"Sell crazy!" It's up again!"" Can you wait? ”...... At the beginning of April, in a 4S store in Beijing's Chaoyang District, ms. Yu, the store manager, was busy with car buyers who came to consult. "We have two new energy sources, and since last year, even if you go to the store, you basically can't buy a cash car."
From less than 10,000 vehicles in 2011 to the cumulative promotion of more than 10 million vehicles at the end of the first quarter of this year, the global market share has increased to a new high of 65%, in recent years, under the favorable policies of purchase subsidies, charging facilities awards, vehicle and vessel tax reductions, and new energy vehicles going to the countryside, the mainland new energy automobile industry has ushered in unprecedented development opportunities.
According to the 2021 performance report released by a number of domestic listed car companies recently, traditional car companies, including Geely, Great Wall, BYD and GAC, as well as new car-making forces such as Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal (hereinafter referred to as "Wei Xiaoli"), have achieved positive revenue and sales growth in the past year, and the new energy vehicle business has performed well.
The development of new energy vehicles is the only way for the mainland to move from an automobile power to an automobile power. The policy documents have repeatedly expressed their determination to continue to support the consumption of new energy vehicles. Industry experts believe that in recent years, the mainland automobile market as a whole has been upward, and the new energy vehicle market has entered a development stage driven by policies to market-driven, showing trends such as sales jumping, "cake" bigger, and innovation enhancement.
- Look at the market
Sales soared, independent brand "full of horsepower"
According to the data, in 2021, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 3.545 million units and 3.521 million units, respectively, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year, and the market share reached 13.4%.
Draft: Shen Jiaping
The reporter combed the 2021 annual financial report of the listed car companies and found that the total delivery volume of "Wei Xiaoli" in the whole year reached 91,000 vehicles, 98,000 vehicles and 91,000 vehicles respectively, an increase of 109.1%, 263% and 177.4% year-on-year.
The transformation of traditional car companies is rapid, and the number of "net red models" has increased. SAIC Motor's sales of new energy vehicles in 2021 reached 728,000 units; BYD's annual sales of new energy vehicles were 594,000 units, an increase of 231.6% year-on-year, of which the cumulative sales of BYD EV models and DM models reached 320,000 units and 270,000 units, respectively, an increase of 144.9% and 467.6% year-on-year, respectively; GAC Group's annual sales of new energy vehicles were 143,000 units, an increase of 77.4% year-on-year, and the annual sales of GAC Ande Safety alone exceeded 120,000 units Dongfeng Motor sold 161,000 new energy models in the whole year, an increase of 260% year-on-year, and Geely Automobile's annual sales of new energy and electrified models exceeded 100,000 units, an increase of 177.3% year-on-year.
At the end of 2020, the General Office of the State Council issued the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)", which clearly put forward the goal of reaching about 20% of the total sales volume of new energy vehicles by 2025. Overall, despite the superposition of unfavorable factors such as macroeconomic downturn and epidemic sporadic epidemic, the new energy vehicle market is still expected to be good. The industry generally believes that thanks to the trend of intelligence and electrification and the improvement of core technologies, domestic independent brands have changed lanes to overtake, and the upward breakthrough ability has accelerated.
According to the data, in the top 15 sales of new energy vehicles in China in 2021, independent brands occupy 12 seats. Industry experts believe that the eye-catching annual "answer sheet" handed over by listed car companies not only reflects the breakthrough of the "quantity" of the new energy automobile industry, but also represents the leap of "quality".
"Each breakthrough marks a new level of development in the mainland's new energy automobile industry, behind which is the all-round progress of the industrial system and the continuous improvement of the development environment." Wu Zhixin, deputy general manager of China Automotive Technology and Research Center, said that "Made in China" is increasingly welcomed by the international market, and the new energy vehicle products of SAIC, Great Wall, BYD, Yutong and other enterprises are sold to more than 40 countries around the world, and "going out" has made major breakthroughs.
A few days ago, the General Office of the State Council issued a document to "support the accelerated development of new energy vehicles" and "encourage qualified areas to carry out new energy vehicles and green smart home appliances to go to the countryside, and promote the construction of supporting facilities such as charging piles (stations)". In the view of Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Vehicle Market Information Joint Association, the country's stable growth of the new energy vehicle market and the continued support for new energy vehicle consumption will have a huge role in promoting the development of the domestic car market this year.
- Look at production
The "cake" is getting bigger, and the profit space needs to be improved
Just after the Qingming holiday, the GAC Aean plant in Guangzhou's Panyu District returned to full production. In February this year, the E-an plant used the Spring Festival holiday to complete the expansion of production capacity, achieving a 45% increase in production efficiency.
According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, from April to December last year, the production of passenger cars for new energy vehicles in the mainland has steadily increased, and the monthly output of new energy passenger cars reached 500,000 units in December. The hot new energy vehicle market has allowed car companies to drive full horsepower, and some head enterprises have "full production and full sales" and focused on improving production capacity.
On April 3, BYD announced that it had stopped production of fuel vehicles in March. In 2021, BYD ushered in the 1 millionth new energy vehicle off the production line. According to the information disclosed in the annual report, last year, its new energy passenger car production capacity was 600,000 units, the output reached 597,000 units, and the capacity utilization rate was close to 100% ; at the same time, it proposed to increase the expansion of production capacity to meet the rapid outbreak of the market.
