Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

The "status" of commercial vehicles should be raised in the second half of the new energy vehicles.

On December 12, at the annual investor conference of Hande Fund, Zhang Yongwei, vice chairman and secretary-general of China Electric vehicle Association, shared a lot of thoughts on the development opportunities of China's new energy vehicles in the second half. It is believed that the new energy development of commercial vehicles will be accelerated.

Zhang Yongwei pointed out that when the market penetration of new energy passenger cars breaks through 30%, it will enter the development track that is completely market-driven. According to the China Automobile Association, in November 2022, about 743000 new energy passenger vehicles were sold, with a market penetration of 35.8%.

Compared with passenger vehicles, the development of new energy commercial vehicles lags behind slightly. In November 2022, about 44000 new energy commercial vehicles were sold, with a market penetration rate of 17.4%. However, Zhang Yongwei believes that in the second half of new energy vehicles, commercial vehicles will accelerate their development and become a new battlefield for new energy, or even a main battlefield with more innovative and explosive power.

On the one hand, new energy commercial vehicles accelerate infiltration; on the other hand, the intelligence of commercial vehicles can not be ignored.

On December 16, at the 2022 Global Smart vehicle Industry Summit hosted by the China Electric vehicle Association, Fan Xianjun, Geely's long-distance new energy commercial vehicle group, said that intelligent applications such as high-level self-driving have a brighter commercial prospect in the commercial vehicle field than in the passenger vehicle field.

By reviewing and combing the development process and the latest progress of new energy commercial vehicles in China, this paper attempts to explore how commercial vehicles should exert power in the second half of new energy vehicles, and why the intelligent process of commercial vehicles may be faster than passenger vehicles.

1. The "rebound" of new energy commercial vehicles combined with national policy subordinates, market main body layout and sales trend, the development process of China's new energy commercial vehicles can be divided into four stages: exploration period, starting period, adjustment period and rebound period.

[1] Exploration period before the start of the "Ten cities and Thousand vehicles" project in 2009, it can be collectively referred to as the exploration period of new energy commercial vehicles, in fact, it is also the exploration period of the whole new energy vehicle industry in China.

In 2001, new energy vehicles were listed as a major scientific and technological project of 863 during the Tenth five-year Plan period. Two years later, pure electric bus operation appeared on the campus of Tsinghua University. in the same year, Fukuda, a commercial vehicle company, launched the research and development of new energy vehicles, analyzing people, vehicles, goods and fields, and laying out new energy technology routes.

Since the Eleventh five-year Plan, China has put forward the strategy of "energy-saving and new energy vehicles" to continue to promote the research and development and industrialization of new energy vehicles. During this period, BYD started the research and development of pure electric buses.

[2] in January 2009, the Ministry of Science and Technology and other ministries held the launching ceremony of "Ten cities and Thousand vehicles" electric vehicles and 100 hybrid buses in Wuhan. Therefore, to a certain extent, it can be said that the starting point of China's new energy vehicle industrialization is commercial vehicles.

Since then, under the background of the intensive introduction of industrial support policies, new energy commercial vehicles have entered the track of rapid development and began to grow rapidly.

In 2011, Foton and Infineon signed a memorandum of cooperation in the field of new energy in Beijing. Wu Xuebin, then deputy general manager of Futian Motor and director of the Engineering Research Institute, said, "from the perspective of market promotion, commercial vehicles are the most likely areas for new energy vehicles to break through."

Indeed, in terms of market penetration, the penetration rate of new energy commercial vehicles has always been higher than that of passenger vehicles until 2018.

Data source: China Automobile Association, car hundred Intelligence Bank Mapping [3] during the adjustment period in 2018, the sales of new energy commercial vehicles exceeded 200000, but increased by only 2% over the same period last year. Since then, the sales of new energy commercial vehicles have declined for two consecutive years. Market penetration has been declining and has been surpassed by new energy passenger vehicles.

By 2020, new energy commercial vehicle sales were only 121000, down 41.4 per cent from a year earlier, down even from 124000 in 2015, and market penetration fell to 2.4 per cent.

New energy commercial vehicles have entered the adjustment period because the new energy commercial vehicle market has been greatly affected by the state subsidy policy. In 2019, there was a downward trend in the sales of new energy commercial vehicles due to factors such as the retrogression of national subsidies, the cancellation of land subsidies and the occupation of other funds, superimposed on the switching of the sixth standard in the commercial vehicle market.

