Since the new energy vehicles entered the comprehensive policy support stage in 2010, plug-in hybrid models (PHEV) with "mediocre" sales for many years have finally improved in 2021: with the surge in sales of the overall new energy vehicle market, the water has risen. At the beginning of this year, the PHEV market encountered a sharp rise in oil prices and the price increase in electric vehicles, and sales increased by 2 times year-on-year in the first quarter of this year.
However, the increase in sales volume completely broke the original competitive pattern of the PHEV market. In 2020, the plug-and-mix models of the ideal ONE, BMW 5 Series PHEV and BYD can also be equally divided in the market. By 2021, BYD will sit firmly in the hegemony of this segment, with sales of more than 270,000 vehicles, occupying nearly half of the plug-in mix market.
Looking back at the past decade, almost every multinational car company, including BBA, has planned its electrification strategy from plug-in hybrid models to pure electric vehicles. From 2016 to 2018, Beijing Hyundai, Changan Ford, SAIC-GM, SAIC Volkswagen and other joint venture car companies have launched their own PHEV products. Feng Sihan, CEO of Volkswagen's passenger car brand China, also made it clear in 2020 that Volkswagen will prioritize the development of PHEV and carry the technology on many popular models of the Volkswagen brand.
However, the vigorous transformation plan of multinational car companies is in stark contrast to the dismal sales of PHEV models, and in the 2021 plug-in model sales ranking, only bmw 5 series PHEV can be called a model in foreign brands. After a few short years of enthusiasm for the PHEV market, the joint venture car companies that were educated in the market stopped, seeing the plug-in market being cannibalized by latecomers such as BYD or Ideal.
On the one hand, the increase in the plug-and-mix market is almost entirely contributed to the head players such as BYD and Ideal, and on the other hand, Chinese car brands have more and more new products invested in this market segment. In the past 5 years, have foreign brands missed the prospect of early layout of electric vehicles because of the transition route, or have Chinese brands other than BYD missed the opportunity to seize the plug-in and mix market?
#上 5 years of being stolen
As a transitional product, every step of the development of plug-and-mix is inseparable from the care of policies. From 2013 to 2016, BYD successively launched hybrid models of the Qin, Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties, and was very popular in limited purchase cities such as Shanghai. However, at that time, the PHEV model did not ignite the active purchase enthusiasm of consumers in non-restricted areas, and has always been regarded as a product of special policies.
Joint venture car companies are also unwilling to miss the dividends of the policy, since 2016, foreign brand PHEV models have been successively launched in the Chinese market. However, many people rarely ask about it because of the pricing that has no advantage over the fuel version. The official guidance price of the Ford Mondeo PHEV listed in 2017 was in the range of 280,000-300,000 yuan, which was higher than the price of Mondeo, which was about 200,000 yuan at the time. In the end, due to the dismal sales volume, it ended in suspension of production. Beijing Hyundai Sonata PHEV and Leading PhEV, which have not significantly opened the gap with the price of the fuel version, have also not escaped the fate of not being able to sell.
The lack of improvement in sales also consumes the patience of car companies, 2016-2020 A few years ago, the overall sales volume of the plug-and-mix market has been hovering around 100,000-200,000 vehicles, in stark contrast to the growth of the pure electric vehicle market from 400,000 to one million. The annual sales of the BMW 5 Series, the best-selling single PHEV model, hover around 10,000 units. On the side of Chinese brands, the most popular plug-in and mixed models are still BYD, Roewe, MG and other plug-and-mix models born for purchase restrictions.
It was not until the emergence of BYD's so-called "fuel subversive" DM-i model that the plug-and-mix market also improved. According to the statistics of the Association of Passenger Vehicles, in the 2021 PHEV model sales ranking, BYD is far ahead with sales of 280,000, which is far ahead of the second place ideal car sales of about 90,000 vehicles. The two companies account for almost half of the sales volume of the domestic PHEV (including zengcheng) market.
Although the product positioning of BYD's DM-i model is not the same as that of the ideal ONE, this does not prevent other Chinese car companies from catching up and launching their own hybrid systems. For example, the Great Wall Lemon DHT, Geely Thor Hybrid System and so on. In addition, new car brands such as Lantu FREE, Qingjie M5, and Ziyoujia NV have launched the technical route of Zengcheng to share a piece of the ideal car.
"BYD has a unique advantage in the domestic PHEV market, it started with the battery business, the three-electric system can be produced by itself, and it has an advantage in the supply chain and cost control, which has greatly reduced the price of THE PHEV model." Wang Xin, associate professor of the National Professional Laboratory for Automotive Dynamics and Emissions Testing at Beijing Institute of Technology, told Autohome. He pointed out that for the ideal, it was another situation. In its class, the ideal configuration is attractive, and the extended-range hybrid powertrain allows it to find a relative balance between cost, fuel consumption, performance and policy.
#中 PHEV, the high-end weapon of Chinese car companies?
"They (the new forces) generally lack core technologies." On March 1, at the launch of the MOCHA DHT-PHEV listing, Weipai CEO Li Ruifeng threw out the view that "DHT hybrid can achieve suspension of 'Wei Xiaoli'". Although it is not explicitly stated, the positioning of the mocha DHT-PHEV high-end SUV that takes the mixed route almost targets the ideal of taking the extended range route.
Not only Li Ruifeng, but also the big guys of car companies have repeatedly shelled the ideal range extension route as "backward technology". The most impressive thing is that Feng Sihan once made an evaluation of "the increase in course is the worst plan" at a media communication meeting.
