Fuel vehicles are recovering, trams are fuel-saving and don't save money: charging prices are rising, it's time to stop!

Text/Wang Xinxi

At present, a signal in the auto market is that fuel vehicles are returning to growth. According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the domestic sales of traditional fuel passenger vehicles were 1.342 million units, an increase of 11.4% month-on-month. Dongfeng Nissan, a traditional car company, announced its October report card in early November. The information that can be seen from its poster data is that sales increased by 30% month-on-month in October.

Today, when new energy vehicles are dominating the industry's discourse and public opinion, it is unexpected that fuel vehicles can still achieve this growth rate.

There are many reasons behind this, on the one hand, in the face of the competition of new energy vehicles, the price war of fuel vehicles is becoming more and more frequent, including the previous national six old inventory promotion war, which has stimulated the growth of sales.

Secondly, many new fuel vehicles are becoming more and more cost-effective, for example, the new fuel vehicles on the new fuel vehicles in November, Tiguan L, UNI-K, etc., have significantly improved their cost performance. Previously, it was reported by the media that the highest drop in the Mercedes-Benz C-class has been as high as 43%, and the discount ranges from 60,000 ~ 110,000 yuan; BMW 5 Series basically has a discount of 80,000~90,000 yuan; About half of the Audi A6L models are discounted from 98,000 yuan, and the top-of-the-line models are reduced by 150,000 yuan.

In the third and fourth tiers and rural areas, the market for fuel vehicles is still broad, such as in the north, fuel vehicles do not have to worry about battery life; In remote mountainous areas, fuel vehicles are exempted from the problem of finding charging piles everywhere. Therefore, fuel vehicles have a strong attraction for consumers in these places.

Fuel vehicles have also made a lot of improvements at the level of vehicle intelligence, and continue to narrow the gap between the intelligent experience and electric vehicles, including various factors such as oil price reduction, which has boosted the sales growth of fuel vehicles.

From the current point of view, the policy level has also begun to favor gasoline vehicles and hybrids. Recently, seven departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Work Plan for the Steady Growth of the Automotive Industry (2023-2024)". In particular, it mentions "stabilizing the consumption of fuel vehicles and encouraging the development of hybrid and low-carbon fuel technologies". Judging from this situation, there may be another wave of growth in fuel vehicles.

There are many reasons why the policy supports the development of oil vehicles. At present, the current situation of the domestic automobile market, the large number of oil vehicles, can promote consumption, refueling itself is a barrel of oil and half a barrel tax, value-added tax, education fee surtax, purchase tax, license tax, road maintenance fees, etc., in essence, oil cars in the support of electric cars.

Tram has been under the blessing of various preferential policies, occupying many benefits such as purchase tax reduction and exemption, green card, etc., the tax paid by the head tram and battery companies, and the gap between the head oil car companies is more than 2 times, in this case, a bunch of tram companies lose money, market competitiveness and innovation, hematopoietic ability is missing.

According to the data listed in the industry, Geely, as a car company mainly engaged in fuel vehicles, paid more than 47.3 billion yuan in taxes last year, which is almost 2.5 times that of BYD (18.5 billion in 2022), which dominates the list all year round. Among the Volkswagen, FAW-Volkswagen paid more than 40 billion in taxes.

Therefore, in this case, the policy level may want to force a tram and let the market return to the market. After all, the competitiveness of the head enterprises of the tram has also been developed, and when it is time to wean and participate in fair competition in the market, let the market return to the market, in order to better temper the real competitiveness.

The price of charging has risen, and some consumers have begun to choose fuel vehicles

In the tram camp, it is undeniable that the products are getting better and better, but the shortcomings of charging battery life, the battery is prone to fire and spontaneous combustion in collisions, high temperatures and other situations, which occasionally occurs, affecting the choice of some consumers.

New energy vehicles have made significant progress in exterior and interior styling, comfort, sense of science and technology, and driving experience; However, traditional fuel vehicles have also made significant progress in fuel economy and driving range, sense of safety, in-vehicle infotainment systems, and driving comfort.

Therefore, we have seen the progress of new energy vehicles, and we cannot ignore the progress of oil vehicles.

The recovery of gasoline vehicles has always been accompanied by a downward trend in oil prices. From 24 o'clock on October 10, 85 yuan per ton of gasoline and 80 yuan per ton of diesel. This will also boost the sales of fuel vehicles to a certain extent.

Oil prices have risen and fallen, but what is worrying is that since the second half of this year, the price of public charging piles in many places across the country has risen, which has made tram owners feel obviously. During the peak period, the price of charging piles in many places has also risen to more than 2 yuan/kWh. Some Shanghai car owners said that the price of a charging pile they often use has risen from 1.15 yuan/kWh to 2.05 yuan/kWh.

