will withdraw from the historical stage, but there is no doubt that at this stage, fuel vehicles still occupy the largest market share." ”
Lin Jiang further said that this timetable will inevitably have an impact on the automobile market, it will allow various car companies to compete, have references with each other, form a situation of mutual influence and competition, and is conducive to the healthy development of the overall market of new energy vehicles in the mainland.
Fuel vehicles are hard to come to an end
But despite this, it does not mean that the fuel car has come to an end.
According to the data of the Association of Passenger Vehicles, from January to December 2021, the wholesale number of new energy passenger cars was 3.312 million units, an increase of 181.0% year-on-year, and the retail sales of new energy passenger cars were 2.989 million units, an increase of 169.1% year-on-year. In terms of penetration rate, from January to December 2021, the penetration rate of new energy was 15.7%, which was significantly higher than the penetration rate of 5.8% in 2020. The Association expects that the sales volume of new energy passenger vehicles can reach more than 5.5 million units in 2022, and the penetration rate will reach about 25%.
However, in stark contrast to the surge in sales of new energy passenger cars, the negative growth of fuel vehicles. The data shows that although the retail sales of fuel vehicles reached 17.16 million units in 2021 and 17.79 million units in wholesale, the actual two sets of data fell by 6% and 4% respectively year-on-year.
A number of industry experts said bluntly in an interview with China Business Daily that although new energy vehicles are rising rapidly, there is still a significant gap with fuel vehicles from the current sales ratio, and traditional fuel vehicles will not withdraw from the historical stage in a short period of time.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, also said that BYD took the lead in stopping production of fuel vehicles, which is combined with its own conditions and status quo, that is, the advantages of electric vehicles are obvious, and cannot be simply and rudely summarized as "fuel vehicles are coming to an end".
As Cui Shudong said, through the sales comparison of BYD's fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles and its profitability, it is expected to see why it will become the "world's first car company to stop production of fuel vehicles".
According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in 2021, BYD's new energy vehicle market share reached 17.1%, an increase of nearly 8% during the year. According to the financial report, BYD's overall annual sales increased from 399,100 units in 2019 to 720,300 units in 2021. Among them, the annual sales of fuel vehicles have basically remained at around 200,000 units in three years.
This also means that in 2021, the sales of new energy passenger cars up to 600,000 units have become the absolute driving force for BYD's growth. This is also the first time in the past five years that its annual sales of new energy vehicles have surpassed that of fuel vehicles in total sales.
At the same time, BYD's 2021 financial report shows that in 2021, the company achieved revenue of 216.1 billion yuan, an increase of 38% year-on-year; net profit attributable to the mother was 3.05 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 28%.
Geely Automobile (0175. HK) and Great Wall Motor's financial report data is much better than BYD's. According to the financial report, in 2021, Geely Automobile's annual revenue was 101.611 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to the mother reached 4.720 billion yuan. Great Wall Motor's annual revenue was 136.405 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to the mother was as high as 6.726 billion yuan.
Financial commentator Zhao Jizhi said bluntly that BYD's long-term increase in revenue does not increase profits, which has an inseparable relationship with the pulling of fuel vehicles. Therefore, all in new energy vehicles, on the one hand, can reduce costs, on the other hand, it can impact the throne of the world's first new energy vehicles and improve the value of the brand.
Cui Shudong told Burning Finance that the world's major head car companies have successively released the time to stop production of fuel vehicles, which is more just a future plan, there will not be much change in the short term, and the impact on the overall automobile market is still difficult to judge.
Cui Shudong further emphasized that the demand for some traditional fuel vehicles under high oil prices will inevitably divert to the consumption of new energy vehicles, bringing about the phenomenon of the weakening of traditional vehicles, and also reducing the purchasing power of more consumer groups and bringing about a decline in the purchasing power of the traditional car market. However, many of the self-owned A-class cars of traditional fuel vehicles are below 80,000 yuan, and the price of mainstream electric vehicles is relatively expensive, and the larger price advantage will still inhibit consumers from buying electric vehicles to a certain extent.
Admittedly, in 2021, after surveying 26,000 consumers in 25 countries, Deloitte released the 2022 Global Automotive Consumer Survey (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), showing that most consumers in most markets around the world are reluctant to pay a premium for advanced technology. They see the new features of the vehicle as also a business cost for brands looking to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Ryan Robinson, deloitte's head of automotive industry research, said buyers wanted to buy cars at affordable prices. Of those looking to buy an electric car, 74 percent of consumers expect their next car to cost less than $50,000. Since the average price of new cars is already close to $40,000, this is a very narrow (pricing) range for EV manufacturers.
