Last week, the global new energy vehicle market fell into a situation of "extreme pull".
On the one hand, as the world's largest automobile market, China's "first war" started one after another, and the "electricity is lower than oil" opened by BYD has become the "main theme" of China's auto market this year.
On the other hand, Apple, which has been "building cars" for more than ten years and costing billions of dollars, terminated its car-making plan, and almost at the same time, Mercedes-Benz announced that it would abandon the all-electric vehicle plan and continue to increase the internal combustion engine.
Before Mercedes-Benz's official announcement, the European Union had postponed the plan to completely phase out fuel vehicles in 2035; BMW and Toyota say that electric cars are only a transition, and hydrogen is the future; Ford delays $12 billion EV capacity expansion; GM abandoned its original target of producing 400,000 electric cars by mid-2024, and so on.
It seems that overnight, major European and American manufacturers have collectively retreated from the new energy camp, leaving Chinese car companies alone to defend them.
This has even triggered rounds of "conspiracy theories", which roughly means: European and American car companies have set up a bureau to lead Chinese car companies all in new energy, and after the latter is immersed in it, European and American car companies collectively retreat, locking Chinese car companies in the new energy dilemma, fighting each other and internal friction, and they continue to rely on their original advantages to grasp the lifeblood of the global auto market.
In the view of conspiracy theorists, European and American car companies have this "antecedent", they have previously "engaged" Japanese companies in a similar way, so that they spend full energy and funds to bet on the hydrogen energy track, as of now, Japan has a fairly mature and complete industrial chain in the field of hydrogen energy, and has many patents, but European and American car companies do not follow suit, resulting in a narrow audience for hydrogen energy vehicles in the global market, which is basically equivalent to trapping hydrogen energy vehicles in the Japanese market, and Japanese companies have no "stunt" but nowhere to go.
So, are Chinese car companies following in the footsteps of Japanese car companies and caught in the conspiracy?
In my humble opinion, this "conspiracy theory" is acceptable as an after-dinner conversation, but it lacks rational support when it comes to conclusions on the table.
First of all, in the field of ***, especially the fuel car track, earlier Chinese car companies can not be compared with Japanese car companies, the former technology is weak, but also by the West as "broken copper", the latter is able to compete with the European and American head manufacturers, Toyota is still the world's largest car company, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance ranked sixth, Honda ranked seventh, Suzuki, which has long been defeated by China, was not surpassed by BYD until last year, but still ranked tenth in the world.
Today, when the wave of intelligent electricity is higher than one wave, Japanese car companies based on internal combustion engine technology and fuel vehicles can still be among the best, which is enough to see their deep roots and the size of the basic plate, not to mention the era of internal combustion engines in the early years, how heavy the threat and pressure brought by Japanese car companies to European and American manufacturers. Therefore, it makes sense for European and American car companies to find ways to trap the pace of expansion of Japanese car companies.
However, it is only in recent years that Chinese car companies have relied on intelligent electric technology to change lanes and overtake, constantly breaking the rules formulated by European, American and Japanese manufacturers, and making strong counterattacks, and have been trying to survive in the cracks. It doesn't make any sense!
What's more, major European and American manufacturers and even their best manufacturers are working hard to follow the new energy track based on batteries.
To give a few examples, in terms of technology investment, Mercedes-Benz has invested billions of dollars to upgrade and transform factories in China, Germany, and Hungary around the "electrification transformation", and Volkswagen has invested 900 billion yuan to build electric vehicles, 100 billion yuan to build battery factories, and so on; In terms of promoting consumption, France subsidizes new energy vehicles up to 5,000 euros, Germany subsidizes 6,750 euros for electric cars priced below 40,000 euros, Sweden reduces taxes on charging piles by 50%, and many EU member states have formulated various policies to support electric vehicles, etc.; In terms of supporting facilities, the EU plans to build 1 million charging piles by 2025, and so on.
Therefore, if European and American car companies set up a situation to trap Chinese car companies, then the price is inevitably too great, and it is completely "not beneficial to themselves before harming others".
What's more, major European and American manufacturers have not "retreated", like Mercedes-Benz, although it has given up on the full conversion of electricity in 2030, it still attaches importance to trams and changes the plan to half of oil and electricity; Ford also said that although the pace of electrification transformation has slowed, it will not cut its investment in electric vehicles, etc.
