New energy vehicles are becoming the mainstream of the automobile market, and with the increasing proportion of new energy vehicles, the ecology of the automobile industry is being comprehensively reshaped. In the transition from policy-driven to market-driven, how can new energy vehicles remain attractive?How to stabilize the battery ** chain?How to ensure driving and information security?In response to these issues of concern to the industry, the reporter conducted an in-depth interview at the 2023 World New Energy Vehicle Conference held recently.
How can new energy vehicles remain attractive?
New energy vehicles have become an important engine to promote the green and low-carbon transformation and development of China's automobile industry and sustainable economic and social development, and the rapid development of China's new energy vehicles has also played an important leading role in promoting the electrification transformation of the global automobile industry. Chen Jiachang, vice minister of science and technology, said.
According to statistics, from January to November this year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China exceeded 8 million, with a market penetration rate of more than 30%, and the industry has entered a new stage of comprehensive marketization. Especially in Hainan, as of November, the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles in Hainan has reached nearly 50%, ranking first in the country.
With the continuous advancement of the comprehensive marketization of new energy vehicles and related industries, the international industrial environment and development pattern of new energy vehicles are undergoing great changes, and countries around the world have increased their support for the cultivation and development of new energy vehicles and related industries, and continue to optimize the policy system and business environment conducive to the development of the new energy vehicle industry.
However, with the gradual increase in the market share of new energy vehicles, China's promotion subsidies for new energy vehicles at the policy level have gradually declined. Affected by this, the market is worried that with the loss of support for the promotion of new energy vehicles, it may slow down the rapid increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles.
Timur Gül, chief energy technology officer at the International Energy Agency, said that the incentives for electric vehicles are being phased out, but for the vehicles themselves, with the removal of incentives, more emphasis should be placed on the improvement of vehicle configuration and its supporting charging infrastructure.
This view coincides with the view of Wu Yanyan, Vice President of BMW Group. She said that in the past few years, effective regulations and preferential policies have greatly promoted the development of new energy vehicles in the market. Local preferential policies for new energy should maintain stability and predictability, so that all new energy vehicles can benefit and create a level playing field. This will enable enterprises to compete in an orderly and healthy manner, and the industry will develop healthily for a long time.
China's NEV market is accelerating its transition from policy-driven to market-driven, and as penetration continues to increase, there will ultimately be a need for reliable and innovative products and services to attract consumers and stay ahead of the competition. Wu Yanyan said that China's automotive market, especially the new energy vehicle market, is extremely competitive, with sustainable innovation capabilities, the ability to quickly integrate and mass produce software and hardware, the BMW Group is making a strong attack in the field of digitalization and electrification, and China will be a pioneer market for BMW to imagine and open up the future.
The continued decline in subsidies has also had an impact on some consumers. The reporter visited and found that some consumers will rush to buy new energy vehicles before the deadline of the subsidy, but some consumers see that the subsidy has been reduced more or even some subsidies are directly "zero", so they turn to buy fuel vehicles or shelve the vehicle purchase plan.
In order to maintain the promotion of new energy vehicles and prevent the penetration rate from declining, some places have subsidized the promotion and application of new energy vehicles through a variety of means. Take Hainan as an example. Hainan has repeatedly introduced policies to support the promotion of new energy vehicles. In order to further stabilize market expectations, in September this year, the Hainan Provincial Department of Finance cooperated with the Hainan Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology to formulate and introduce a three-year support plan for the "Several Measures to Encourage the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles in Hainan Province from 2023 to 2025". On November 3, the Hainan Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology and other five units jointly issued the "Notice on Encouraging the Promotion and Application of Subsidies for New Energy Vehicles in 2023", clarifying the requirements for Hainan Province to encourage the promotion and application of subsidies for new energy vehicles in 2023.
Due to the different local subsidy standards, some car owners choose to buy cars in other places and get licenses. "The subsidies in those places are much more affordable than towing fees, and now some places do not have very strict restrictions on the licensing of vehicles or purchases of vehicles from other places. A new energy vehicle owner who bought a car from another place and registered locally said.
How to keep up with the power battery?
With the popularization of new energy vehicles, "battery life" and "battery" are topics that cannot be avoided in the development of the industry. The reporter learned in an interview at the 2023 World New Energy Vehicle Conference that many car companies have responded to challenges such as the battery chain by strengthening cooperation between upstream and downstream enterprises, laying out battery raw material acquisition and business, and actively docking international market cooperation and rules.
China has built the world's largest and most complete lithium battery chain system with the strongest technical strength, and in the entire pattern, China has accounted for nearly 70% to 75% of the world's lithium battery demand. Li Ke, managing director and global partner of Boston Consulting Group, said that in the past five years, the development of vehicle electrification and new energy industry has driven the rapid development of the global lithium battery market. It is estimated that from 2025 to 2030, the global lithium battery market will still maintain an annual growth rate of 25%, and by 2030, the global demand will exceed 4 t-watt-hours (terawatt-hours).
At the same time, demand for raw materials such as chromium, nickel and lithium continues**, while the mining industry is constrained due to environmental and climate impacts. Melissa Barbanel, director of U.S. international affairs at the World Resources Institute, believes that companies need to develop principles and standards for responsible mining, while finding alternative scarce mineral resources or enhancing recycling.
At present, China, the United States, the European Union, Japan and other countries and regions have started from the management of batteries, and formulated technical standards and regulations to guide automobile manufacturers and other enterprises to actively collect and use batteries to improve the stability of the battery chain.