According to the annual report of "Wei Xiaoli", three new car-making forces are also expanding production capacity in tandem: WEIlai relies on Hefei Jianghuai Automobile OEM and Xinqiao to build its own factory; Xiaopeng launched the Zhaoqing factory expansion project, and the Guangzhou and Wuhan factories are under construction; ideal has started the construction of factories in Changzhou and Beijing, and at the same time disclosed the Chongqing factory construction plan in the financial report.
While production and sales are booming, the profitability of car companies still needs to be improved. The superimposed impact of rising raw material prices and subsidies further squeezing the profit space of new energy vehicle companies.
Since the beginning of this year, nearly 50 new energy models of more than 20 car companies have announced price increases, and the price increase of power battery raw materials has been transmitted to the whole vehicle, which is considered to be the main reason for this round of price adjustment. Judging from the financial reports of several car companies whose main business is new energy vehicles, in 2021, the main business of BYD automobiles and related products was 89.87 billion yuan, an increase of 47.5% year-on-year; the main cost of "Wei Xiaoli" rose by 103.8%, 229.2% and 167.3% respectively. In the case of double growth in revenue and sales, BYD's net profit decreased by 28.1% year-on-year, while the three new car-making forces still did not achieve profitability.
In terms of subsidies, BYD's financial report shows that the total revenue of new energy subsidies in 2021 is 5.87 billion yuan, of which the government subsidies included in the profit and loss of the current period are 2.26 billion yuan, which is about equal to 3/4 of its net profit; Geely Automobile's financial report also mentioned that the government subsidies in 2021 will be 730 million yuan, a decrease of 5% compared with 2020.
According to the current policy, this year will be the last year to implement the subsidy policy for new energy vehicles, and the subsidy standard will be reduced by 30% on the basis of 2021. It is foreseeable that in the short term, the profit margins of new energy vehicle companies will still face challenges.
"Subsidy decline is not the main reason for the recent increase in the price of new energy vehicles." In the view of Xu Haidong, deputy chief engineer of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, for new energy vehicle companies, they generally have already known the subsidy decline policy. In addition, the amount of subsidies that can be enjoyed in 2022 will be reduced by about 5,000 yuan at most, which will have little impact on the overall price of vehicles. In addition, from the trend point of view, the rapid growth of new energy vehicle sales will also help companies to share costs to a certain extent.
According to the analysis of Minsheng Securities Research Report, the slope reduction policy will help promote the transformation and development of the industry from subsidy-driven to market-driven, and high-quality OEMs are expected to gain market recognition by virtue of long-term accumulation of production capacity advantages, technical hard strength, product price competitiveness, etc., and further enhance market share.
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Innovation has been enhanced, and the industrial chain has been continuously improved
At present, the form and pattern of global automobiles are being reshaped, and the development of "electrification, intelligence, networking, and sharing" is the trend of the times.
"The world's major economies have set the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, and the pace of electrification and transformation of the automotive industry has been accelerated." Zhang Jinhua, executive vice president and secretary general of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, said that the United States and Europe and other countries have accelerated the development of the new energy automobile industry and market, providing opportunities for the mainland new energy automobile industry chain to integrate into the international new energy automobile industry chain.
He believes that the mainland should increase the key core technology of new energy vehicles, break through the bottleneck technology that hinders the high-quality development of the new energy automobile industry, forward-looking layout of key components and new systems, new materials, new structures, etc. R & D and innovation, and promote the formation of cutting-edge technological achievements with leaping performance.
From the perspective of R&D investment of various car companies, the R&D investment of A-share BYD and Beiqi Blue Valley in 2021 increased by 24.2% and 24.1% year-on-year, respectively, and the R&D investment of Chinese stock "Wei Xiaoli" increased by 86.4%, 138.4% and 198.8% respectively.
BYD disclosed that its R&D investment projects mainly include blade battery technology, energy storage products, super hybrid, intelligent networking systems, etc.; the significant increase in R&D expenses of WEILAI and Xiaopeng is mainly due to the increase in personnel costs of R&D functions and the development of new models and new technologies; the cumulative R&D expenditure of GAC Group exceeded 5 billion yuan throughout the year, and the R&D expenditure was mainly used to strengthen independent research and development and innovation capacity building, and synchronously promoted the development of conventional power models, new energy models and core components.
Draft: Shen Jiaping
In terms of employee composition, as of the end of 2021, beiqi Blue Valley technicians accounted for 44.6%, 749 people with master's degree or above; Great Wall Motor technicians accounted for 27.1%, 3073 people with master's degree or above; BYD technicians accounted for 15.4%, master's degree personnel accounted for 5262 people; GUANGZHOU AUTOMOBILE Group technicians accounted for 14.5%, master's degree or above 4542 people.
In order to encourage independent innovation and stimulate the motivation of enterprise research and development, the mainland has issued a series of support policies, such as increasing the proportion of enterprise R&D expenses deducted, improving the treatment of scientific research personnel, etc., and through policy guidance, market leadership, science and technology first and other multi-party joint action, jointly promote the development of the new energy automobile industry to achieve positive results. According to the data of the big data platform of the automotive industry of the Equipment Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the proportion of new energy vehicles with a driving range of more than or equal to 500 kilometers in the mainland has exceeded 47%.
"We should continue to implement the action of strengthening the chain and supplementing the chain, coordinate the demonstration and application of core products in key areas, encourage enterprises to try first, and gradually promote the industrialization and market-oriented promotion of technological achievements." At the same time, we will give full play to the main position of enterprises in technological innovation, and implement inclusive policies such as greater enterprise R&D expenses plus deductions and tax incentives for low-carbon technology enterprises. Zhang Jinhua said.