In the new energy vehicle market, Chinese automakers occupy a dominant position, and many automakers in Europe and the United States have also joined the ranks of China's auto industry.
But recently, Mercedes-Benz announced that it would revise its plan to go fully electric by 2030 and focus on the development and manufacture of gasoline-powered vehicles over the next 10 years. Not only that, BMW, Toyota, Ford and other European and American auto giants have also slowed down the pace of developing electric vehicles.
Change of face", is it because it is unbearable, or is it just to impose sanctions on China?
01 Big reversal! So what?
Mercedes-Benz had set the next step in going fully electric in 2021: Mercedes-Benz intends to reach 50% of its total sales of electric and hybrid vehicles by 2025 and fully electrify them by 2023.
But the higher you climb, the more you fall; In Europe, only 11% of Mercedes-Benz's total sales are electric cars and 19% hybrids. Mercedes-Benz does not seem to be a very good new energy vehicle manufacturer.
Interestingly, it is rumored that Mercedes-Benz has invested tens of millions of dollarsLeading the wayRecently, it has been on the hot search many times.
Previously, many netizens found out,There are thousands or even tens of thousands of all kinds of AJ trendy shoes, green water ghost watches, big goose down jackets, etc. in various live broadcast rooms, and they are all robbed with less than 200 ** in the leading tide. As a result, Lingchao was boycotted by several e-commerce giants in the name of "malicious competition", but millions of Lingchao users didn't care about these, and left messages in the comment area: The Adi bought in the Lingchao app is only 200, durable and good-looking, it is recommended that there be more such "malice"!
I have to say that whether this move is a normal expansion of the enterprise or its seizure of the blue ocean, we still have to wait and see. 
If it's not suitable, then don't use it. According to Reuters, Mercedes-Benz CEO Kang Linsong said that Mercedes-Benz will continue to upgrade gasoline engines and continue to manufacture fuel-fueled vehicles in the next 10 years.
In front of this Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Ford, Toyota, these large companies have long been prejudiced against electric vehicles.
In fact, since 2020, BMW has sensed a sense of crisis; BMW has stated that it will not develop a dedicated platform for electric vehicles. BMW has made a wise decision.
Even Mercedes-Benz and Audi have spent a lot of money to develop a new electric car, but their electric vehicles have never improved much. On the contrary, BMW's i3 and ix3, which are "oil-to-electric", will sell close to 100,000 units in 2022.
Just like Mercedes-Benz, Toyota has made similar changes in the face of electric vehicles. Prior to this, Toyota has been making an important reform, including: by 2030, there will be 75% of new energy vehicles in the world; In 2030, Lexus will become a pure electric vehicle brand; By 2030, China, North America, and Europe will all adopt electric vehicles.
However, in 2022, Toyota's view of electric vehicles has taken a 180-degree turn. Toyota has suspended the production of its electric Crown and FJ Cruiser, while Toyota Group President Akio Toyoda has repeatedly slammed electric vehicles as a "low-grade product" that is not green at all.
Ford has also previously stated that it will no longer use the power system; In addition to the unsatisfactory sales, another big reason why Ford abandoned electric vehicles was its safety concern. You know, Ford's new energy vehicle, but the famous "F-150 Lightning", was suddenly ** in the production process.
Ford, on the other hand, lost four billion in the field of new energy, double the number in 2022. In this case, Ford had to change its strategy and move away from electric drives, but with a hybrid of gasoline and electric.
Even Apple, which has a history of more than 10 years, is struggling in the field of electric vehicles.
It's been a decade since Apple began planning its own car-making project, but it's been stuck on its path and it's constantly changing managers. As European and American automakers have withdrawn from the field of new energy vehicles, Apple finally can't hold back the uneasiness in its heart. After spending billions of dollars, Apple still got nothing. Therefore, the plan of "working the people and hurting the money" had to be abandoned.
02What is the intention of slowing down electric vehicles?
First of all,Looking at the policies of European and American countries, electric vehicles have long been less urgent
The UK has delayed the ban on fuel-fueled cars scheduled for 2030 to 2035. Europe and the United States have long since withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. There are no longer any contractual constraints, and gasoline cars can be produced all the time. In the United States, Biden's administration will also relax its requirements to reduce emissions and increase electric vehicle sales by 2030 today.
Secondly,European and American automakers are overinvesting in electric vehicles, which far outweighs their benefits and gains. Ford, for example, said in its 2023 earnings report that its electric vehicle division would post a loss of up to $4.7 billion.
Its high costs are caused by a variety of factors, such as the need for large investments in R&D, production and sales; There is a serious shortage of supply and production capacity of key parts such as batteries, motors, and electronic controls, resulting in an increase in production costs.
Moreover, consumers in Europe and the United States do not have a large demand for new energy vehicles
Americans often have to travel long distances, which has to do with their geographical location and convenience. In the West Coast state of Washington, for example, they drive an average of more than 380 km per month; And in Wyoming, the least developed city in the United States, the distance you drive each month is more than five times as long.
