Multinational automobile enterprises accelerate the localization of new energy vehicles, and domestic vehicles take the initiative
Some experts said that in the short term, foreign brand domestic new energy vehicles entering the Chinese market will impact local brands; In the long run, it will only stimulate the technological progress and design innovation of local brands
Are Chinese brands losing their "last chance to grow"?
Since the President and CEO of Volkswagen China Heizman made it clear that Volkswagen "e-up!" would be domestically produced in 2016, there has been no end to the discussion about who will make the domestic production of Volkswagen electric vehicles. Yesterday, Volkswagen and SAIC Group signed a cooperation agreement on the development of new energy vehicles in Germany. The two sides jointly decided to upgrade the Anting production base of Shanghai Volkswagen to produce new energy vehicles.
Heizman told the Securities Daily that by implementing this agreement, Volkswagen Group will have more than 15 new energy vehicles locally produced in China in the next four years, including plug-in hybrid vehicles and pure electric vehicles.
In fact, it is not only Volkswagen's domestic new energy vehicles in China, but also multinational automobile enterprises such as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, BMW, and General Motors that have announced domestic new energy vehicle projects.
In the face of the vigorous multinational automobile enterprises' collective entry into the domestic new energy automobile market, some insiders questioned that China's hopes of achieving "market for technology" through joint venture cooperation 30 years ago have not yet achieved the desired results. Now the development of new energy vehicles is the last opportunity for the growth of Chinese brands, but our joint venture has once again cooperated with the foreign side to introduce new energy vehicles into China. Doesn't this give multinational car companies another opportunity to strangle Chinese brand new energy vehicles?
In this regard, Zhang Zhiyong, an auto industry analyst, believes that the large-scale domestic production of multinational auto companies will definitely have a great impact on local brand new energy vehicles in the short term, but in the long term, it will stimulate excellent local brands to improve technology and design, and ultimately jointly expand the new energy vehicle market.
Current stage of domestic brands
Take the initiative
Data shows that 27271 new energy vehicles were produced and 26581 were sold in the first quarter of this year, up 2.9 times and 2.8 times respectively year on year. Just because of such rapid growth, multinational automobile enterprises have accelerated the localization process of new energy vehicles.
As early as 2010, Daimler Benz and local new energy vehicle production leader BYD established a joint venture. Denza, the first electric vehicle jointly developed by the two sides, was launched last September. In the following years, joint ventures including BMW Brilliance and GAC Toyota announced that they would produce new energy vehicles.
Later, Toyota directly set up Changshu R&D Center, announcing that key parts such as hybrid vehicles and battery motors will be made in China within three years; Honda announced that it will realize the localization of hybrid vehicles within three years; Multinational brands such as Nissan and GM also announced plans to promote new energy vehicles.
Prior to the domestic production of new energy vehicles, multinational automobile enterprises have also introduced new energy vehicles sold overseas to China for sales, including Nissan Leaf, Volkswagen "e-up!", GM Volanda Electric Vehicle, etc., which have been listed in China. However, since these imported models do not enjoy the subsidies of the Chinese government for new energy vehicles, their overall sales in China are very small.
Taking the sales ranking of domestic new energy vehicle models in April this year as an example, the top ten are BYD Qin, Zotye E20, BYD e6, BAIC E-series, Chery QQEV, Heyue IEV, SAIC Roewe 550 EQ electric vehicle, Denza electric vehicle and Geely Conti Panda. As far as brands are concerned, almost all the models on the list are Chinese brands. It can be seen that in the field of new energy vehicles, Chinese brands take the absolute initiative.
Foreign brands made in China
Or threaten domestic new energy vehicles
However, the situation may change with the increase in the number of domestic new energy vehicles produced by joint ventures. Yesterday, Volkswagen and SAIC signed an agreement on the cooperative development of new energy vehicles. The two sides jointly decided to upgrade the Anting production base of Shanghai Volkswagen to produce new energy vehicles. The signing of this agreement is a solid step for Volkswagen Group to implement localized production of new energy vehicles in China.
Heizmann said that in the next four years, Volkswagen Group will have more than 15 new energy vehicles produced locally in China, including plug-in hybrid vehicles and pure electric vehicles.
It is reported that Shanghai Volkswagen will produce a new Volkswagen C-class model in Anting production base in 2016; Within four years, Anting Factory will also produce a pure electric vehicle based on the best-selling Lavida, which will also be the first pure electric vehicle put into production in the production base.
You should know that in the first quarter of this year, Shanghai Volkswagen has become the first passenger car company in terms of sales. Once the domestic new energy vehicles are put into the sales system of Shanghai Volkswagen, the brand advantages and technical advantages of Volkswagen will undoubtedly impact the growing Chinese brand new energy vehicles.
"Take electric vehicles as an example, there is still a big gap between Chinese brands and multinational automobile enterprises such as Volkswagen, because in addition to batteries, each enterprise is still competing for traditional strength, and Chinese brands are still inferior to foreign brands in terms of integration capacity, production consistency and safety", Zhang Zhiyong told the Securities Daily reporter.
Unlike imported new energy vehicles, domestic new energy vehicles of joint ventures generally enjoy double subsidies from the local and central authorities. For example, Denza electric vehicles in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen can enjoy "central and local" subsidies; BMW Brilliance Sinonova 1E is one of the seven products of six enterprises in the first batch of the new energy vehicle list announced by Beijing, and enjoys double subsidies from Beijing and the central government.
A person in charge of an unknown automobile enterprise told the Securities Daily that the domestic models of joint ventures should not enjoy subsidies, and the country should also be alert to the impact of new energy vehicles produced by multinational automobile enterprises on the local industry.
Zhang Zhiyong holds a negative attitude towards this. He believes that the joint venture itself has a desire to maximize profits. How can the Chinese representative of the joint venture oppose product localization? "In the short term, foreign brand domestic new energy vehicles will impact local brands; in the long term, they will only stimulate local brand technology progress and design innovation," Zhang Zhiyong told reporters that after all, competition is benign, and the potential of local enterprises can only be fully exploited in competition, It is believed that China's new energy vehicle leaders like BYD will grow stronger in the competition.