"The restrictions on new energy passenger vehicles in special scenarios and special regions further amplify some of the needs of fuel vehicles." Cui Shudong said.
"Complementary" rather than "superseding"
Guo Qinghui analyzed that it is a fact and trend that new energy vehicles "replace" the fuel vehicle market. But it is not very accurate to analyze it from the perspective of overall sales only from the perspective of individual feelings of sales. "If the sales of new energy vehicles and the sales of fuel vehicles show growth, then the market for new energy vehicles to replace fuel vehicles is not established?" Apparently not. ”
Guo Qinghui stressed that in fact, the change in market share and user acceptance is the parameter that more intuitively reflects the relationship between new energy vehicles and fuel vehicles. As Guo Qinghui said, from the embryonic period to the current adjustment period, the development of new energy vehicles in the mainland has gone through more than ten years. The market share of new energy vehicles in the past decade has also taken a qualitative leap.
In 2009, the "Automobile Industry Adjustment and Revitalization Plan" was officially released, according to the national energy-saving and new energy vehicle demonstration project, it is planned to develop 10 cities per year within 3 years, and strive to account for 10% of the national new energy vehicle operation scale in 2012, but this figure was not realized until 2018-2019.
However, from 10% market share to 20% in just 2 or 3 years. According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the market share of new energy vehicles in the first quarter of this year has reached 19.3%. The industry generally believes that by 2025, the penetration rate of new energy in Chinese cars may reach 25% to 27%, or close to 30%.
The increase in market share is directly related to the change in the concept of car owners. In the early days of the popularization of new energy vehicles, the proportion of additional purchases (that is, non-first passenger cars) was as high as 60-70%, and the proportion of first purchases and exchanges was very small. However, with the development of domestic new energy vehicle technology and the entry of more models into the market, the number of first-time users will show a rapid increase.
Guo Qinghui said that from the perspective of factors such as the energy situation, environmental protection and policy requirements (double carbon, double integral, etc.), new energy vehicles are an inevitable choice for the future development of the industry. If you stand in this perspective, new energy vehicles will surely replace fuel vehicles and become the mainstream or even the only one in the car market.
But at the same time, Guo Qinghui further emphasized that at present, the main business of the vast majority of enterprises is still the fuel vehicle business, and the current new energy vehicle market is actually only a segment of the market, similar to the off-road vehicle market, compact car market, etc.
Cui Dongshu expressed a similar view on this. "The trend of new energy vehicles and traditional fuel vehicles forms a strong differentiation, realizes the partial substitution effect of new energy vehicles on the fuel vehicle market, proves the change in consumer demand through the user's market-oriented choice, and accelerates the pace of transformation to new energy in the automobile market."
Cui Dongshu said that electric vehicles and fuel vehicles are not contradictory relationships, but balanced and complementary, and there will be no phenomenon that fuel vehicles are completely replaced by electric vehicles.
In addition, the shortcomings of new energy passenger cars themselves are also difficult to make them quickly complete the task of "replacing" fuel vehicles.
According to the "Analysis of Complaints Accepted by the National Consumer Association in 2021" released by the China Consumer Association, the problems of consumer complaints are mainly concentrated in safety, battery quality, battery life, after-sales service, price and other aspects. Guo Qinghui added that price factors and supporting facilities, such as the number of charging piles and the speed of charging can meet the needs of car owners, are also pain points that electric vehicles must solve instead of fuel vehicles.
As the report points out, the market is facing a chaotic automotive market prospect. Robinson said: "There are a lot of big, total bets and we are in a very chaotic period. ”
Resources:
"BYD officially stopped production of pure fuel vehicles, European and American car companies: I became a painting PPT? Source: Understand the car.
"The Timing and Consideration of BYD's Discontinued Fuel Vehicles | President Zhu's Column", Source: 2030 Travel Research Office.
"After BYD stopped production of fuel vehicles, dealers are busy clearing inventory! A number of car companies have announced the suspension time! Source: The same car era.
"New energy vehicles with an annual production capacity of more than 20 million units, industry experts: it's time to brake", source: Univision Automobile.
*The caption and text are part of the illustrations from Visual China.
*Guo Qinghui is a pseudonym in this article.