In 2022, when many new power car companies are still immersed in the dream of "pure electric rise" and joint venture brands are leisurely promoting electrification, the hot plug-in hybrid market has broken the tranquility. According to the data, the cumulative sales volume of the domestic plug-in hybrid market in 2022 will reach 1.518 million units, a year-on-year increase of 1.5 times.
This year is also known as the "first year of the outbreak of China's plug-in market". Subsequently, the plug-in hybrid market is gaining momentum, with cumulative sales in 2023 approaching 3 million units, reaching 2.804 million units, a year-on-year increase of 84.7%.
The hot sales of plug-in hybrid models are undoubtedly good for pure electric models, cultivating users for themselves, but for traditional fuel vehicles, it is the arrival of a crisis.
While the rapid rise of domestic plug-in hybrid models, it is also a plundering of the sales of fuel vehicles of joint venture brands. After learning from the pain, many joint venture brands have entered the stage of counteroffensive.
On March 1, Zhuang Jingxiong, general manager of SAIC-GM, revealed at the "Partner Summit" that "plug-in hybrid technology has entered the 2.0 era in China, and SAIC-GM is optimistic about China's plug-in hybrid market and will contribute to the joint venture to jointly make the plug-in hybrid market bigger and stronger." ”
However, reality gave Zhuang Jingxiong a blow.
On March 20, Geely Automobile revealed at the 2023 annual results conference that Geely's new generation of Raytheon electric hybrid platform will have a maximum range of more than 2,000km on full fuel and power, and is expected to reach 2L per 100 kilometers.
At the BYD investor conference on March 27, Wang Chuanfu said that the fifth-generation DMI hybrid technology will be launched in May this year, and the fuel consumption of this new DMI technology can be as low as 2.9L per 100 kilometers, and it can provide 2000km range when fully fueled and fully charged.
Whether it is Geely's new generation of Thor electric hybrid or BYD's fifth-generation DMI, they are still in the verbal stage, and in the eyes of most consumers, they are like a castle in the air. However, a long-term test activity of the Chery Fengyun A8 long-range version, with a range of 1917.9km, made the market realize that the 2000km plug-in hybrid era has arrived.
It is foreseeable that the plug-in hybrid technology of domestic car companies has successively exceeded 1,000 kilometers, and the range of 2000km will become a new competition goal in the industry, and even the "admission ticket" of the plug-in hybrid 2.0 era.
While revealing the new technology, Wang Chuanfu said: "In the next three to five years, the market share of joint venture car companies in China will drop from the current 40% to 10%. "For a time, there was a lot of noise in the domestic auto market, and the news that "Wang Chuanfu sentenced the joint venture brand to 'death'" was endless.
Looking at the recent measures of various joint venture brands, vigorously developing plug-in mixing has become the core task of many brands, and even the power "balance" of many joint venture brands is tilted towards the Chinese side, aiming to create plug-in mixing technology in line with the domestic market according to local conditions.
For example, SAIC Volkswagen announced that its self-developed PHEV project had been approved without reporting to Wolfsburg, and SAIC-GM announced earlier this year that a Chinese team would lead the PHEV project.
Previously, some industry insiders revealed that SAIC-GM originally planned to use the 2.0T+Voltec power shunt scheme, but since last year, it has switched to the series-parallel DHT scheme of SAIC P1+P3, which is the same scheme as Geely, Chery, Changan and other car companies.
Combined with the information mentioned above, the domestic plug-in hybrid technology has entered the 2.0 era, moving towards the 2000km mark, the joint venture brand as a latecomer, at this time to develop plug-in hybrid technology, even if it has the advantage of mature internal combustion engine technology, but whether it can catch up with the pace of its own brand, whether there is a generation gap with domestic plug-in hybrid technology, when to catch up with the level of its own brand, still needs to be studied.
Under the cover of doubts, a bigger crisis is "brewing" within the joint venture brand - traditional fuel vehicles have entered the countdown to elimination.
According to the data, from January to December 2023, the retail sales of passenger cars in the domestic market will be 21.699 million units, of which the retail sales of new energy vehicles will be 7.736 million units, a year-on-year increase of 36.2%, and the sales of fuel vehicles in the same period will be 13.963 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 6.1%.
The overall auto market is growing, but the sales of fuel vehicles are declining, and the answer is about to come out, and the original share of fuel vehicles is being eaten away by new energy. This is a wake-up call for the joint venture brand. For example, SAIC Volkswagen will have a cumulative sales volume of 1215003 units in 2023, and traditional fuel vehicles are still the main sales force, such as Lavida's monthly sales of more than 30,000 units.
It should be noted that the previous opponent of fuel vehicles was the domestic hybrid technology a few years ago, and the fuel consumption and battery life have not yet undergone qualitative changes, coupled with the help of the "price reduction" plan, the joint venture brand has barely slowed down the trend of declining sales. However, when the domestic plug-in hybrid range exceeds 2000km and the fuel consumption per 100km is as low as 2L, the "opponent" of fuel vehicles has completed its transformation and is in an increasingly difficult situation.
As we all know, one of the main tasks of the development of fuel vehicles has always been to "reduce fuel consumption", including the birth of technologies such as small-displacement turbocharging, Atkinson cycle, and Miller cycle, all of which are aimed at reducing fuel consumption.
Therefore, with the advent of a new generation of plug-in hybrid technology, "2000km range + ultra-low energy consumption" is bound to become the mainstream, and fuel consumption and endurance will be ahead of traditional fuel vehicles. Under the survival of the fittest, it seems that it has become a foregone conclusion that traditional fuel vehicles will be fully replaced by plug-in hybrids.