Yao Chunde, a professor at Tianjin University and deputy director of the State Key Laboratory of Combustion of internal combustion engines, pointed out that from the technical threshold alone, the technical route of the extender is simpler. It avoids components with high technical barriers, such as clutches and transmissions, by reducing the direct drive and parallel operation of the engine. Since the extender hybrid system only has pure electricity and series conditions, its fuel consumption is relatively high at high speeds.
He further explained, "It is not appropriate to evaluate a technical route out of the actual use scenario, and the range extender hybrid can also achieve a balance in fuel consumption, cruising range, charging and so on." Unlike the plug-in hybrid can be driven in the state of feeding, the range extender hybrid can only rely on the motor drive, so it will generally carry a battery with a larger capacity, which has requirements for the length of the body, and then superimpose the cost factor, the technical route of the extended range is more suitable for high-end models. ”
Chart source: Ping An Securities
For ordinary PHEV models, on the one hand, its cost is higher, the technical difficulty is larger, and it is not suitable for A00/A0 class models; on the other hand, compared with pure electric model users, plug-and-mix model users pay more attention to price, cost performance and practicality. Therefore, some analysts pointed out that the A-class PHEV is expected to become a replacement for the electrification transformation of fuel vehicles.
BYD has also publicly stated many times that DMi hybrid technology is confident of replacing the position of foreign brands in the fuel vehicle market. Wei brand CMO Qiao Xinyu recently said confidently on social media: "Don't look at the current joint venture fuel sales, if you still maintain the current configuration and price, I dare to assert that in the face of the hybrid of latte DHT, there is no future for joint venture fuel." ”
Whether it is bydir standing alone in the PHEV market, or not convincing the ideal car to occupy a place in this market through extended range products, Chinese car brands have begun to act. Gilly will be the god of thunder Hi · The X plug-in hybrid version is placed on the compact sedan car Emgrand L, Great Wall uses PHEV technology for the first time in the high-end SUV Mocha DH-PHEV, and Changan installs the iDD plug-in hybrid on the high-end sequence UNI-K.
In the long run, the goal based on the hybrid system is to gradually replace pure fuel models, but the pricing strategy is different for each car company. For example, BYD's similar level of plug-in hybrid car is about 30,000-40,000 yuan more expensive than the fuel car (Song PRO PHEV version and Song PRO fuel version), and the Great Wall Mocha PHEV version is about 100,000 yuan more expensive than the fuel version.
"After all, the cost of plug-in hybrid models is still high compared to fuel vehicles. Even BYD, which takes the cost-effective route, is gradually upgrading its products from the bottom up. "From the overall development trend, the higher profit of the mid-to-high-end models is more conducive to digesting the price difference between PHEV and fuel vehicles." Wang Xin added.
the prospects for #下 PHEV depend on the BEV
In the context of stricter fuel consumption regulations and emission standards, the trend of electrification of the global automotive industry is beyond doubt. Wang Xin has a positive attitude towards the market prospects of PHEV, pointing out that in the next decade, more and more traditional fuel vehicles will be replaced by HEVs and PHEVs, and only the lowest-end models may continue to be driven by pure internal combustion engines in the future. Before full electrification comes, the combination of low-carbon fuels and hybrid systems will be a key way to reduce carbon from transportation sources. Compared with electrification, electro-drive is more relevant for the achievement of our country's "double carbon" goal.
"The current outbreak of the PHEV market is also mixed with certain accidental factors, such as the rise in oil prices and the large-scale price increase in electric vehicles. Most importantly, subsidies will be fully reduced in 2023. Wang Xin believes that the impact of the policy in it should not be underestimated, just like the switch of emission standards will overdraft some of the market's consumption capacity in advance, and it is not excluded that many consumers will go ashore in advance before the policy dividend is completely withdrawn.
Yao Chunde is also optimistic about the plug-in market. In his view, as a transitional product, what affects the prospects of the PHEV market is not only the price and cost, but whether the pure electric vehicle technology has revolutionized. Until there is a revolutionary change in battery technology like lead-acid batteries to lithium batteries, hybrids will coexist with pure electric routes for a long time.
"In terms of cost and price, different car companies have made different attempts, some by reducing engine power, simplifying the structure and other ways to reduce costs; some, on the contrary, increase the technical complexity and form barriers." But the technology itself is not good or bad, different users have different needs for PHEV, the key lies in whether to grasp the user psychology. Yao Chunde said.
The success of Ideal ONE just confirms this, Ideal Car uses a seemingly unsophisticated insertion and mixing technology to create a phenomenon-level product, which is enough to show how important strong product shaping capabilities are to car companies.
It is not so much that the extender achieves the ideal, but rather that the ideal achieves the extender. It is not so much that PHEV has made BYD DMi, but rather that BYD DMi has made the PHEV market. And this is the core of the outbreak of the plug-and-mix market.
It's just that the car market is changing rapidly, and you and I are more wrapped up in moving forward. In less than 7 years, traditional car companies have not had time to think about where the future of the plug-in market is, and in the blink of an eye, they have been necked by the electric offensive knife holder of Tesla and new forces. Just like the multinational car companies' original vigorous insertion and mixing plan, after a few years, almost all of them have become sunk costs, who said well, now the vast layout of Chinese car companies in the mixed market, how many will become "accompanying the run"?