New Weekly reported that during the "Eleventh" holiday, many car owners found that the price of the State Grid charging pile on the highway had risen. A car blogger said that when he was charging in a high-speed service area in Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province, he found that the average price of special call charging piles in the service area was 2.98 yuan / kWh, with a total electricity fee of 121 yuan, which was only enough to drive about 200 kilometers.

Due to the rise in the cost of using cars, "charging fees have increased and trams have become electric dads" has been on the hot search again not long ago.

Sina News launched a survey on the topic of "whether you buy an electric car or a petrol car" on the topic of "charging fees have risen and trams have become electric dads", in which 52% chose petrol cars and 23% chose trams. Judging from the data, the rising price of charging has affected the choice of consumers to some extent.

From an economic point of view, as the penetration rate of trams becomes higher and higher, the shortage of electricity will inevitably lead to an increase in electricity prices, which is an economic law. It can be seen that the trend of charging prices has become a very important indicator for consumers to buy cars.

As a result, charging fees continue to rise, which has led to questions about the perception that electric cars can save money. Even the current "trams are fuel-efficient, but not money-saving" voices are starting to flood the Internet.

When electricity bills are about to catch up with gas bills, some car owners start to feel anxious. The rise in electricity bills is only one of the dilemmas of new energy vehicles, and the price of new energy vehicles in first-tier cities and related expenses such as car insurance are not cheap, and the anxiety of high-speed battery life during holidays has been shadowing. Charging piles on highways are still overcrowded, and many car owners say they need to plan their charging arrangements in advance. The power that cannot be charged in line on the highway determines that the price will continue to rise.

Moreover, the current road maintenance fees are borne by oil trucks, which have been added to the oil price in the past, and it is reasonable to pay more for road wear and tear the more you drive, and this money will be added to the electricity price sooner or later.

The competition between oil and electricity has entered a stalemate stage, and the charging price of new energy vehicles has risen, so it may be time to stop

The core advantages of trams over petrol cars are strong power, environmental protection, high intelligence, and better comfort, but if the charging cost rises endlessly, the cost of using the car continues to increase, which also promotes some consumers to still choose petrol cars.

From the cost of travel, the tram is gradually approaching half of the travel cost of the oil car, which is still a reasonable range, but from the perspective of the future continuous rise in the development trend, the probability of the final parity with the oil car exists.

Therefore, from the perspective of various trends, the resumption of growth of gasoline vehicles is actually related to some changes in the electric car camp, including the sound of the cancellation of green cards and the trend of rising charging prices, resulting in unoptimistic expected costs. The process of new energy vehicles eroding fuel vehicles will be very long, and there will even be repeated see-saws.

At present, PetroChina has laid super charging piles, from the entire new energy vehicle industry, the current major pain point is that the battery life can not support long-distance demand and the charging time is too long, the relationship between supply and demand has led to the continuous increase in charging fees, to achieve the improvement of user pain points, the distribution density of charging piles needs to be increased.

If a large number of charging piles can be deployed at large and small gas stations across the country, then the anxiety of charging range of electric vehicles will be greatly alleviated, which may drive the growth of electric car sales.

One of the keys to this is that PetroChina's entry into the charging pile, whether to bring down the charging price or the electricity price up, which may also be an important aspect to determine the success or failure of the competition between new energy vehicles and oil vehicles.

Chinese brands are getting stronger and stronger, and new energy vehicles have become a business card for the rise of Chinese automobiles, which is of course everyone's common wish. However, in the face of the strong fundamentals of fuel vehicles and stable consumer groups, the rise of new energy vehicles requires the entire industry chain to consider the direction of development and innovation of the entire industry from the perspective of consumer interests and standpoints.

The progress of battery technology depends on the breakthrough of enterprises related to the industrial chain, which may not be realistic in a short period of time, but what can be changed at present is that "trams are more cost-effective and cheaper to use" has always been the default advantage of consumers, and it is also one of the core selling points of trams. Consumers sacrifice charging time in exchange for the benefit of saving money, and if the tram does not maintain this advantage, then the counteroffensive of the combustion engine will continue.

At present, the automobile market is fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles have entered the stage of "strategic stalemate", at this stage, the new energy vehicle industry chain needs to review its own advantages and selling points, the "tram saves money" mentality and longboard sit solidly, the final charging price increase action may be stopped, however, the charging pile industry, although not the car companies can lead, but car companies may want to go deeper into the charging operation network, through self-construction, co-construction, shareholding and other online and offline cooperation, and charging operators in-depth cooperation, so as to benefit consumers, Stabilizing charging prices may be a very important aspect of competing with gasoline vehicles at the moment.

Author: Wang Xinxi, Senior Reviewer of TMT This article is not reproduced without permission