The two historical trends of global new energy vehicles gradually replacing fuel vehicles and China's new energy vehicles leading the global development of new energy vehicles have been formed.
In the past ten years, China's new energy vehicles have gradually formed a globally competitive innovative technology system, realizing the leap from catching up to leading, which has led to the acceleration of the eastward shift of the global automotive industry technology center and core production and supply chain.
These "reverse joint venture" cases show that China's new energy vehicle companies have changed from passively accepting Western technology to actively exporting technology, and have become technology leaders and important partners in the global automotive industry.
Behind the great shift of the automotive technology center and industrial chain is China's R&D and innovation strength, industrial capacity and the advantages of the whole industry chain, as well as the industrial development idea of adhering to openness and cooperation.
The "reverse investment" of international capital in China's new energy vehicle industry and Chinese enterprises shows that the West cannot refuse an innovative country with super industrial productivity.
Text |Wang Jiefeng.
Visitors visit the BYD e Platform 3 on display at the Japan Mobility Show in Tokyo, Japan0 (taken on October 26, 2023) Photo by Zhang Xiaoyu This magazine.
At present, the global automobile industry is experiencing an unprecedented change, and new energy vehicles are gradually replacing traditional fuel vehicles with their clean, efficient, energy-saving and intelligent characteristics, and becoming a new force in the global automobile market. In this transformation, China's auto industry has achieved a historic leap from a follower to a leader through technological innovation, market development and international cooperation. In this transformation, the transfer of technology centers and core production and supply chains from the West to China has become the most significant change in the global automotive industry.
Two major historical trends have taken shape.
In 2023, at the Munich Motor Show and Tokyo Motor Show, the Western automotive industry will feel an unprecedented cognitive impact. Through these two major auto shows, Chinese auto brands showcased their innovations in integrated or key technology areas such as new energy, intelligent networking, and autonomous driving. The Western industry has found that China's new energy vehicle companies have achieved a qualitative leap in both individual technologies and vehicle integration, and many leading technologies reflect the R&D and manufacturing strength of Chinese car companies.
On September 5 10, 2023, at the 2nd German International Automobile and Smart Mobility Expo held in the German city of Munich, the number of Chinese exhibitors reached 75, more than double that of the previous one, becoming the country with the largest number of exhibitors except for the host Germany. Among them, the vehicle brands include BYD, SAIC MG, Dongfeng Fengxing, Leapmotor, Xiaopeng Motors, Cialis and AVA, etc., power battery companies include CATL, EVE Lithium Energy, China Innovation Airlines, Xinwangda, Ruipu Lanjun and Funeng Technology, etc., and smart car software and hardware companies include Horizon, Black Sesame, ECAR, Qingzhou Zhihang, SenseTime Jueying and Yuanrong Qixing. The products displayed by Chinese exhibitors cover the fields of vehicle manufacturing, electric power, charging technology, intelligent automotive electronics and software, etc., showing the advantages of China's complete industrial chain and the momentum of vigorous development.
October 25, 2023 On November 5, at the 47th Mobility Show (formerly Tokyo Motor Show) held in Tokyo, Japan, Chinese car company BYD, as one of the three foreign exhibitors, entered the Japanese market with its 5 models, from mid-range family cars, mid-to-high-end sports sedans to high-end luxury cars, allowing Toyota and other Japanese brands to feel the huge competitive potential of Chinese automobiles, and also attracted widespread attention from consumers and consumers.
Compared with the sensory impact at the auto show, China's new energy vehicle production and sales data makes people rationally realize that the global auto market has undergone drastic changes.
According to data from the China Passenger Car Market Information Association, in January and July 2023, the global sales of new energy vehicles will be about 7 million, a year-on-year increase of 45%, far exceeding the growth rate of about 10% of the overall global automobile sales, showing the historical trend of new energy vehicles increasing rapidly in the global automobile market. Among them, China's new energy vehicle sales reached 4.42 million units, accounting for 61% of global sales, ranking first in the world for eight consecutive years.
According to the statistics of the China Association of China, in January and October 2023, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China will be 73520,000 and 7.28 million units, an increase of 339% and 378%。Among them, the domestic sales volume was 62850,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 314%；Export sales volume 9950,000 units, a strong increase of 99 year-on-year1%。China's new energy vehicle production and sales are booming, and the market pattern of both internal and external strength has been formed.
From the perspective of the domestic market, the market share of new energy vehicles in China will exceed 30% for the first time in 2023, much higher than the market share of about 21% in 31 European countries, indicating that new energy vehicles have high market recognition and a lot of room for development in China.
From the perspective of the global market, in the first half of 2023, BYD will become China's first independent brand car company to enter the top 10 in global sales for the first time in more than 60 years, and it is also the only new energy vehicle company in the top 10 in global sales, becoming the vanguard of global new energy vehicles. In terms of individual technologies, taking the power battery, the core component of new energy vehicles, as an example, data from energy market research company SNErology shows that in the first half of 2023, six Chinese companies in the top 10 sales of the global new energy vehicle battery market accounted for about two-thirds of the shipment share.