It is understood that Changan Automobile, CATL and Deep Blue Automobile have jointly built the Changan Power Battery, Volkswagen Group (China) Public Relations, Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility Department revealed to reporters that Volkswagen has cooperated with Hefei Guoxuan Hi-Tech Power Energy in the field of batteries, which can meet more than half of the group's battery needs. The BMW Group announced that it had awarded more than 10 billion euros of battery cell production demand contracts to two partners, CATL and EVE, and also cooperated with Zhejiang Huayou Recycling Technology to realize the closed-loop of raw materials for BMW's domestic electric vehicle retired power batteries.
Working with upstream and downstream partners to promote innovative circular economy business models is also an important part of building a resilient chain. Compared with the use of mining starting materials, the closed-loop system of materials not only saves the use of resources, but also further effectively reduces the carbon emissions of mineral resource extraction by 70%. At present, more than 1,000 tons of raw materials for power batteries have been successfully refined and used in the production of new batteries, which are installed in domestic BMW electric models. Wu Yanyan said.
Dong Changzheng, senior executive deputy general manager of Toyota Motor (China) Investment, believes that hybrid power is one of the ways to solve the problem of power batteries, "At present, battery raw materials have become hot because of the development of new energy vehicles, and everyone is also loading high-power batteries to improve the mileage, resulting in an increasing shortage of battery raw material resources." Therefore, Toyota has simultaneously expanded the comprehensive application of pure electric, plug-in hybrid, hydrogen fuel cell and other technologies.
It is worth noting that the participating enterprises generally believe that the current domestic carbon footprint digital foundation is relatively weak, and the management and ability of the first chain are also in their infancy, and it is recommended to strengthen the acquisition of carbon footprint-related database resources and exchanges and mutual recognition at home and abroad.
How to ensure driving and information security?
On the tourist road around the island on the west coast of Haikou City, Hainan Province, driverless buses are "ushered in" between the venues of the 2023 World New Energy Vehicle Conference. Participants only need to touch the door and tap the destination on the in-car screen to go.
How to avoid obstacles in intelligent networked vehicles?How is roadside information collected?How safe is autonomous driving?In the venue, the participants had a heated discussion on the "city-level vehicle-road-cloud integration". At present, a total of 17 national-level intelligent networked vehicle test demonstration zones, 7 Internet of Vehicles pilot areas, and 16 dual-intelligence pilot cities have been built across the country.
During the conference, the results of the capability evaluation of the intelligent networked vehicle test demonstration zone were officially released, and 7 test demonstration zones in the Beijing-Hebei region, Wuhan, Changsha, and Shanghai were awarded the "2023 Intelligent Connected Vehicle Test Demonstration Zone Comprehensive Capability Assessment Leading Unit", and 14 test demonstration zones were awarded the "2023 Intelligent Connected Vehicle Test Demonstration Zone Closed Field Test Capability Assessment Passing Unit".
What kind of roads can be used to test autonomous driving?"8D Magic Capital" Chongqing has a set of evaluation plans. Wang Huan, deputy director of the Intelligent Connected Vehicle Center of China Merchants Testing Vehicle Technology Research Institute, said: "Chongqing has issued autonomous driving road test licenses for 93 autonomous driving entities. Through the autonomous driving road evaluation method, the infrastructure construction and signal coverage of the vehicle-road cloud network diagram of the road are evaluated accordingly, so as to determine which roads can be used as road operation and collision test areas for autonomous driving. ”
As more and more cars with driver assistance features enter the market, consumers are more concerned about the regulation and safety of driving behavior. To this end, a set of autonomous vehicle management system developed and constructed by relevant institutions can supervise vehicles in real time, collect data such as trajectory operation and safety officer status, and trace, investigate and evaluate accident data in the event of an accident.
Gong Weijie, deputy secretary-general of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, said frankly that in order to improve the reliability of roadside information collection, it is necessary for OEMs to improve the functional safety requirements of vehicles, and also involve the coordination of communications, infrastructure, safety departments and other parties, and at the same time to strengthen the technology research and development of different stages such as assisted driving and automatic driving.
In the Suzhou Demonstration Zone, more than 300 kilometers of roads have been deployed and road infrastructure construction has been completed. "Suzhou has explored the regulatory level of vehicle-road-cloud integration infrastructure construction, intelligent networked autonomous driving testing, and commercial operation, and the "Suzhou Intelligent Vehicle Networking Development Promotion Regulations" was officially implemented on December 1. Wang Jiali, chairman of the leading (Suzhou) digital industry investment, said.
Chen Guihua, deputy secretary-general of the Intelligent Connected Vehicle Alliance, revealed that the penetration rate of domestic L2 passenger cars reached 43 in the first half of the year7%, as of November, more than 22,000 kilometers of roadside information collection roads.
In the study of the "only way" to apply autonomous driving, urban vehicle cloud services have been quietly changing people's lives. In Yizhuang, Beijing, vehicle-road-cloud integration is playing a role in traffic light services and solving road congestion, and is improving people's driving experience and transportation services.
Hou Fushen, vice chairman and secretary general of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, pointed out that the current construction of China's intelligent networked vehicle test demonstration zone is still facing multiple challenges such as fragmentation of vehicle-road collaborative testing, insufficient standard coordination, urgent need to strengthen data sharing, and need to improve the ability to support access testing.
Participants generally agreed that it is still necessary to actively carry out city-level vehicle-road-cloud integration demonstration applicationsStrengthen cross-industry and cross-regional standard collaboration, and build an integrated standard system for vehicles, roads and cloudsDeepen accident research, build an intelligent computing platform, and explore data applicationsWe will continue to build core service capabilities, explore new services and new business formats, improve testing capabilities to support access and road access pilots, and serve the high-quality and healthy development of China's intelligent networked vehicle industry. (Reporter Wang Cunfu reported from Haikou in the summer).
Layout of the Economic Information Daily.
Editor-in-charge: Wu Wei.
Drafting: Pan Yue.