Text/Wen Chong
"Contrarian growth" has been used to describe the excellent performance of various market segments, brands or products, but it is still not enough ink on new energy vehicles in the first quarter.
In the first quarter, auto retail sales fell by 4.5% year-on-year, and total auto consumer retail sales fell by 0.3%, new energy vehicle sales still maintained a 1.4-fold increase, and this is based on the background of various brands successively raising prices. The more expensive it is, the more it sells, the more it sells, which is already a "counterintuitive" growth.
Industry experts told Beiqing Automobile that as the market share of new energy vehicles approaches and breaks through the threshold of 20%, this market has entered a stage of large-scale development and will become more mature. Although the current price fluctuations will continue for a period of time, the market growth rate will continue to remain at a high level as the related problems ease.
■ Share soared, the new energy vehicle market "grew up"
On April 19, at the press conference on the development of industry and informatization in the first quarter held by the Information Office of the State Council, Luo Junjie, spokesman of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and director of the Operation Monitoring and Coordination Bureau, said that the mainland new energy automobile industry has cumulatively promoted 10.33 million vehicles, breaking through the 10 million mark, becoming an important force leading the electrification transformation of the global automobile industry.
Luo Junjie said that since the beginning of this year, the mainland new energy vehicle market has shown a good development trend of "accelerated improvement" in market scale and development quality. According to the data, in the first quarter of this year, the production and sales of domestic new energy vehicles exceeded one million units, reaching 1.293 million units and 1.257 million units respectively, an increase of 1.4 times year-on-year, exceeding the annual level of 2019.
It is worth mentioning that the market share of new energy vehicles reached 19.3%, approaching 20%, an increase of 11.4 percentage points year-on-year, an increase of 5.9 percentage points over the whole of 2021.
Image source: Caucus
If you look at the new energy passenger car market, its growth rate and market share are even higher.
According to the data of the Association of Passenger Vehicles, the retail sales of new energy passenger cars in China in the first quarter were 1.07 million units, an increase of 1.5 times year-on-year, accounting for 21.8% of the cumulative sales of passenger cars (retail sales of 4.915 million units). This figure (market share) is still 5% in 2019.
In 2020, the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" issued by the General Office of the State Council mentioned that by 2025, the sales volume of new energy vehicles will reach about 20% of the total sales of new cars.
That is to say, the current development of new energy vehicles has approached the target vision of 2025. According to the current growth momentum of new energy vehicles, it will not be a problem to achieve or even exceed the target of 20% within the year, and the time will be advanced by a full three years.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Vehicle Market Information Joint Association, said, "In recent years, the domestic retail sales rate of new energy vehicles has continued to strengthen, achieving more than expected development. ”
Luo Junjie also said, "On the whole, the mainland new energy automobile industry has entered a new stage of large-scale and rapid development, and it is expected to maintain a high-speed development trend this year." ”
Simply put, the new energy vehicle market is about to "grow up".
■ "Volume and price fly together" will continue for several months
In the first quarter, this wave of high growth of new energy vehicles was actually somewhat unexpected. After all, the car market at the beginning of the calendar year has been relatively sluggish, and this time it has also superimposed special circumstances such as subsidy decline, the new crown epidemic, rising raw material prices, tight supply chains, and rising prices of new energy models.
Beiqing Automobile found that in January and March this year, new energy vehicles have experienced two rounds of price increases. In January, in the face of the decline of subsidies for new energy vehicles, many car companies resolved the impact through their own internal balance and some cost reductions in the early stage, so only a small number of companies with a large impact on gross profit raised car prices.
However, the impact of rising raw material prices is very large. At present, the rise in raw material prices directly leads to a rise in the comprehensive cost of battery materials by more than 40%, and the entire industrial chain is unable to absorb the rising costs, and car companies are forced to raise the sales price of new energy vehicles.
Since March, new energy vehicles have ushered in a wave of larger-scale "price increases", which have involved more than 50 models of more than 20 brands so far, with price increases ranging from more than 2,000 to 30,000 yuan. There are even Tesla 3 times in 8 days, and some brands such as Euler and Zero Run have raised prices twice in a month.
At present, the "price increase tide" has not yet "ebbed tide", and even spread from the new car-making enterprises to the traditional car companies, Great Wall Motors, Changan Automobile have raised the price of electric vehicles, Mercedes-Benz, BMW fuel vehicles have also joined the "price increase army".
So, under the influence of two rounds of price increases, why can new energy vehicles maintain a good development trend?
Cui Dongshu said that the price increase of new energy vehicles in 2022 is relatively rational, and the impact of price increases is not obvious for the time being. New energy vehicles have a strong rigid consumer demand, price sensitivity is relatively low, coupled with new energy vehicles is order-based sales, the current car companies digest the orders that have been locked before the price increase, so the sales impact is not large.
In fact, most car companies will choose to inform the news of price adjustment in advance, such as Lantu, Jihu, Geometry, Weilai and other brands are released 1 month in advance. Moreover, when the car company released the price increase news, it will particularly emphasize that "users who pay a deposit before the price increase takes effect are not affected by this price adjustment." This gives people a "the earlier the booking, the cheaper" mentality, triggering consumers to either rationally or follow the trend of pre-ordering.
Although the impact of price increases is not obvious for the time being, many car companies have been involuntarily, in cooperation with suppliers, bargaining power gradually decreased, in the long run, the results can be imagined.
So, the question is, when will the price increase be closed? Will there be a third wave of price increases?
Ye Shengji, chief engineer and deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said, "Price fluctuations may continue for a period of time, as little as three or five months, and longer." ”
Ye Shengji said that it is necessary to strengthen the macro-control of the bulk raw material market, moderately accelerate the progress of domestic lithium, nickel and other resource development, support domestic enterprises to actively explore foreign raw material supply channels; focus on cracking down on joint hoarding, price gouging and other behaviors, to ensure the stable operation of power battery raw materials, key materials supply and price.
It is reported that at present, the relevant departments have been actively solving the practical problems faced by the new energy automobile industry.