In addition, in recent years, Chinese car companies have also made major breakthroughs in key technology fields such as autonomous driving, intelligent cockpits, drive-by-wire chassis, lidar, and AI chips.
From macro to micro, these data show that the two historical trends of global new energy vehicles gradually replacing fuel vehicles and China's new energy vehicles leading the development of global new energy vehicles have been formed.
Dimensionality reduction of a new technology system.
Since the release of the "Automobile Industry Adjustment and Revitalization Plan" in 2009 and the launch of the national energy-saving and new energy vehicle demonstration project, it took only about 10 years for China to achieve the overtaking of the traditional Western automobile industry in the field of new energy vehicles.
The power battery is the "heart" of new energy vehicles, which determines the endurance, charging speed and safety of new energy vehicles. China has the world's most complete industrial chain in the field of power batteries, from raw material refining, battery manufacturing, battery management system to advanced utilization, forming a large-scale, standardized and clean technology ecosystem. China's power battery companies, such as CATL, BYD, Funeng Technology, etc., all have their own core technologies, not only in terms of energy density and other performance indicators and production costs ahead of international counterparts, but also in terms of safety and reliability have reached the world-class level.
Intelligent driving is the "brain" of new energy vehicles, which determines the degree of intelligence, driving experience and convenience of new energy vehicles. In the Chinese market, there is a strong atmosphere of innovation in the field of intelligent driving, and new technologies are emerging in an endless stream, with a large number of innovative companies emerging in various subdivisions such as chips, sensors, algorithms, software, and control systems, such as Huawei, China Unicom, etc., and constantly launching intelligent driving products and solutions with independent intellectual property rights and leading technologies. China's intelligent driving is not only on par with international giants in terms of technical level, but also more abundant and diverse in application scenarios, from highways, urban roads to country lanes and outdoor terrain, intelligent driving technology companies make full use of large land territory, complex natural environment, multi-level road conditions for large-scale technical verification, and establish reliable technical advantages.
The innovation platform is the "soul" of new energy vehicles, which determines the innovation ability, user experience and brand value of new energy vehicles. China's new energy vehicle industry has created an open, integrated and efficient cooperation model in the field of innovation platforms, and has formed a highly collaborative and flexible and effective platform ecosystem from design, R&D, production to sales. In March 2018, China established the National New Energy Vehicle Technology Innovation Center, which is the first national new energy vehicle technology innovation center, marking significant progress in the construction of China's new energy vehicle innovation ecosystem. The Chinese-style innovation platform integrates domestic and foreign scientific research institutions and cutting-edge forces in the industry, aims at common and cutting-edge key technologies such as vehicle integration and control, intelligent networking and intelligent transportation, and forward-looking technology, and creates an innovative model with Chinese characteristics of co-consultation, co-construction, co-governance, sharing and sharing, which has laid a solid foundation for China's new energy vehicle enterprises to shorten the R&D path, overcome technical difficulties, perceive scientific and technological trends, and improve the passenger experience.
The establishment of China's new energy vehicle technology advantage also benefits from the perfect national infrastructure.
Taking charging infrastructure as an example, from 2015 to 2022, the number of charging infrastructure in China has increased from less than 100,000 units to 5.21 million units, with an average annual growth rate of more than 700,000 units, accounting for more than 80% of the world's ownership and annual growth. As of the end of May 2023, the scale of charging infrastructure in the country has reached 63560,000 units, the coverage rate of public charging pile facilities in the central urban area of first-tier cities exceeds 80%, and the service radius in the city is comparable to that of gas stations. 65% of the country's expressway service areas have charging conditions, and the highway fast charging network of "ten vertical, ten horizontal and two rings" has been initially formed, and has formed a technical development route such as AC slow charging and DC fast charging.
Information and communication infrastructure such as 5G communication, high-precision maps, and Internet of Vehicles platforms are also important supports for the rise of China's new energy vehicle technology. At present, China has built the world's largest 5G network, and by the end of 2022, a total of 231 5G base stations have been built in the country20,000, accounting for more than 60% of the world's total. China is also speeding up the production and updating of high-precision maps across the country with the support of the Beidou satellite navigation system, providing accurate positioning and navigation capabilities for autonomous driving, and actively promoting the construction and opening of the Internet of Vehicles platform. As of April 2023, China has opened more than 9,000 kilometers of intelligent networked vehicle test roads and completed more than 3,900 kilometers of intelligent road transformation. All these provide massive empirical data services and application support for new energy vehicles, so that the intelligent networking of new energy vehicles has been fully developed.
Thanks to the above advantages, China's new energy vehicle industry has achieved rapid technological iteration, and the battery, motor, and electronic control technology have made a comprehensive leap. For example, the condensed matter battery released by CATL in April 2023 has an energy density of up to 500Wh kg, the 5C battery 800V high-voltage fast charging technology released by Li Auto in June 2023 has increased the charging power to 500kW, and the world's first deeply integrated electric drive released by BYD integrates drive motor, motor controller, reducer, on-board charger, DC converter, distribution box, vehicle controller, The eight components of the battery manager have realized the deep integration of software and hardware, device and cloud, and set a number of global records.