[4] rebound period

2021 is the "take-off year" of China's new energy vehicles, with annual sales of 3.521 million new energy vehicles and market penetration of 13.4 per cent, up from 5.4 per cent the previous year. New energy commercial vehicles also ushered in a "rebound", with annual sales of 186000 vehicles and market penetration rebounding to 3.9 per cent.

In 2022, the new energy commercial vehicle market rebounded further, with sales of 280000 vehicles in the first 11 months, reaching an all-time high, with a market penetration rate of 9.3%, which is about to exceed 10%.

Fan Xianjun believes that with the adjustment of subsidy policy and the upgrading of technology, especially the improvement of the "three electricity" system integration capability of pure electricity products, the market force is gradually increasing. He judged that after 2023, new energy commercial vehicles will enter the stage of market-driven, supplemented by policy-driven, and will enter the stage of full marketization after 2025.

2. How to "accelerate" new energy commercial vehicles? As mentioned earlier, in November 2022, about 743000 new energy passenger vehicles were sold, more than 16 times that of commercial vehicles; the market penetration of new energy passenger vehicles has reached 35.8%, while the market penetration of new energy commercial vehicles is only 17.4%.

Why does the new energy process of commercial vehicles lag behind that of passenger vehicles? There are mainly the following reasons:

First, from the attribute of commercial vehicle itself, commercial vehicle is the means of production and means of transport, and its target customer group is far less large than that of passenger vehicle users. This is a natural "hard wound" of commercial vehicles.

Second, from the perspective of the cost of commercial vehicles, due to the limitations of relevant technical conditions, the current purchase cost of new energy commercial vehicles is on the high side, which does not have obvious cost advantages compared with traditional energy commercial vehicles, thus restraining the willingness of some users to buy cars.

Third, the commercial replenishment of new energy. The current battery energy density and recharging infrastructure are insufficient to match the actual operational needs of commercial vehicles. This is one of the main pain points of new energy commercial vehicles.

In fact, the second and third points mentioned above used to be the pain points for new energy passenger cars. I believe that with the development of technology and the improvement of infrastructure, it is only a matter of time before the relevant problems are solved.

In addition, Liang Linhe, chairman of Sany heavy truck, said that insufficient policy support is also the reason for the slow development of new energy commercial vehicles. In the process of the development of new energy passenger vehicles, with a lot of policy support, the development of commercial vehicles also needs the priority policy of road rights, electricity price subsidies and convenient conditions for the construction of recharging facilities.

In the second half of the new energy vehicle industry, commercial vehicles should "accelerate". First of all, in the context of the promotion of the national "double carbon" strategy, combined with the consideration of national energy security, traditional energy vehicles, especially commercial vehicles, are bound to continue to shrink. Commercial vehicles not only have a great environmental impact, but also consume more energy. By the end of 2021, the number of commercial vehicles of all types in China was about 33 million, accounting for 11 per cent of the total number of vehicles, but contributed more than 50 per cent of the carbon emissions of vehicles.

Secondly, commercial vehicles should assume the role of "new engine" in China's new energy vehicle industry. At present, the sales of new energy passenger vehicles are still growing at a high speed, but the growth rate has declined, so it is necessary for commercial vehicles to come up and continue to promote the sustained and rapid growth of China's overall new energy vehicle industry.

So, how should new energy commercial vehicles "accelerate"? Combined with the characteristics of new energy business and the pain points of its development, Zhang Xiyong of BAIC once put forward the following four suggestions:

One is to improve the top-level design. We will increase the promotion and utilization of new energy for commercial vehicles, plan and issue a systematic implementation plan for the comprehensive new energy of commercial vehicles as soon as possible, define objectives and tasks, formulate timetables and roadmaps, and improve relevant supporting policies, standards and systems.

Second, improve the replacement subsidy policy, reduce the purchase cost of vehicles, and improve users' acceptance of new energy vehicles.

The third is to make up for the deficiency of recharging infrastructure, improve the convenience of use, formulate preferential charging policies, and reduce the cost of use.

The fourth is to support enterprises to expand the scene application of commercial vehicles and industrial ecological construction. At present, the intelligent driving of commercial vehicles has been at a very high level, and it has been applied to the ground in specific closed and semi-closed scenes such as ports, mining areas, parks, schools and so on.

3. The intelligence of commercial vehicles may be ahead of the current. A common consensus in the industry is that the theme of the first half of new energy vehicles is electrification, while the main competition content of the second half will be "intelligence".

