In 2024, why are there still many people buying petrol cars?

Text/Wang Xinxi

Previously, the Passenger Car Association announced the sales data of automobiles (passenger cars) in December 2023: the overall sales volume of the automobile market was 2.353 million units, the highest monthly sales in the past three years. The annual sales volume was 21.699 million units, which was also the highest annual sales in the past five years. Sales of sedans in December reached 1.095 million units. Among them, fuel vehicles have finally regained the sales crown.

Among the current sales in January, Changan's retail sales exceeded 300,000 units in January, and BYD, Chery, and Geely all exceeded 200,000 units! Among them, Changan, Chery, Geely, and other traditional car companies have a large share of gasoline vehicles. For example, driven by Changan CS family, Shuangyi series, UNI series, Z6 series and other models, the sales base of Changan fuel vehicles is still growing.

In the camp of oil cars, Sylphy, Corolla, and Lei Ling are known as the "three mothers of the road" due to their slow acceleration, however, in the 2023 fuel car sales list (based on the above insurance volume), the sales of these three cars have all exceeded the 100,000 mark. Among them, Sylphy topped the sedan list with an astonishing sales of 376109 units.

Volkswagen's sales of gasoline vehicles are also still impressive. Volkswagen's Lavida followed closely behind the Sylphy with 345879 units, becoming the runner-up in sedan sales in the Chinese market in 2023, with Sutar's sales of 285,050 units, which has few rivals in the A+ class sedan.

In the B-segment, the sales champion is still the Camry, followed by Magotan and Passat.

The strong rise of China's new energy vehicles has made many people think that the end of fuel vehicles is coming, but from the perspective of sales results, the resilience and competitiveness of oil vehicles still exist, and it may take a long time for oil vehicles to completely withdraw from the historical stage.

In the past, the new energy vehicle boss compared the tram to the intelligent machine, the oil car is a functional machine, and believed that the intelligent opportunity eliminated the functional machine, the reason is that the gap between the intelligent oil car and the tram is too big. The firepower of the major car companies in the new energy camp focuses on intelligence, and although the intelligence of oil vehicles is also advancing, there is a gap overall.

In fact, whether it is a fuel car or an electric car, a trend to face is intelligence. In terms of higher-level intelligence and automatic driving, oil trucks obviously can't beat trams.

With the continuous development of intelligent electrification, the three-electric system and more and more intelligent units are added, and the number of ECUs in each unit in the vehicle should be greatly reduced and replaced by a central integrated processing system. For oil trucks, the existing platform is chicken ribs. But the tram does not have this burden, the level of interconnection between the car and the machine of the oil car is not compared with the tram, the oil car needs to solve the problem of the whole system depends on electricity, and the tram has a set of electric system, which can be fully integrated and intelligent.

To sum up, it is very difficult for the existing mechanical power system and platform ecosystem of oil trucks to achieve the degree of intelligence of trams.

Why do many people still buy oil trucks with insufficient intelligence?

But the problem is that there is a gap between intelligent and electric cars, and many people still buy them.

At the end of the year, the sales of fuel vehicles exploded, which was driven by the sales growth factors driven by car companies' price cuts, and the special demand of the Spring Festival time node - running at high speed.

Young people who have been working outside for a few years, with a certain amount of savings, want to buy a car of their own first, this part of the consumer first of all, the car cost performance requirements are very high, followed by the demand for long-distance running.

In long-distance running, the advantages of oil trucks are very obvious.

The range of many trams has reached 800 kilometers, which can actually support the needs of many consumers for long-distance running. But the problem is that the price of the high-range version will be relatively high, and there are almost no trams with a range of more than 800 kilometers below 200,000.

Secondly, it is more common for the battery life to shrink in low temperature weather in winter, especially in the case of blizzard weather and traffic jams queuing like this year, the battery life is greatly reduced, and the battery life anxiety is still obvious.

However, running at high speed, 100,000 oil trucks abound, and there is no problem of endurance anxiety at all.

Why Sylphy Corolla dominates the list all year round, in fact, the key is that it is cost-effective and cheap, and the Japanese cars represented by the "three mothers on the road" have accumulated a good quality reputation over the years. Fuel-efficient, economical and durable are the rigid needs of many families who are not financially well-off. A car, 100,000 yuan, and no major problems after driving for 10 years is their pursuit. In fact, in China, this kind of consumer group is very large, which supports the basic sales of fuel vehicles.

There is no major problem with driving for 10 years, which many trams can't do, and the core of a fuel car is the power system, that is, the engine and gearbox. There is no problem such as performance degradation for a long time. On the contrary, it is necessary to open more, and driving for a long time will not affect the performance, but it will affect the overall performance of the engine if it is not opened.

However, the power system of electric vehicles is the battery and the motor, the problem is that after a long time in the car, the battery performance decays and the range shrinks.

In addition, many oil truck consumers do not like intelligence, but in their own economic conditions are limited, but the car is just needed, can only make a trade-off, abandon intelligence, more pursuit of stability, durability, service life and other needs, these aspects are precisely oil vehicles can better meet. In fact, the intelligence of oil trucks has also been ensuring safety and stability. For example, the emergence of ABS for oil vehicles makes the car not stupidly "obey" the driver's arrangement, and can intelligently control the braking system in the face of slippery roads, reducing the probability of car skidding.

In fact, to this day, those who prefer intelligence have moved into the tram camp, and many people say that they will not drive gas cars after driving trams. After all, the usage fee is cheap, the acceleration is fast, and the degree of intelligence is high. This is actually for consumers who are financially well-off.

In addition, there is also a group of people who are used to driving gasoline cars and may not be interested in the automatic driving of electric cars. Many veteran drivers seem to think that the use of the train is not cheap when the price of the car is calculated. They believe that security is more important than speeding up. This part of the consumer prefers the mechanical control and the sense of security of controlling the steering wheel, and enjoys the process of driving and the fun of driving.

Of course, at the end of the year, the sales of oil vehicles exploded, and a large part of it was the demand for oil vehicles in the rural market. Judging from the current perception of automobile brands in rural counties, Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz are the most recognized, and the sales of these brands of cars often rise at the end of the year.

Rural consumers' awareness of new energy vehicles is generally missing, the brand awareness of BYD is relatively high, but it is not a face, and there are not many new forces such as Wei Xiaoli. In recent years, there are not many new energy bosses who can enter the rural market with brand power.

For rural consumers, they also pursue the certainty of using a car, and the demand for a useful car can be driven at any time. In rural areas, an important need to buy a car is actually to go to the provincial capital or other cities, and they pay attention to the role of the car at a critical time. For example, going to the city for medical treatment or picking up and dropping off children in the city, running errands in other cities, going out to work, traveling to other places, ushering in and transporting relatives and friends are all important aspects that rural consumers need to consider.

And some of these needs are long-distance travel needs, and some are immediate and urgent car needs that are about to be used.

Secondly, the road conditions in the countryside are not good, the chassis bump is inevitable, a problem is that the battery of the entire new energy vehicle is basically placed at the bottom of the car, if you accidentally bump and bump, the battery is damaged, then the basic whole battery has to be replaced, the cost is very expensive, if the collision fire, it will be more troublesome.

To sum up, we know that there are still many shortcomings in the cost performance, endurance, durability and stability of new energy vehicles, first of all, the high price of the high-endurance version has pushed many consumers to the camp of oil vehicles, which also requires domestic brands to continue to make efforts, if the brand will make people drive out to have face, solve the price competitiveness of the high-endurance version, and solve the problems of battery stability, service life, and high-speed endurance anxiety in complex road conditions.

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