So, what is the reason for the "halftime break" of major European and American manufacturers?
It's very simple, new energy can't be played, and fuel vehicles make a lot of money.
Let's talk about the first point first, the traditional manufacturers in Europe and the United States have not yet appeared a product that can compete with domestic new energy vehicles in smart electric technology.
Volkswagen IDThe series is a new energy model of traditional European and American manufacturers that sells well in the Chinese market, but the car machine has always performed averagely, or even deviated, and Volkswagen has also continuously delayed the release plan of important models such as Audi Q6 and Porsche pure electric Macan because of intelligent car machines.
The century-old luxury brand Mercedes-Benz, in the new energy track "fell again and again", is the old face is lost, its tram because of the "miscellaneous", has caused the owner to be ridiculed, but also because of frequent spontaneous combustion self-cut future, even if it is a "big dive", the sales of the year round are also very bleak.
Looking at Apple's unsuccessful attempt to build a car, before the official announcement of the termination of car manufacturing, its intelligent driving technology goal, because the difficulty and investment are too great, from the earliest L5 level to L4 level, and then to L2+ level, models equipped with this technology will not be available until 2028, and at this stage, there are not a few domestic car companies with L3 level intelligent driving technology, if Apple does not terminate car manufacturing, by 2028 the market will also let it give up this obsession.
The above three examples are the epitome of the poor electrification transformation of large European and American manufacturers.
So if you can't sell in the Chinese market, what about the European and American markets? It is also very difficult to sell, limited by technology and cost, European and American car companies simply cannot do "the same price of oil and electricity", let alone "electricity is lower than oil", coupled with high electricity prices, weak infrastructure, etc., resulting in the sales of electric cars in the European and American markets did not meet expectations.
Compared with the lack of trams and the lack of advantages of trams, the traditional European and American manufacturers are more afraid that the global new energy industry chain cluster will take root in China, and Chinese car companies will gain a global cost advantage in the industrial chain, and build a global leading enterprise with huge scale, abundant profitability and advanced technology. This means that European and American car companies will completely become followers of Chinese car companies and will not be able to surpass the former.
Therefore, they choose to use their strengths and avoid their weaknesses, and use "magic" to defeat "magic".
The "long" here refers to the brand influence, the core three major technology and cost control capabilities accumulated over the years in the era of internal combustion engines, and the profit growth that they rely on.
Toyota expects net profit in fiscal 2023 to increase by 84% year-on-year to 218.9 billion yuan; Stellantis Group's net profit in 2023 increased by 11% year-on-year to 1437$7.8 billion; Hyundai Motor's net profit in 2023 increased by 53% year-on-year7%, up to 661At 3.5 billion yuan, Kia Motors' operating profit in 2023 increased by 60% year-on-year5%, reaching 61.6 billion yuan.
The above financial report data shows two points: first, those car companies that you think are difficult to survive or struggle to survive in China are actually living very well, and their earning power is better than that of many leading domestic car companies; Second, they still have a vast global market for fuel vehicles, so they are not worried about survival problems, and at best they are difficult to sell in the Chinese market.
For these large European and American manufacturers, electric vehicles do not sell well, fuel vehicles and make money, naturally do not need to consider all in pure electric so quickly, on the basis of retaining the advantages of the basic disk, continue to grind technology, improve products, like Mercedes-Benz is now taking this road.
Compared with domestic car companies, these European and American "old aristocrats" are better than the rich family background, and the industries left by the "ancestors" also have the ability to make money, while domestic car companies are more like "creating a generation", starting from scratch, as long as they seize the opportunity, they will do everything to rush forward.
For domestic car companies, the next road to go is not easy, first, the domestic car market is seriously involuted, there are many losers, and the profiteers are still not a small distance from the European and American manufacturers (referring to the ability to make money), before there are foreign car company executives threatened, "I will burn you to death first, and I can wait to come in to grab the market." ”
Second, many large European and American manufacturers have slowed down the pace of electrification transformation and increased the size of fuel vehicles, which will cause interception and resistance to domestic brands that want to go global, and the difficulty coefficient of overseas expansion of domestic car companies will increase in the future;
Third, if the hard-working generation wants to defeat the old aristocracy with rich family background, it is still necessary to have core technologies with revolutionary significance, such as batteries, artificial intelligence, intelligent driving, etc., how to break the bottleneck of existing technology is also a difficult problem in front of domestic car companies.