Recently, the Federation of Passenger Cars released a set of the latest data, saying that in the first half of April, the retail penetration rate of new energy in the domestic automobile market reached 50.39%.
Although the overall trend of new energy vehicles has been recognized by all parties as early as two years ago, the arrival of the retail penetration rate for the first time can still be regarded as a milestone symbolic significance.
However, such a milestone event does not represent a major victory for the "tram", or even that the "oil car" will die. Because from the breakdown data, although pure electric models still maintained a good growth momentum in the first quarter of this year, retail sales increased by about 14.7% year-on-year, but the growth rate of plug-in hybrid models in the same period was as high as 75.6%.
The craze for plug-in hybrids has made the once arrogant joint venture brands also compete to launch plug-in hybrid models
In other words, in the process of promoting more than half of the domestic new energy vehicle market, plug-in hybrid models, which have left many car owners with a poor experience, have gradually come out of the difficult period and are replacing pure electric models as the main growth point of the entire new energy category. After all, a fuel engine is installed, so of course plug-in hybrid can also be included in the category of "oil vehicle" in a broad sense.
However, the development of domestic plug-in hybrid vehicles to this point has actually experienced a relatively bumpy and tortuous process.
For a small number of car owners, the impression left by this type of plug-in hybrid model cannot be said to be very good. For example, one of the author's former neighbors, in 2016, bought an early version of the plug-in hybrid model because of Shanghai's local license plate delivery policy.
The old community in the city center + the blue card auction system has created a unique "market situation" here in Shanghai in the early years to buy a mixed mix and drive a fuel car
Because the family lives in the old community, there is really no place to install charging piles, so it is called plug-in hybrid, and in fact, like many people in similar situations, it is completely driven as a fuel truck. Then after two years of extremely poor power, not low fuel consumption, and continuous torture of small problems, he decisively spent money to ask the auction to win a blue card quota, and sold the old car at a low price, and learned everything about it in exchange for a joint venture oil car.
I won't mention the specific brand here, anyway, in the words of the old neighbor himself, in the two years of car experience, he only had the words "once bitten by a snake".
The system is complex and the reliability is poor. In the state of feeding, the fuel consumption is higher than that of pure fuel vehicles. Plug-in hybrid models developed based on the "oil-to-electric" mode usually cause the center of gravity of the vehicle to shift due to the weight of the battery pack added to the rear of the vehicle, which has a negative impact on the vehicle operation experience.
To summarize the problems of the older generation of plug-ins, the above three sentences are almost enough to cover everything.
Before 2021, "oil-to-electric" was actually the main development path for plug-in hybrid models. Moreover, the project establishment and market positioning of such products are usually highly utilitarian. Either to meet the necessary conditions of the national subsidy, or to provide consumers in a specific city with a model that is easy to license. Even, sometimes, it's a combination of both.
A negative example of the "oil-to-electric" plug-in hybrid model
It is obvious that this kind of "urgent" nature of the product, the market reputation is destined to be perfect and easy to use. Car owners' evaluations of them are often between "usable" and "improvised". Although it is officially described as a plug-in hybrid that combines the advantages of both gasoline and electric vehicles, the experience it brings to the driver in actual use is actually closer to combining the disadvantages of the two.
However, after entering the second decade of the new century, there is actually no immutable trend in the domestic automobile market. Although after 2019, with the products of various new domestic car-making forces have landed, various signs are suggesting that pure electric vehicles seem to be the trend of new energy vehicle development. However, due to its unique advantages of oil and electricity, plug-in hybrid has not been abandoned by OEMs.
What's more, during that time, the dedicated hybrid system that the independent brand spent years developing was gradually maturing.
In December 2020, Great Wall Motor was the first to release its lemon hybrid DHT platform. The next year came to New Year's Day 2021, and BYD also followed suit with the launch of the DM-i super hybrid system.
To be honest, Great Wall's lemon hybrid DHT is not only relatively the earliest in terms of time, but also has a passable performance, and it also has a bit of a compact size. However, confusion over product lines and naming has hurt its market performance
At the end of April of the same year, during the 19th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Expo, Chery Automobile unveiled the Kunpeng DHT super hybrid system. In mid-June, Changan Automobile launched the Blue Whale iDD hybrid system.
By the end of October 2021, Geely officially released the Thor hybrid system, and the five independent brands nicknamed "Domestic Five Heroes" have successively come up with their own dedicated hybrid systems that have taken several years to develop.
Geely's CMA Evo architecture is equipped with a front powertrain that integrates a Thor hybrid engine, a P1+P3 electric motor, and a three-speed DHT, a medium-capacity battery pack in the center of the architecture, and a P4 electric motor at the rear
If the extended-range hybrid mode is understood as a plug-in hybrid power mode with a series structure, then the OEMs that are fighting on the plug-in hybrid track in a broad sense need to add Ideal and Celis.
In addition to BYD's DM-i, which adopts a direct connection mode, Geely, Chery, Great Wall and Changan all use dedicated hybrid transmissions. Compared with the previous generation of products, the working mode of the new system is diversified, fully considering the power demand under various working conditions, and the power response, energy consumption and reliability have been qualitatively improved compared with the previous generation system. On the other hand, a wide range of PHEV models, which mainly focus on range extender systems, are not designed to drive directly with fuel engines, and are only used as a range extender for emergency energy replenishment.
The range extender system is relatively simple, there is no problem of direct drive of the fuel engine, and the overall structure is series, the picture shows the chassis assembly of the ideal one, including the front and rear motors, range extenders, battery packs and fuel tanks
From mid-2021, a new generation of models equipped with a dedicated plug-in hybrid powertrain has been introduced to the market in large quantities and has been gradually recognized by all parties.
