As we all know, even under the multiple erosion of lack of cores, rising raw material prices and the epidemic, the mainland new energy vehicle market in the first quarter of this year still maintained high growth, and the eye-catching performance of production and sales of more than one million vehicles has also become an important fulcrum for the development of the industry.
Why does the new energy market continue to soar? In addition to the increasing maturity of technology and the shift of market segments from policy-driven to market-driven, the essence of electrification is environmental protection and sustainable development. At the 2020 United Nations General Assembly, the mainland proposed a timetable for "striving to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and striving to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060".
That is to say, the continent will use the shortest time in the world to achieve carbon peaking to "carbon neutrality", which also poses a challenge for the automotive industry. In this context, an energy revolution with green and low carbon as the core and renewable energy as the main body is in full swing.
For Chinese brands, as one of the earliest car companies to devote themselves to the field of double carbon, GAC Group released the "GLASS Green Net Plan" during the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, which is committed to achieving sustainable development through green and low-carbon development actions and helping carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Now, on the first anniversary of the release of the plan, GAC Group has also released the "2021 ANNUAL GAC Group Social Responsibility Report", which interprets the achievements in the field of green and low carbon and shows the chips for future competition.
The "new four modernizations" drive high-quality development
As the first large-scale state-controlled automobile group listed on the A+H shares in China, GAC Group announced its transformation into a technology-based enterprise in 2019, taking the road of scientific and technological innovation, realizing the combination of R&D and investment, and strategically laying out around the "new four modernizations" of the automobile industry. Nowadays, the results of the strategic layout have been accelerated.
Feng Xingya, general manager of GAC Group, said that 2021 is the opening year of the "14th Five-Year Plan", and GAC Group has achieved a good start to the "14th Five-Year Plan" with its production and operation performance of moving forward under pressure and rising steadily.
Specifically, according to the "2021 ANNUAL GAC Group Social Responsibility Report", in 2021, the production and sales of GAC Group exceeded 2.1 million vehicles, an increase of 5.1% and 4.9% year-on-year; the total industrial output value was 350.01 billion yuan, an increase of 9.7% year-on-year, and the total operating income was 429.755 billion yuan, an increase of 8.66% year-on-year.
In the context of good performance, GAC Group ranked 176th in the 2021 Fortune Global 500, a record high, and its brand value has steadily increased. In addition, for every 10,000 cars produced by the Group in 2021, greenhouse gas emissions will drop by 27%, total water consumption will drop by 34%, and total energy consumption will drop by 53%, which will deeply practice energy conservation and emission reduction and green development.
In addition to focusing on the main business of vehicle manufacturing, GAC Group also grasps the trend of "new four modernizations", actively lays out new fields, and strives to become a mobility service provider. Among them, the Group's innovative mobility platform, Ruqi Travel, has been in operation since mid-2019, relying on safe, convenient and high-quality travel services, and in the basic situation of the operation of the online ride-hailing industry announced by the Ministry of Transport in 2021, the monthly order compliance rate ranked first in the country five times.
"GAC Group adheres to social responsibility as the core of its operation, solidly carries out responsibility practice, takes the initiative to release the progress of actions to fulfill social responsibility, fully and systematically communicates with the society and the public on the concepts, systems, measures and achievements of corporate social responsibility, and makes continuous efforts to practice corporate citizenship responsibility, promote high-quality development of enterprises and social harmony and progress." Feng Xingya said.
Committed to achieving green and sustainable development
In the face of the challenges brought by climate change to all mankind, GAC Group actively responds to the national call for low-carbon economy and sustainable development, and integrates green and low-carbon into the company's business strategy.
In 2021, GAC Group released the "GLASS Green Net Plan", formulated the "14th Five-Year Plan" energy conservation and emission reduction plan, plans to achieve carbon neutrality of the whole life cycle of products by 2050 (challenge 2045), and is committed to creating an environmentally friendly and sustainable green GAC through the research and development of new energy products and technologies.
According to Feng Xingya, in order to achieve the above goals, GAC Group has established a three-level management carbon emission management framework, clarified the responsibilities of each level, and made comprehensive efforts in six key development areas of green production, green products, green supply chain, green travel, green finance, and green communities, and promoted energy conservation and emission reduction with practical actions.
In terms of vehicle production, we will adhere to the innovation drive to continuously strengthen the product layout of "ICV (intelligent networking) EV (electrification)" and "ICV (intelligent networking) XEV (hybridization)" two routes, and continue to strengthen the reserves of energy-saving and new energy technologies such as hybrid, electric and hydrogen energy.
According to the plan, in the field of hybrid, GAC Group plans to launch at least two electrified models per year from 2022 and electrify all models in 2025. On this basis, according to GAC's "14th Five-Year Plan" model sales plan, the whole life cycle of hybrid models can reduce carbon emissions by about 5.1 million tons, which is equivalent to planting about 100 million trees.
It is worth mentioning that the first hydrogen engine independently developed by the Group based on the fourth-generation engine platform has been successfully ignited, and the thermal efficiency is expected to exceed 44%, marking that GAC Engine has officially entered the era of efficient "zero carbon emissions".
In the field of pure electricity, GAC Group has built "GAC Aeon" into a high-end intelligent electric vehicle brand operated independently, and has launched 4 self-developed electric vehicle products, with production and sales of more than 120,000 in 2021. At the same time, as a zero-carbon advanced demonstration zone that the Group focuses on building, GAC Aean plans to complete the construction of the zero-carbon capability system in 2022 and achieve zero carbon emissions in the factory by 2023, becoming the first zero-carbon plant of GAC Group.
It can be seen that on the road to helping achieve the goal of double carbon, the results of GAC Group have begun to appear. In the wave of "new four modernizations" of automobiles, GAC Group has walked in the forefront of Chinese brands with a comprehensive layout. As the official said, as a leading enterprise in the automotive industry, GAC Group focuses on sustainable development issues, strives to solve the outstanding problems of resource and environmental constraints, and builds a community with a shared future for mankind, and will become a practitioner and leader of low-carbon industrial transformation, green production and green culture.