Pickup trucks are lifted, do you buy them?

Pickup trucks, which have always been a niche model in China, have once again attracted widespread attention with the Tesla Cybertruck finally starting deliveries in North America. After all, the Cybertruck is said to have received more than 2 million orders worldwide, and in the current market situation, pickup trucks can be called a new blue ocean for many domestic car companies.

In fact, the positioning of pickup trucks in the domestic market has been quite fragmented, a few high-end pickup trucks like the Ford Raptor are favored by players to become outdoor "god cars", and most pickup trucks are regarded as typical trucks as ordinary light trucks. Coupled with the fact that most cities in China have a "ban" on pickup trucks, this kind of model, which is very popular in the American market, has been tepid in China.

However, many off-road enthusiasts have a feeling for pickups, and in their opinion, no matter what type of SUV, it is not as "wild" as a pickup truck when off-road.

Today, the pickup truck market has finally ushered in a number of benefits: 97% of the country's cities above the prefecture level have canceled the restrictions on pickup trucks entering the city, coupled with the continuous growth of outdoor demand for family self-driving travel in recent years, more and more car companies have begun to deploy pickup truck models, quickly forming an "involution" trend.

A few days ago, the new generation of Ford Ranger was officially launched. As the first domestically produced Ford pickup truck, the Ranger is built on Ford's world's most advanced third-generation midsize pickup truck platform, and will create a one-stop outdoor off-road ecosystem in addition to intelligent configuration and off-road performance.

Image source: Ford Zongheng

Two days after the official launch of the Ranger, Changan Automobile's first super extended-range pickup, the Changan Hunter, officially opened pre-sales. Compared with traditional pickups, Changan Hunter retains its off-road attributes while also claiming to have achieved subversive changes in power form, intelligence and even practicality.

In the era of the rapid development of the "New Four Modernizations", the layout of the pickup truck market by car companies has shifted from a single vehicle to a new concept of pickup + off-road/outdoor.

Li Shaohua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said: "The country's support for pickup trucks continues to increase, the economic situation is improving for the development of pickup trucks to provide favorable conditions, product innovation and upgrading are also constantly advancing, pickup trucks long-term good fundamentals will not move." ”

However, pickup trucks are still a niche market so far. According to data from Pickup Truck.com, from January to November 2023, the cumulative sales of domestic pickup trucks were 293,561 units, a slight increase of 0.3% year-on-year.

Liu Jisheng, President of Jiangling Ford Technology and Owner of Ford Zongheng, said in an interview with China News Weekly: "The Ranger has received more than 5,000 orders after pre-sale. To be honest, the volume of pickup trucks above 150,000 yuan in China is only 40,000 units a year, but in our orders, many owners originally drove SUVs, and China's SUV market has six or seven million units a year, and the possibility of pickup truck sales being amplified comes out. The Ranger pre-sale has met expectations, and it has the potential to break the circle, which is why it was introduced into China in the first place. ”

Rush in

Different from the fierce competition in other market segments, at present, in the pickup truck market, only Great Wall Motors dominates. For every two pickup trucks sold in China, one is Great Wall Motors.

According to the data of the passenger association, from January to November 2023, Great Wall pickup truck ranked first with 186,298 units sold, JAC ranked second with 50,475 units, and Jiangling Motors and SAIC Maxus were on par with each other in the first 11 months. Geely Radar, a new pickup truck brand, sold a total of 5,703 units from January to November, although it entered the top ten, there is still a big gap with the top nine.

"In the field of pickup trucks, Great Wall Motors has its own barriers. Zhang Haobao, CEO of Great Wall Motor's pickup truck brand, said: "At present, most of the competitors are in the commercialization stage, and there are also passenger pickup truck manufacturers, but they are still in the embryonic stage, so under this competitive trend, I believe that our market share will be higher and higher." ”

In the past two years, intelligence and new energy are fully penetrating to promote the upgrading of pickup truck models, and the added value provided by car companies is getting higher and higher

In November 2022, Geely's radar brand RD6 was officially launched, with a price range of 178,800-268,800 yuan, creating a new category of native pure electric pickups. RD6 is a pure electric pickup truck based on the pure electric platform, focusing on multiple life scenarios, compared with fuel pickup trucks, radar has more advantages in automatic assisted driving, intelligent networking, charging and energy supplement, the new car has a maximum range of 632 kilometers, and supports 120kW fast charging.

In Geely Automobile's view, the Radar RD6 may become a breakthrough for consumer-grade pickups, creating a unique travel quality and lifestyle.

On December 20, 2023, the new generation of Ford Ranger Ranger was officially launched, with a price of 145,800-240,800 yuan for the gasoline version and an increase of 4,000 yuan for the diesel version based on the corresponding model. As the first domestically produced Ford pickup truck, the Ranger will open up a new breakthrough point for Ford's vertical and horizontal reconstruction of the pickup truck segment through a new combination of localized configuration + Ford's global standards, on the basis of further highlighting the price-to-price ratio. For a pickup truck, in addition to Ford's own pickup truck characteristics, the Ranger has also changed the performance of the previous joint venture brand in terms of vehicle and engine, fully catering to the demands of contemporary consumers.

On December 22, 2023, Changan Automobile's new pickup truck model, Changan Hunter, officially opened pre-sale, with a pre-sale price range of 139,900-216,900 yuan. This is not Changan Automobile's first new energy pickup truck model, as early as June last year, Changan Lantuo pure electric pickup truck has been listed, and Changan Hunter's innovation lies in the use of the range extension hybrid technology that has attracted much attention in the past year.

