Back in 2016, when new energy vehicles were still a proper "new species", among the 1,179 new cars on display, only 147 were new energy vehicles, accounting for 12.5%.
According to public data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in mainland China was less than 2% in 2016. But who would have thought that only 8 years have passed, and new energy vehicles have been promoted from the original supporting role to the absolute protagonist. Looking at the booths of major brands at the 2024 Beijing Auto Show, fuel vehicles are almost extinct. This kind of time and space confusion makes people feel a lot of emotion.
According to the data of the Passenger Car Market Joint Branch of the China Automobile Dealers Association, from April 1 to 14, the retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles in the mainland were 260,000, a year-on-year increase of 32%, and in early April, the retail penetration rate of new energy passenger vehicles was 50.39%, surpassing traditional fuel passenger cars for the first time.
On the eve of the Beijing Auto Show Media Day, at the automotive industry summit held by Kuaishou, Xiao Zhengsan, vice president and secretary general of the China Automobile Dealers Association, talked about his views on this data. He said that this is a historic moment, beyond the expectations of many enterprises for the industry, but to achieve the annual penetration rate of new energy vehicles of more than 50%, there is still a way to go, but this is by no means a new starting point.
It is true that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles exceeded 50% for the first time, which is regarded as the critical point for fuel vehicles to move towards "niche". Like dominoes that have been toppled, the decay of fuel vehicles will only get faster and faster. What you and I are witnessing at the moment is that the auto market pattern is ushering in a critical moment of reshaping.
I knew it was going to come, but I didn't expect it to be so soon
Regarding the fact that the retail penetration rate of new energy passenger vehicles exceeded 50% in early April, the author consulted Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Association.
In his view, if the penetration rate exceeds 50% for the first time, it means that new energy vehicles have been increasingly recognized by consumers, and the cost performance of new energy vehicle products has reached the level of acceptance by mainstream consumers. This proves that the future development potential of the entire new energy vehicle is still relatively large, showing a continuous and gradual upward trend. In the future, it is an inevitable trend for new energy vehicles to become the mainstream of our consumption.
Indeed, looking at the growth rate of new energy vehicles in recent years, it can be described by a simple and amazing word. As mentioned above, in the ten years before the 2016 Beijing Auto Show, that is, from 2005 to 2015, it took 10 years for new energy to penetrate, and the penetration rate only exceeded 1%.
From 2016 to 2019, that is, in the three years before the "black swan" new crown pneumonia hit, the penetration rate of new energy only rose to 5%. In 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)", setting the overall goal of achieving a new energy penetration rate of more than 20% in 2025, about 40% in 2030, and more than 50% in 2035. In the context of time and space at that time, these sets of data were really not so simple to achieve.
But no one thought that in the "difficult cycle" of the "three-year pandemic" and the global economic downturn, new energy vehicles would flourish like a crazy bull market, soaring at a speed we can't imagine. In the three years from 2021 to 2023, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles has grown rapidly from 14% to 33%, and then to break 50% in the first two weeks of April 2024, causing everyone to exclaim: I knew that this day was coming, but I didn't expect it to be so fast!
At the same time, in the view of many industry insiders, with the new breakthrough in the research and development of all-solid-state batteries and the further improvement of energy supplement facilities, the mileage anxiety and convenience of energy replenishment problems that have been criticized by new energy vehicles will be completely solved, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles at that time will be on a higher level.
As BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu once boldly predicted, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China will reach 70% in 2030, which is very likely at present, and even sooner. Because it predicted that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles will exceed 50% in the next 3 months at the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum in March this year, and now it has come true, which can be described as a veritable "prophet emperor".
"If the penetration rate reaches 30%, 50%, it represents a transition from an initial stage to a growth stage to a relatively mature stage, and it is a landmark indicator. Cui Dongshu further said.
There are still hidden worries under the prosperous situation, and car companies must adhere to long-termism
Different from the macro level of 70% new energy penetration rate mentioned by Wang Chuanfu, Zhu Xichan, a professor at the School of Automotive Engineering of Tongji University, has expressed such a view, he said that with the advancement of China's new energy technology and marketization, the future of China's automobiles will form a 30% hybrid, 40% plug-in hybrid and 30% pure electric market pattern.
Li Xueyong, deputy general manager of Chery Automobile Co., Ltd., has a similar view, but the data is slightly different. He judged that the future market will be a "433" structure, that is, hybrids account for 40%, pure electric vehicles account for 30%, and fuel vehicles account for 30%.
In other words, industry experts and industry insiders predict that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China's auto market will reach 70% in the future, which is almost the consensus of the industry, but the market share of each technical route remains to be observed.
It is worth mentioning that Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holding Group, also talked about some of his views in public about a series of pain points in the use of new energy vehicles, especially pure electric new energy models. He said that the development of electric vehicles still needs a process, don't rush, the proportion of spontaneous combustion of electric vehicles, the purchase cost is still higher than traditional cars, and the price of second-hand cars is too low.
Indeed, in the past few years, consumers who have tried new energy vehicles have used their own experiences to confide in social media and short video platforms, and they have encountered a series of problems such as many vehicle problems, high after-sales maintenance costs, and low value retention rate of second-hand cars. Some new energy vehicle owners even encounter problems such as difficulties in renewing commercial insurance during use.
At the same time, for the majority of car dealers, in the context of this era of great changes, they have also encountered a lot of happy troubles.
The so-called happiness refers to the soaring penetration rate of new energy vehicles, and the sales of 4S stores of various new energy brands they opened are not bad, and some have even created new highs. However, the trouble is that the "price war" comes and goes, the price of new energy falls too fast, and it is difficult for maintenance to generate profits like oil vehicles, so there is a serious inversion of sales and profits. To put it bluntly, the car was sold, but it fell into a cycle of loss.
In addition, the soaring of new energy is bound to be the loneliness of oil vehicles, the resulting butterfly effect is the decline in the value retention rate of fuel vehicles, the collapse of second-hand car prices, more and more fuel vehicle owners to accelerate the replacement of new energy vehicles, and then this round of cruel knockouts, the most direct impact on the profitability of enterprises, many traditional fuel car companies are caught in dealers, 4S stores closed the network.
From this point of view, behind the acceleration of new energy, there are actually various hidden worries, which need to be faced and solved urgently. This requires car companies to take a long-term view and ensure their ability to withstand market fluctuations by improving product quality, optimizing cost structure, and enhancing supply chain stability.
【Conclusion】The penetration rate of breaking 50% is certainly exciting, but at the same time as the soaring of new energy vehicles, we may be more reflective on several issues, such as how to deal with a series of pain points in the use of new energy vehicles, and how to make dealers make money and make the whole chain run healthily? This may be the follow-up problem we need to pay more attention to, which is more meaningful than simply looking at the data of 50%.