Changan Automobile, which was once leading in the new energy vehicle market and surpassed by other car companies in the past two or three years, began to accelerate its layout in this field. At the 2022 Changan Automobile Global Partner Conference held on April 13, the company announced the launch of a new pure electric vehicle brand "Changan Deep Blue", while operating Changan UNI as an independent brand and will electrify all products. Coupled with its high-end electric vehicle brand Avita launched in cooperation with CATL and Huawei, Changan Automobile began to accelerate its layout in various segments of new energy vehicles to catch up with market leaders.
In response to the "double carbon" target, Changan Automobile said that it will achieve carbon peaking in 2027 and carbon neutrality in 2045, which is 3 and 15 years ahead of the time set by the Chinese government to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality in the whole society.
In the early stage of the development of new energy vehicles, Changan Automobile was once in a leading position, but in the past five or six years, with the rise of new car-making forces, traditional car companies have also increased investment in new energy vehicle business, market competition has become increasingly fierce, those who have launched new energy vehicles with longer mileage and higher level of intelligence have gradually taken the lead, while Changan Automobile has gradually lagged behind due to the lack of more competitive products. The new energy vehicle business has become a short board for Changan Automobile.
In 2021, the sales volume of Changan brand vehicles exceeded 1.75 million units, an increase of 16.7% year-on-year; among them, the sales of new energy vehicles exceeded 100,000 units, although it entered the top ten in the industry, but the main sales were contributed by low-end small cars Ben E-Star.
Measured by the sales scale in 2021, compared with the industry leader, the gap between Changan Automobile is very large. In 2021, BYD's new energy passenger car sales reached 593745, more than 5 times the sales volume of Changan's new energy vehicles. Even compared with the new car-making forces, Changan Automobile has no advantage. In 2021, the sales of new energy vehicles of Weilai, Xiaopeng Automobile and Ideal Automobile will exceed 90,000 units, and the average price of bicycles will be higher.
The backwardness of Changan's new energy vehicle business is reflected in the small sales scale on the one hand, and the slow development of high-end brands on the other hand. In the past few years, large domestic car group groups have launched high-end brands with the help of the development of intelligent electric vehicles, such as SAIC Group's Zhiji, Dongfeng Motor's Lantu, BAIC Group's Jihu, Geely Group's Extreme Krypton and so on. But Changan Automobile has been very slow to make progress in this regard, and it was not until May last year that it cooperated with Huawei and CATL to launch the high-end brand Avita, and its first model is not yet available.
According to Changan Automobile's plan, the company's vehicle sales target for 2022 is 2.45 million units, an increase of 6.5% year-on-year, and the domestic market share is 11%. Among them, the number of self-owned brands was 1.857 million units, an increase of 5.9% year-on-year. By 2025, Changan Automobile's sales target is 4 million vehicles, of which 3 million are Changan brand vehicles and 1.05 million new energy vehicles are sold, accounting for 35%; by 2030, it will further increase to 5.5 million vehicles, of which new energy sales will reach 2.7 million vehicles, accounting for 60%.
How will Changan Automobile achieve the above goals?
The first is to increase research and development in new energy vehicles related fields. The company expects to invest more than 80 billion yuan in key areas such as new energy, intelligence, scientific and technological innovation, and digital transformation by 2025, when the total number of R&D personnel will reach about 20,000 people, including more than 6,000 intelligent and software R&D personnel and more than 5,000 new energy R&D personnel. At present, the company's experts and engineering research and development teams in key fields such as new energy, automatic driving, and intelligent interaction have reached about 5,000 people.
The new energy platform architecture is very critical, Changan Automobile currently has three new energy vehicle platforms of MPA, EPA and CHN, and will also build an intelligent electric vehicle architecture SDA in the future. Among them, MPA is compatible with traditional fuel vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles, EPA is a pure electric platform for the mainstream market, and CHN is a platform for high-end intelligent electric vehicles.
In terms of electrification core technology, Changan Automobile's research and development will focus on four aspects. The company will break through 800V high-voltage, oil-cooled motors and other technologies to create an all-in-one electric drive system suitable for 450V/800V voltage platforms, covering models with a cruising range of 400-1000km. Among them, the 800V electric drive platform will match the high-rate fast charging core, which can realize the 5-minute charging range of 150-200 kilometers; the second is to "strengthen the energy consumption integration design to achieve a longer mileage by reducing the energy consumption of the whole vehicle; the third is to "accelerate the integration of the battery chassis and (semi)solid-state battery research and development"; finally, the company will also "accelerate the hydrogen fuel process", and is currently establishing a set of hydrogen energy research and development manufacturing and testing system covering "parts - system - vehicle", and independently master the system integration and control technology.
In terms of charging and replacing technology and energy replenishment ecological layout, Changan Automobile will work with strategic partners such as State Grid and Aodong to develop advanced fast charging and power replacement technologies around the pain points of user energy replenishment, pilot the filling center integrating light storage and charging, and create a one-stop green energy replenishment service ecology for users.
At the product level, in the high-end intelligent electric vehicle market, by 2025, the Avita brand will launch 4 models. Among them, the first model, the Avita 11, is about to go into mass production, which will be equipped with high-speed and urban point-to-point intelligent driving assistance. In the mainstream new energy passenger car market, Changan Deep Blue brand will launch 5 new pure electric vehicles. The UNI brand will also launch a series of new products. Among them, in 2022, the UNI brand will launch two plug-in hybrid models of UNI-K PHEV and UNI-V PHEV.
Changan Automobile Electric Coupe C385
In 2022, Changan Automobile will launch 36 new products, including 8 new energy vehicles. These include lumin based on the EPA0 platform and the C385 electric coupe based on the EPA1 platform, which will be launched in the second half of the year. The C385 was first unveiled at the Changan Automobile Technology Day in August last year, and this car uses a number of leading technologies, such as the APA7.0 remote unmanned valet parking system that allows vehicles to automatically park in the basement, and the electric drive high-frequency pulse heating technology that can effectively improve the mileage of pure electric vehicles under low temperature conditions.