Image source: Changan Automobile

Liu Jisheng said, "In the past, there were only a few brands of pickup trucks with more than 150,000 yuan, and there was no real passenger pickup, but the Ford Ranger is different, which is also the key to breaking the circle." Moreover, in recent years, people's concept of life has changed a lot, and they are more willing to go out to play and pursue things that they have not pursued, and they are more optimistic about the high-end pickup market. ”‍

Zhang Haobao released a set of data. In the current sales structure of Great Wall Motor's pickup trucks, less than 100,000 yuan are tool attributes, accounting for 30% of the total sales, 10-150,000 yuan is multi-purpose commercial and passenger dual-use attributes, accounting for 60% of the total sales, and 10% are specialized leisure off-road attributes. The overall sales volume of multi-purpose attribute products has actually reached about 70%, and this is also the key to the explosion of the entire pickup truck market.

Lifting the ban on policies

But in 2023, the pickup truck market has not yet exploded.

Ling Shiquan, CEO of Geely Radar, believes that pickup trucks have three lifeline restrictions: 15-year restrictions, right-of-way, and technical standards. However, these barriers are gradually being broken. For example, in October 2022, the pickup truck was removed from the original N1 category and managed as a commercial vehicle, which naturally required that the product be oriented towards passenger use. There is also the gradual lifting of the right of way.

For a long time, pickup trucks have been labeled as commercial vehicles in China, and classified as light trucks, which are equivalent to light trucks and micro trucks in management, and have been "blocked" by major cities for a long time.

Until February 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued the "Notice on Carrying out the Pilot Project of Relaxing the Restrictions on Pickup Trucks Entering the City to Promote Pickup Truck Consumption", which opened the prelude to the lifting of the ban on pickup trucks in China. Since 2019, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Commerce and other ministries and commissions have repeatedly issued documents proposing to "accelerate the abolition of restrictions on pickup trucks entering the city" and "promote pickup trucks to the countryside". In 2022, the State Council mentioned three times a year to ease restrictions on pickup trucks entering the city.

Previously, the Ministry of Public Security released news showing that in 2023, the lifting of the ban on pickup trucks will be fully implemented, 97% of cities above the prefecture level in the country will relax the restrictions on pickup trucks entering the city, 267 cities above the prefecture level will not restrict the movement of new energy light vans, and 10 cities will give some medium-sized vans the same right of way as light trucks.

At the two sessions of the National People's Congress in 2023, Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Group, Lei Jun, chairman of Xiaomi, and Cheng Tao, senior engineer of Jiangqi Group, all put forward relevant suggestions for pickup trucks. Among them, "classifying pickup trucks as passenger cars" has invariably become the core of the proposal.

"What will really affect everyone now may be the '15-year scrap', and we think it may be lifted in two or three years. Liu Jisheng believes that the full lifting of the ban is the trend of the times, and I believe it will come soon.

At the same time, the annual inspection policy of pickup trucks has also become the next "shackle" that needs to be untied. Xie Guoping, head of the commercial vehicle research business of the Ministry of Informatization and Industrial Development of the State Information Center, deputy director of the Resources and Data Division, said that the research work on the optimization of the annual inspection policy of pickup trucks is in the stage of forming conclusions, and the preliminary investigation found that the optimization of the annual inspection policy of pickup trucks has a strong public opinion base and certain feasibility, but the policy optimization is difficult to achieve overnight, and the user's experience of the annual inspection has improved significantly.

The layout is high-end

According to the analysis of the Passenger Association, the domestic pickup truck market has shown changes in category updates, demand upgrades, product changes, market segmentation, etc., and high-end passenger has become a new development trend. The traditional pickup truck ecology, which was originally positioned at the low-end, with simple configuration and niche market, is transforming into a future pickup truck ecology with passenger attributes and the pursuit of personalization.

The "big brother" Great Wall Motors has begun to make efforts in the field of high-end pickup trucks. At the 2022 Chengdu Auto Show, Great Wall officially unveiled the high-end pickup truck model Shanhai Cannon. On the brand's official website, Great Wall Motor's definition of this car is "luxury".

Zhang Haobao believes that China's pickup truck category continues to evolve and has formed a "four generations in the same house" pattern. It has gone through the era of 1.0 tool carts, 2.0 multi-purpose commercialization, and 3.0 multi-purpose passenger vehicles. Today, pickup trucks are about to usher in the era of "4.0 full-scene intelligent new energy".

In the eyes of industry insiders, pickup truck models are no longer simple tool cars in the cognition of consumers, and their image and use are changing. "Although the current pickup truck market is still relatively small, with the introduction of more and more provinces and cities to lift the ban on pickup trucks, the next opportunities for the pickup truck market will be very large, and will continue to be deeply bound to keywords such as 'electrification', 'intelligence', 'high-end' and 'scenario-based'. ”

In addition, compared to the sluggish sales of domestic pickup trucks due to various impacts, the overseas market provides a quick path for pickup trucks. According to the data of the China Passenger Car Association, 115,000 pickup trucks were exported from January to November 2023, and the proportion of industry exports continued to remain high, accounting for 22% of the total pickup truck sales in 2023, an increase of 2% compared with the export volume in 2022.

At present, the export volume of pickup trucks of many enterprises has exceeded the domestic sales volume, and the overseas market has become an important part of China's pickup market. According to the analysis of the passenger association, with the continuous growth of the export market, the rapid rise of pickup trucks of SAIC Maxus, JAC and Changan Automobile will form the characteristics of the head enterprises squeezing the sales of tail enterprises.

According to the "Research on the Development Trend and Policy Recommendations of the Pickup Truck Industry" jointly completed by the China Automobile Association and the State Information Center, the domestic demand for the pickup truck market will reach more than 1 million units by 2030 under the premise of the steady progress of the lifting of the right of way for pickup trucks into the city. It is optimistically estimated that the total domestic + export sales of the pickup truck market are expected to reach 2 million units in 2030.

Author: Zheng Yu