Since January 1, Beijing and other places have begun to ban illegal electric three-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles. This kind of "old man's music", which is more popular among the elderly, will not be allowed to drive on the road, and will not be allowed to park in public places such as roads, squares, and parking lots.
"Old man music" is a kind of low-speed three-wheeled and four-wheeled electric vehicles that emerged around 2007, because of its cheap, simple procedures and other characteristics, explosive growth, the market once exceeded 10 million.
However, due to its own quality defects, coupled with illegal retrograde, illegal parking, and running red lights, traffic accidents occur frequently. As early as 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released relevant data, and there were 830,000 traffic accidents of low-speed electric vehicles in the country in 5 years, resulting in 180,000 people killed, 1860,000 people were injured.
At the beginning of 2019, relevant policies were successively introduced across the country to give a 2 to 5 year exit transition period for low-speed four-wheeled vehicles in the market. As the transition period approaches, the process of removing the "old man's music" in various localities has accelerated. Will "Old Man Music" quit the rivers and lakes?
On January 1, a "old man Le" on Guodian Road in Jinan).
Wild growth. More than motorcycles, there is a metal cover to shelter from the wind and rain, more comfortable seats and even air conditioning than agricultural machinery, and more importantly, it is cheaper than fuel vehicles, not only can carry people and goods, but also do not need to take a driver's license, are not afraid of deducting points, and do not need insurance.
Speaking of "old man's music", everyone who buys it can always give various reasons similar to the above.
Jiang Wei (pseudonym) is the first person in the village to open the "old man's music", he is 65 years old this year, and many people of the same age in the village have one. Jiang Wei always likes to drive it, whether it is to go to the town to catch the market, pick up his grandson to and from school, or go to the clinic with a headache and brain fever, "It's not expensive, and it costs more than 7,000 yuan when I buy it." ”
In the vast number of third- and fourth-tier small towns and rural areas, villages and villages have roads, and "old man music" has a huge market. A township seller who used to sell "Old Man Le" recalled that there were several "Old Man Le" models in the town at that time, and "when it was good, it could sell more than 20 cars a month." ”
Where there is demand, there is a market. Around 2007, after the rise of "old man music" car companies in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Henan and other places, it quickly spread to the whole country. The "old manle" car companies represented by Reading, Yujie and Jimai once expanded the market from Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Jiangsu, Fujian and other central and western towns to Hubei, Guangxi, and Shanxi.
2013-2021 China's electric low-speed vehicle production (10,000 units) and growth rate **High-tech Industry Research Institute of Lithium Battery).
Like opening the sales code, since 2011, "Old Man Music" has entered a period of rapid development, and it has only taken 2 years to become a force to be reckoned with in the domestic automotive industry. Some industry organizations pointed out that since 2013, China's low-speed electric vehicle market has maintained a rapid growth of nearly 50% for several consecutive years, and soon formed an industrial scale with an annual output of 1 million vehicles, driving the economy of 100 billion yuan, and about 1 million upstream and downstream employees.
According to data, by the end of 2020, the number of electric vehicles in China was less than 5 million, and the number of low-speed three-wheeled and four-wheeled electric vehicles dominated by "old man music" had exceeded 10 million as early as 2019.
Traffic accidents are frequent.
After occupying the third- and fourth-tier small towns and rural markets, the "old man's music" gradually spread to the first- and second-tier cities. Even in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, you will see elderly people driving "old man music" to go shopping and pick up children.
Some people joked: owning an "old man's music" can contract the happiness of the elderly all day - in the morning, all the way to the vegetable market without hindrance, and bring back a large cart of the freshest trophies;In the afternoon, park your car at the school gate early, pick up your grandchildren coming home from school, and flexibly cross the evening rush hourIn the evening, pick up your wife and drive slowly to the park to end the day with a square dance.
Soon, however, the "old man's music" went wrong.
The traffic in the city is busy, and the "old man" who lacks supervision has repeatedly committed fouls, and illegal wrong-way driving, illegal parking, and running red lights have occurred from time to time, resulting in frequent traffic safety accidents.