In the past ten years, China's new energy vehicles have gradually formed a globally competitive innovative technology system, realizing the leap from catching up to leading, which has led to the acceleration of the eastward shift of the global automotive industry technology center and core production and supply chain.
Reverse joint venture" began.
In the face of the rise of new energy vehicles in China, the European automotive industry has had to adjust its strategic layout and began to seek cooperation with Chinese enterprises.
On the one hand, European car companies and investment** are actively investing in the upstream and downstream of China's new energy vehicle industry to obtain China's technology, market and chain.
In recent years, German automakers such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Volkswagen have achieved fruitful results in upstream and downstream cooperation with the Chinese industry. In February 2022, Mercedes-Benz announced that its subsidiary, Daimler Investment Company, would invest 90.5 billion yuan invested in Funeng Technology, a manufacturer of power battery cells in ChinaOn June 23, BMW Brilliance completed a large-scale upgrade and renovation project and officially opened the new iFactory Lida plant with an investment of more than EUR 2 billion, making it the largest single investment of BMW in China to dateOn June 28, the total investment of 2.6 billion euros, the planned annual production capacity of 150,000 Audi FAW new energy vehicles*** laid the foundation stone in Changchun, which is Audi's first luxury pure electric plant in China, the introduction of the first PPE platform electric vehicle Q6 e-tron prototype has been first displayed at the 6th China International Import Expo in November 2023, plans to achieve local mass production by the end of 2024;On August 23, Mercedes-Benz and BAIC Group jointly invested 11.9 billion yuan in the Shunyi Benz plant to jointly invest 11.9 billion yuan in the EVA pure electric platform, the first forward-developed domestic model of the new EQE, launchedOn October 13, Volkswagen Group announced plans to invest about 2.4 billion euros to facilitate the establishment of a joint venture between its software company CARIAD and China's intelligent chip company Horizon and a 60% stake, which is Volkswagen's largest single investment in China in 40 years, and a year later, on September 6, 2023, CARIAD established a joint venture with Thunderda, a provider of intelligent operating system products and technologies in China, focusing on the research and development of cockpit infotainment systems and intelligent connected functions.
Not only industrial capital, but also financial capital is also actively deployed in the Chinese market. For example, the European investment giant Schroders' three ** companies significantly increased their positions in CATL in April 2023 and clearly expressed their confidence in the expansion of China's industry in the global market.
On the other hand, the "reverse joint venture" with the theme of exporting technology from Chinese car companies and ** chain enterprises has also begun.
For example, CATL invested about 1.8 billion euros to build a factory in Arnstadt, Thuringia, Germany in 2019, and officially put it into operation on January 26, 2023, with an investment of about 73Construction of another 400 million euro battery plant will also begin in September 2023. According to incomplete statistics, at present, China's new energy vehicles, power batteries, cathode and anode materials, electrolytes, separators, lithium battery copper foil, lithium mines and other enterprises have almost covered the entire industrial chain in overseas depth, with a total investment of more than 700 billion yuan.
These "reverse joint venture" cases show that China's new energy vehicle companies have changed from passively accepting Western technology to actively exporting technology, and have become technology leaders and important partners in the global automotive industry.
It is inseparable from the future of "Chinese capabilities".
Behind the great shift of the automotive technology center and industrial chain is China's R&D and innovation strength, industrial capacity and the advantages of the whole industry chain, as well as the industrial development idea of adhering to openness and cooperation. The "reverse investment" of international capital in China's new energy vehicle industry and Chinese enterprises shows that the world cannot refuse an innovative country with super industrial productivity. The "two-way rush" between the East and the West is the industry's respect for economic laws and its desire for the world's most dynamic and potential market.
China's leapfrog development in the field of new energy vehicles is not a miracle that appeared overnight, but an achievement achieved through long-term accumulation and investment, through the hard work of more than 5 million workers in the whole industry chain. The eventual shift in the technology of the automotive industry brought about by this development is only a microcosm of China's high-quality development.
In other areas, similar shifts in technology have occurred or are in the process of taking shape. For example, in the fields of 5G, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, Internet of Things, biotechnology, etc., China has more and more independent core technologies, which are changing the global technological and industrial landscape. This large-scale and historic shift in technology is not only an opportunity for China, but also for the world, and will surely provide new impetus for global economic recovery and growth.
In the face of the eastward shift of industrial technology and even the eastward shift of the global economic center of gravity, a few countries and regions have adopted a closed and exclusionary attitude, restricting China's technological development and market expansion by setting up barriers. This approach is short-sighted and wrong, and harms not only China's interests, but also its own interests. In the era of economic globalization, technological dividends should be borderless, the market should be open, and innovation should be shared. Any attempt to build a "small courtyard with high walls" runs counter to the law of economic development, is doomed to failure, and will only lend oneself behind the trend of the times and the trend of development.
Outlook, No. 52, 2023).