Therefore, commercial vehicles are not only faced with the task of accelerating new energy, but also take into account the process of intelligence. Combined with the views of all parties, it is found that the intelligence of commercial vehicles will be ahead of passenger cars.

On December 16, at the global smart car industry summit, CEO Fan Xianjun, Geely's long-distance new energy commercial vehicle group, said that for commercial vehicles, intelligent Internet connection and smart driving have brought great efficiency improvements, especially the gradual landing of high-level self-driving, which will bring a new subversive change to the industry.

"Commercial vehicles as a productivity tool, intelligent applications such as high-level self-driving will have a brighter commercial prospect in the field of commercial vehicles than in the field of passenger vehicles." Fan Xianjun said. In addition, Li Quansheng, Datai Capital, also believes that judging from the actual situation in our country, self-driving vehicles will land faster than passenger cars.

Why is the intelligent process of commercial vehicles faster? There are two main reasons:

First of all, the operation scenario of commercial vehicles is simpler. At present, the operation scenes of commercial vehicles mainly include: trunk logistics, port scene, logistics park, mining area scene, airport scene, terminal distribution and unmanned cleaning. These scenes are relatively closed and have a fixed operation route. It is very conducive to high-level self-driving or even self-driving landing.

Second, TCO (total cost of ownership) advantage. As a means of production, the operating cost of commercial vehicles is very high, and with the maturity of self-driving technology and the improvement of energy infrastructure, new energy-based and intelligent commercial vehicles will greatly reduce operating costs (such as saving fuel costs, having more lines, etc.). In short, the longer you use the car, the lower the marginal cost. Therefore, the intelligent power of commercial vehicles is stronger.

In addition, Tesla's actions in the commercial vehicle field will also accelerate the competition of smart commercial vehicles.

In early December, Tesla announced the delivery of the first batch of Semi all-electric semitrailers to PepsiCo, marking Tesla's official expansion beyond the passenger car market. The Semi was unveiled in 2017 and was originally scheduled to go into production in 2019, but delivery was delayed several times due to limitations such as power batteries.

Some industry insiders believe that Semi is equipped with Tesla's unique autopilot system FSD, and provides many unique functions of commercial trucks, such as automatic docking and hanging box function, which will affect the development trend of intelligent commercial vehicles.

The intelligent process of commercial vehicles of Chinese brands is also accelerating. According to Fan Xianjun, long-distance commercial vehicles will achieve L3 highway autopilot and L4 limited scene autopilot in 2023, L4 trunk logistics autopilot in 2026, and L5 combined with intelligent cockpit autopilot industrialization in 2030.

It can not be ignored that the intelligence of commercial vehicles is still facing many problems, such as technology maturity, law tolerance, cost acceptance, safety guarantee and so on.

Therefore, in accordance with the step-by-step pragmatic model, the intelligence of commercial vehicles needs to start mass production from the manned products and scenes allowed by policies and regulations, and gradually achieve the short-term goal of safer and more economical than human drivers through technical iteration, data accumulation and algorithm improvement, so as to be recognized by the industry, society and management departments, and finally achieve high-level self-driving and even self-driving.

[full text reference]

[1] "Commercial vehicles drive into the new energy track", Economic Daily

[2] "Li Dakai: the Development of New Energy Commercial vehicles presents New characteristics under the New situation", China Automobile Daily

[3] "the self-driving ecology of commercial vehicles is beginning to take shape, and the trunk logistics scene is expected to take the lead in landing", Huaxi Securities

[4] long-distance new energy commercial vehicle group CEO Fan Xianjun's speech at the 2022 Global Smart vehicle Industry Summit

[5] "Commercial vehicle Diversified Technology Route Exploration Seminar and the first working meeting of the Commercial vehicle Electric Intelligence Innovation and Development Committee-- the Conference of 100 held the 26th high-end seminar"

[6] "Commercial vehicle ADAS market ushered in a new round of outbreak", China Automobile News

[7] "Commercial vehicle self-driving is gradual, the era of intelligent transportation is coming", Citic Securities

[8] "create Smart Interconnection and lead Green Business", Liu Hanru, Geely Commercial vehicle Group

[9] "accelerate the comprehensive new energy of commercial vehicles and promote the green and low-carbon development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei", Zhang Xiyong

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: che Bai think Tank (ID:EV100_Plus), author: Qin Haiqing

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