According to data from the Beijing Municipal Public Security Traffic Management Bureau, in 2022, a total of illegal electric vehicles will occur in Beijing.
3. There were 131 fatal traffic accidents involving four-wheeled vehicles, with 138 deathsIn the first half of 2023, the number of such accidents increased by 40% year-on-year, and fatalities have accounted for nearly 10% of traffic fatalities in Beijing.
The "old man's music" for illegal parking on the road).
Say it's a motor vehicle, it doesn't have to get a driver's license, say it's a non-motorized vehicle, and it still walks on the motorway. Some experts pointed out that, in fact, the "old man" has been on the verge of violating the law for a long time: the purpose of the "old man" prototype is to use the car in the field, and this model can only be used in gardens, pastures, factories and scenic spots, but in terms of marketing, car companies deliberately guide this to be "electric vehicles". The potential safety hazard of being intolerant also made the "old man Le" bear the notoriety of "moving the urn".
Policies are being tightened.
In order to regulate the development of the low-speed electric vehicle market, the state has successively issued a series of national standards and policies.
In October 2016, the first instruction agreed to the work idea of "upgrading a batch, standardizing a batch, and eliminating a batch" of low-speed electric vehicles
In 2017, the national standard for low-speed electric vehicles was officially approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to improve industry access standards
In November 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other six departments issued the "Notice on Strengthening the Management of Low-speed Electric Vehicles", which strictly prohibits new production capacity of low-speed electric vehicles.
In June 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued a draft of the Technical Conditions for Pure Electric Passenger Vehicles, which revised some of the technical conditions for pure electric passenger vehicles, and also clarified that four-wheeled low-speed electric vehicles will be named as a subcategory of pure electric passenger vehicles, named "micro low-speed pure electric passenger vehicles", and put forward relevant technical indicators and requirements for the products.
Technical indicators related to micro low-speed pure electric passenger vehicles).
Once the regulatory vacuum is filled, the "old man's music" market will decline.
According to the data of the Lithium Battery Research Institute (GGII), affected by the industry clean-up and rectification policy, the production scale of four-wheeled low-speed electric vehicles began to shrink in 2018, to 123Around 30,000 units, sales of low-speed vehicles declined for the first timeIn 2019, a large number of enterprises stopped production for rectification, and the output of low-speed vehicles was less than half of the previous year, at 850,000 unitsIn 2020, the market environment for low-speed vehicles became more severe, and production fell further to 710,000 unitsAffected by policies and market prosperity, the industry's output in 2021 will only be about 320,000 units.
In the face of changes in the market, low-speed electric vehicle companies have carried out self-rescue. For example, the old low-speed electric vehicle manufacturers Yujie, Reading, Fulu, Jinpeng, etc., have obtained the production qualification of new energy passenger vehicles through acquisitions, mergers or upgrades. However, more small and medium-sized manufacturers can only be eliminated by the market due to lack of capital and core technology accumulation.
As of 2021, the "old man's music" enterprise with a registered capital of 10 million yuan or more has left the market
The price of "turning positive".
In 2021, low-speed electric vehicles were included in the management standards of micro pure electric vehicles, which means that "old man music" is no longer in a gray area. However, the price of "regularization" is the formalization of the industry, first of all, the product quality must meet the new national standard. "It is not difficult to make the product meet the standard, but the difficulty is that the cost is also high after reaching the standard, and a large number of buyers are lost. A manufacturer who once produced "old man music" said frankly.
Not only that, but the regularization of "Old Man Le" also means that the vehicle must be licensed and the driver must also have a driver's license. In the past, those customers who rushed to "no need to take a driver's license, not afraid of deducting points, and no need to go to insurance" could only give up. And those who have a driver's license, under the same **, who would choose to buy an "upgraded" "old man Le"?
What's even more severe is that the competition on the track of "micro pure electric passenger cars" is not only the "old man" who is "turning positive", but also the micro electric vehicle products launched by new energy vehicle companies.
