Abstract: The trend of new energy subsidy policy tilting to the downstream energy supplement field has been very obvious, but whether new energy will be replaced or charged in the future is still controversial.
Text | Li yang
Editor 丨 Zhao Cheng
▲ Image source network
With the hot market, the public's acceptance of new energy vehicles is also increasing.
The rapid growth of new energy passenger car sales in 2021 has supported the counter-trend growth of total vehicle sales, and in March 2022, the market penetration rate of new energy passenger cars in mainland China reached 28.2%, which has exceeded the national target of about 20% market penetration rate of all new energy vehicle models in 2025.
This means that the new energy policy with subsidies as the core in the past has achieved its due effect, but as the development of new energy vehicles has entered a new stage, the weight of subsidies is declining, especially since this year, the sharp increase in raw material prices, chip shortages, slow charging, charging difficulties and other issues have greatly impacted the development of the new energy industry.
In 2022, the subsidy for the purchase of new energy vehicles will be officially terminated, at that time, from the perspective of policy, how to stimulate and support the stable development of the new energy vehicle market is thought-provoking.
Policies in the post-subsidy era should be more refined
The high-quality and rapid development of new energy vehicles is inseparable from the industrial policy of new energy vehicles. In the past new energy policy, subsidies were the biggest development boost for the new energy automobile industry.
Liu Bin, chief expert of China Automotive Technology and Research Center, combined with the analysis of the flexibility coefficient of the policy and the weight coefficient of the indicator, measured the relative contribution of policy tools to industrial development, and finally concluded: from the perspective of the central policy level, the industrial policy of new energy vehicles is generally effective, and the purchase subsidy has the most obvious comprehensive effect on promoting industrial development, with a contribution of 54.83%, and the contribution of the second tax preferential policy is 15.38%.
Purchase subsidies and tax incentives are important policy factors to promote technological progress, and the sum of the contribution is more than 60%, which is an indispensable and important factor for the rapid development of the new energy industry. However, as the cost of new energy vehicles is gradually equal to that of fuel vehicles, the weight of subsidies is also declining.
The cost gap between different models is not very different, Liu Bin told Caijingqiche (ID: caijingqiche), "Pure electric taxis have basically reached the break-even line in 2019, but A-class pure electric passenger cars with a range of more than 300 kilometers in the private car field may need certain policy support before 2025."
Specifically, the policy support required for different models and different application scenarios is very different, and Gong Huiming, senior project director of the transportation project team of the Energy Foundation, said, "The three stages of vehicle electrification still need refinement, precision and differentiation."
For example, truck electric vehicles are particularly in need of policy support, in Gong Huiming's view, "new energy passenger vehicles have entered the stage of 'sending a ride', but the electrification of trucks is still in the stage of 'helping the horse', whether light or heavy, the market share is very low, economic incentives and non-economic management means are still very important." ”
In view of the policy direction of the post-subsidy era, Liu Bin put forward six suggestions.
First, strengthen the incentive role of double integral management and give full play to the long-term incentive mechanism of the market; second, for medium and heavy trucks, especially heavy trucks, it is necessary to give purchase subsidies or preferential support to make up for the difference; third, it is necessary to continue to support the reduction of purchase and ownership costs, such as consumption tax, vehicle and vessel tax and other tax support;
Fourth, comprehensively formulate transportation support policies for the use of links; fifth, encourage qualified places to explore the formulation of zero emission zones or low emission zones; sixth, comprehensively promote the construction of charging facilities, including land security, rewards, technological innovation and so on.
The superstructure determines the lower foundation, and only if the follow-up policies are active and effective, can the new energy automobile industry go faster in the post-subsidy era.
Subsidies are tilted towards charging, and power swaps are just excessive
▲ Image source network
An industry consensus is that with the increase in sales of new energy vehicles, the call to improve charging infrastructure and improve charging technology is getting higher and higher.
In the first quarter of 2022, the national charging infrastructure increased by 492,000 units, and the increase in public charging infrastructure increased by 96.5% year-on-year, which was slower than the sales growth of new energy vehicles in the first quarter. According to data from the China Automobile Association, in the first quarter of 2022, the cumulative production and sales of new energy vehicles were 1.293 million units and 1.257 million units, an increase of 1.4 times year-on-year.
Li Lili, a distinguished researcher at the Sichuan Energy Internet Research Institute of Tsinghua University, told Caijingqiche (ID: caijingqiche) that "in the future, subsidies for the new energy automobile industry should shift from the car end to the infrastructure of the charging end." If the charging facilities are built more, it will help reduce the cost of the car."
In Li Lili's view, the future charging infrastructure subsidies need to be strengthened in three aspects: one is to strengthen public security and strengthen subsidies in areas where infrastructure has shortcomings, the second is to strengthen green guarantees and strengthen support for the interactive application of vehicle networks; the third is to promote the upgrading of charging technology, especially 3C and above fast charging technology.
As for the current hot power exchange mode, in Li Lili's view, it is more of a transitional technical route. "How long the transition period is and how widely the application scenarios are, mainly depends on the progress of fast charging technology." Li Lili said. At present, the development of fast charging technology is much faster than expected, according to Li Lili's prediction, after 5 years, the scene of charging is more difficult to rely on power replacement is basically non-existent, and the necessity of power replacement will be greatly reduced.
However, Li Lili also said that in the current stage of fast charging technology has not been well broken, power exchange as a transitional technical route, especially in the field of heavy trucks, through the power exchange to solve the breakthrough of the electrification transformation in the field of heavy trucks, it is still of great significance.
This is contrary to the prevailing view in the industry. In January this year, CATL announced that it had entered the field of power exchange, and car companies had followed up; in March, Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holding Group, also suggested at the two sessions that we should accelerate the standardization and generalization of the power exchange model, further improve the relevant policies and regulations of the power exchange model, optimize the announcement regulations of the power exchange model, establish an exclusive announcement certification system for the power exchange model, and form a separate certification of the car and the battery under the separation of vehicle and electricity.
Huang Chunhua, general manager of the Brand and Public Affairs Center of Aodong New Energy, told Caijing Automobile (ID: caijingqiche) that "2022 can be seen as the first year of the power exchange mode from the B-end to the C-end." Obviously, there is still controversy in the industry about power exchange, but the industry has basically reached an agreement on the construction of charging facilities.
Gong Huiming also proposed that the construction of charging infrastructure in first-tier cities should be oriented to the transformation of full electrification, rather than emergency, and it is necessary to design infrastructure planning from the bottom logic, not only to consider the number of issues, but also to consider the rationality of real demand and spatio-temporal distribution.