Besides, electric cars in the United States are not a good thing in themselves, and they are not so easy to charge. According to a poll by the Associated Press, nearly 80 percent of people said the biggest reason they didn't buy an electric car was the lack of local charging equipment. This problem is common in remote villages, suburbs, and cities in the United States.
So, because of concerns about the battery's range, it's easy to abandon electric vehicles.
Another factor that people are worried about in Europe is that electricity is more expensive than oil. In the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe's energy landscape has completely deviated from its original plan. Previously, cheap natural gas was imported from Russia to produce electricity, leading to the shutdown of many coal-fired power plants and nuclear power plants. Without cheap gas, the cost of electricity will skyrocket, and the cost of electric vehicles will follow.
But actually,In terms of service life, it does not meet the requirements of environmental protection.
Although electric vehicles have no fuel consumption, customers have a greater understanding of its environment. But obviously, this does not hold.
In fact, the most prevalent form of electricity** in China is coal. Coal-fired power generation is one of the main causes of huge CO2 emissions.
Regardless of whether the energy circuit is green or not, we can see from the perspective of the entire battery life that most of the pollutants are generated during the production process.
According to China's 2021 Automotive Low-Carbon Action Plan Report, by 2020, China's passenger car lifecycle carbon emissions will reach 6700 million tCO2 (CO2 equivalent per tonne), deducting 74% of its share, is expected to achieve a lifetime CO2 reduction. Most of the remaining 170 million metric hectares of CO2 emissions are generated by production, processing and the upstream chain of the ** chain.
There is no doubt that waste lead-acid and lithium salt batteries, if not disposed of well, will have a serious impact on the surrounding ecological environment. But our domestic lithium battery for electric vehicles is not very good.
It's a good idea.
With the shortage of cobalt resources, the ** of lithium-ion batteries has soared, and the recycling of waste batteries is undoubtedly a huge profit. As a result, illegal production enterprises have emerged one after another, resulting in pollution of the environment.
03 Chinese auto companies may be subject to sanctions?
With the withdrawal of European automakers, the situation of Chinese NEV companies is becoming more and more difficult. This scene is reminiscent of the scene when Japan was banned from using hydrogen by developed countries. Can China's electric vehicles follow the same path as Japan?
Due to its narrow geography and scarcity of mineral resources, Japan's dependence on the export of oil, liquefied natural gas and coal is as high as 997%, up to 975%, up to 993%, basically relying on foreign countries, if the world's oil supply is insufficient, Japan's economic development is bound to come to a standstill. Given Japan's limited capacity to use clean resources such as hydropower and geothermal, and the plummeting nuclear power production caused by the Fukushima nuclear crisis, Japan's only option is to gamble with hydrogen.
According to incomplete data, from 2011 to 2022, Japan has submitted 34,624 inventions related to hydrogen energy, accounting for more than 60% of the world's total, occupying a leading position in the world in many important fields. According to Japan, Japan's total commercial hydrogen consumption will reach 300,000 metric tons by 2030, and by 2040, fuel cell vehicles will be fully available.
The development of hydrogen in Japan is underway. But Japan is jealous of other countries, which is why they ban the use of hydrogen. Japan's domestic market is small, and if they want to develop hydrogen, they can only buy it from abroad, but the restrictions imposed on them abroad have prevented them from building a good cycle. Therefore, Japan's hydrogen vehicles have always faced high costs, difficulties in production, storage, and transportation, and they cannot be popularized on a large scale.
If Japan, South Korea in Europe also isolates China's new energy vehicles, will China's new energy vehicles lose?
The situation in China and Japan is different, the Japanese market is very small, lacks sufficient resources, and without the backing of foreign markets, it is impossible to establish a complete recycling system by relying on the strength of Japanese companies alone. However, China's market is very large, the population is also large, and the industrial chain is also very complete, which can make this industry better, so as to produce a good internal circulation.
However, this is just a matter of stalling for timeAre China's electric vehicles really foolproof?
As far as the industry is concerned, China's electric bicycle manufacturers are likely to lose the most important overseas market opportunities because of the most important obstacles blocked.
In other words, starting from 2018, with the large-scale production of new energy vehicles, there has been a serious surplus of domestic production capacity, and it has become more and more difficult to rely on exports to solve this problem.
If production does not meet demand, it means that the domestic market will continue to lose money. If China's overall profitability continues to decline, while Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and other companies continue to rise in profitability, funds continue to withdraw, China's competitiveness is rising or not?
It seems that the final outcome is twofold, one is to force the excess production capacity to fall, which will happen in 2024, and a large number of backward production capacity will be eliminated next year. Another reason is that there has been a great breakthrough in the main channels for exporting overseas. It's hard.
It seems too early to say "do away with gasoline-powered cars". Victory or defeat? China's new energy vehicle manufacturers still have a long way to go.