At the same time as the survival of the fittest in low-speed electric vehicles, many new energy vehicle companies have aimed at this lack of 100 billion yuan market and launched a variety of micro electric vehicle products, such as Wuling Hongguang MINI EV, Great Wall Ora R1, SAIC Roewe Kelaiwei, Changan Benben E-Star, Dongfeng Fengguang MINI EV, Chery QQ ice cream, Geely Panda MINI, etc., all of which have an impact on low-speed electric vehicle companies.
In July 2019, the Wuling Hongguang MINI EV, the "national god car", was released. In the second month of listing, it surpassed Tesla to become the monthly sales champion of new energy vehicles. Wuling Hongguang MINI EV uses lithium batteries, and the price is less than 30,000 yuan, while the "old man" products that use lithium batteries in the same period are priced at more than 40,000 yuan.
Under the blow of dimensionality reduction of new energy vehicle companies, the market sales of standard products launched by low-speed vehicle companies after transformation and upgrading are not good, and there are many cases of final transformation failure.
Hebei Yujie Automobile Industry, since 2018, has successively launched pure electric small SUVK-ONE and a variety of micro and small electric cars, but due to poor sales, it has been discontinuedReading Automobile used to be the first brother of the "old man", and in 2021, it launched a miniature pure electric car Mango, with prices ranging from 30,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan. In the first three months of last year, Reading sold only one car, and eventually fell into a financial crisis and went bankrupt.
Countdown to exit
Although the road to transformation and upgrading of the "old man music" car company is extremely difficult, the standard products launched after the transformation and upgrading are different from the previous "old man music". Will the former "old man's music" quit the rivers and lakes?
As the transition period approaches, the process of removing the "old man's music" in various places has accelerated. Shanghai, Henan, Jiangsu, Anhui and other provinces have introduced relevant policies on strengthening supervision and restricting access to the road, and Beijing has completely banned illegal electric three-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles on the road since January 1 this year.
In addition, there are some places where there are illegal electrics.
Three- and four-wheeled vehicles will also be phased out. Shandong Yucheng has set a transition period for illegal electric three-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles purchased before October 1, 2022 to December 31, 2023, and from January 1, 2024, illegal electric three-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles in the city are not allowed to drive on the road. Including violations in Tianjin, Hefei, Anhui, Dezhou, Shandong and other places.
Third, four-wheeled vehicles will also be disallowed in 2024.
However, the exit of "Old Man Le" did not happen overnight. According to the survey, the vast majority of "old man" in the market are still illegal electric tricycles and four-wheeled vehicles, that is, they are produced without the permission of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, are not included in the "Announcement of Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products", and the vehicle performance does not meet the technical standards for motor vehicle safety.
During the visit, the reporter found that there is still a market for "old man music", and the production end has not been completely interrupted. Some manufacturers said frankly, "Some models can't be listed, but the suburbs or rural areas are not strictly checked, and many people don't list." On the sales side, some online sales platforms still sell "old man music", and some platform merchants "kindly" remind: "Electric four-wheeled vehicles can't be officially licensed, don't shoot if you mind."
The "Old Man Le" model is still on sale on the online platform).
Zhang Zhuting, a professor at the Management Cadre College of the Ministry of Transport, said in an interview that the clean-up and rectification of the "old man's music" should strictly control the increment of the source, "rectify the existing production and sales enterprises, and strictly prohibit the production or sale of low-speed electric vehicle products in the name of the production license of off-highway tourist sightseeing vehicles and the production of motor vehicles for the disabled." As for the illegal products on the market, Zhang Zhuting said that methods such as replacement, repurchase, and encouraging scrapping can be adopted to accelerate the elimination of illegal products.
At the same time, Zhang Zhuting also said that the ban on non-compliant electric vehicles should also consider the impact on the travel of the elderly. "It is necessary to find a reasonable and legal supply product as soon as possible to replace the old scooter. At present, most of the main public transportation lines in the city are free of charge for the elderly, which can solve the travel problems of some of the elderly. And on the branch line, where there is no public transportation, some communities are now starting to ** whether legal electric vehicles can be used as a means of transportation for circulation in the community. ”
Popular news client Xiu Congtao).