For the whole of 2021, the total sales of plug-in hybrid models in the domestic market were 545,000 units. In 2022, this number has grown to 1.518 million units. For the whole year of 2023, the total sales of various plug-in hybrid models will further reach 2.804 million units, accounting for 36.25% of all new energy vehicle terminal sales (7.736 million units).
As a form of power for automobiles, plug-in hybrid has its own indestructible market logic. One of the main points is that it can avoid range anxiety like a gasoline car. How important this is, in recent years, almost every long holiday, is enough for the majority of car owners to deepen their experience.
According to the annual plan released by the Ministry of Transport at the end of February, in 2024, the country plans to add 3,000 charging piles and 5,000 charging parking spaces in highway service areas to achieve full coverage of service areas. By the end of 2023, a total of 21,000 charging piles have been built on the national highway network.
Anyone who has used a charging bay in a motorway service area will find that there are usually only two conditions – either extreme emptiness or queues
To sum up, by the end of this year, the total number of charging piles and charging spaces in the domestic high-speed system will reach 29,000.
Looking at this is a large number, but compared with the new energy vehicles running on the highway during the peak holiday period, it still does not seem to be enough.
On February 29 this year, at a briefing held by the State Council Information Office, Wang Zhigang, Minister of Science and Technology, told the media that the public driving new energy vehicles has become a trend, and the average daily new energy vehicle travel of the national highway network during the Spring Festival holiday (February 10~17) is 5.9392 million, accounting for 10.04% of the total daily traffic of automobiles. During the Spring Festival in 2023, the average daily flow of new energy vehicles will only be 1.7169 million, accounting for 3.81%.
In one year, the number of trips on the highway network of new energy vehicles during the peak period of the Spring Festival increased by 2.5 times. In the same period, the number of charging piles on the highway network has only increased by about 50%.
For the new energy vehicle owners who have experienced it, this scene is like a nightmare
In fact, even if the number of charging piles in the domestic highway system, with 21,000 piles at the end of 2023, is directly multiplied by five to reach the scale of 105,000 piles, it is still a bit insufficient in the face of the tsunami of new energy vehicles with an average daily scale of nearly 6 million.
What's more, with the current support system of domestic highways, it is difficult to withstand this scale expansion in the short term without major upgrades, regardless of the size of the parking area or the load capacity of the power grid.
Some people may say that pure electric vehicles should get off the highway at any time to find charging facilities during peak hours on the expressway. However, this argument is not to be taken for granted. After all, most people choose to drive in the hope of reducing trouble, rather than hoping to exercise their brains in practice and eventually challenge the "postman problem" or "Seven Bridges problem". It is a bit difficult to require everyone who drives a pure electric car to have a deep grasp of "Coordination Learning".
Although the current mainstream navigation software can assist new energy vehicles and residents in route planning, once congestion occurs during peak hours, system suggestions are often not very smart
What's more, in many extreme congestion environments, the congestion zone on the highway can stretch for tens of kilometers or hundreds of kilometers, and it takes several hours to pass.
The rapid growth of plug-in hybrid models in the market share at this stage, in addition to the above-mentioned deep refraction of range anxiety, also reflects the preference of consumers in the current automobile market - while envying the low cost of pure electric vehicles, they are unwilling to take the corresponding risks. Generally speaking, this is the most difficult "both to have" issue to balance. However, in China, independent brands have accumulated several years or even more than ten years of work, and are seeking the best solution in a certain sense with their own technical means.
In August 2022, BYD equipped the 2022 Tang DM-i model with a medium-capacity battery pack for the first time, giving it a pure electric driving range of more than 200km. This model was quickly recognized by other brands, and after their respective plug-in hybrid models were upgraded, they followed suit and launched corresponding configurations for consumers to choose freely.
The first 2022 Tang hybrid model with a record for a medium-capacity battery pack
"Daily electricity, oil for going out", just like the plug-in hybrid model was just born ten years ago, the cake that was drawn for the majority of consumers. Now, with the development and advancement of technology, the promise that was once fulfilled has finally been fulfilled. The expansion of the pure electric range of plug-in hybrid models not only fully meets the needs of daily commuting, but can even support medium and long-distance cross-city travel.
Under the above premise, where is the gap between the current plug-in hybrid/extended range and various pure electric vehicles?
If it is only an intelligent cockpit, then whether it is BYD, Geely, or Chery, Great Wall and Changan, no matter which one of the "autonomous five tigers", can be regarded as impressive at the intelligent cockpit level. Geely even relies on its Silicon Engine Technology and Meizu Technology to create a completely autonomous Flyme Auto intelligent cockpit system.
The Lynk & Co 08EM-P, which has received a good response from the market since its launch, is equipped with Geely's self-designed Flyme Auto intelligent cockpit system
Although in the field of intelligent driving, no matter which one of the "Five Tigers" has nothing to do for the time being, this does not prevent it from looking for partners. After all, at present, in China's auto industry, in addition to the top four "Dahua Magic", there are many others who can come up with decent solutions.
With the sudden rise of pure electric vehicles, the question of when gasoline vehicles will be eliminated has never stopped for several years. However, in April 2024, this question seems to have been answered by the market.
Pure fuel vehicles may be dead, but fuel engines will continue to be around
One thing is clear – one day in the future, pure fuel-powered cars may disappear, but gasoline engines are destined to remain.
By 2030, the mainland will achieve "carbon peak". Even in 2060, everyone will witness the realization of the "carbon neutrality" pledge.