Original title: Innovation achievements of China's new energy vehicle industry will benefit the world
Recently, some American politicians and media have echoed each other, hyping the so-called "China's new energy overcapacity theory" and accusing China's new energy vehicle capacity far exceeds demand. In fact, the current automobile industry is in the transition period of transformation. During the transition period, the normal development mode of the industry is that the input is ahead of the market demand. With the increasing market share of new energy vehicles, the demand for traditional fuel vehicles will be gradually replaced. Enterprises will correspondingly transform their original factories to produce new energy vehicles, which is a dynamic transformation process in the transition period. The enterprise will make appropriate adjustments according to the business plan and gradually realize the capacity transformation. The capacity utilization rate of new energy vehicles in China is gradually adjusted in the transformation of market share. At present, the overall capacity utilization rate of the industry is more than 70%, completely within a reasonable range.
Some foreign media have linked the growth of China's export volume with overcapacity in recent years, saying that "dumping" is totally groundless. The good performance of the export of Chinese brand cars is due to the improvement of the quality of Chinese products, the upgrading of technology, and the improvement of the business and service capabilities of enterprises. The reason why it is popular with global consumers is that it fills in the periodic shortage of supply in some countries and regions, which is completely market behavior. Consumers all over the world pursue a green and low-carbon lifestyle. Chinese new energy vehicles can bring them a new consumption experience and promote the upgrading of local consumption. At the same time, it also provides technical support and policy reference for countries around the world to develop new energy vehicles, and makes contributions to global green development.
In the 21st century, it has become a global consensus to tackle climate change and promote green and low-carbon development. The Paris Agreement adopted in 2016 has guided the direction of global cooperation in tackling climate change, and promoted the international community to pay more attention to green energy, low-carbon economy, environmental governance and other fields. China has always been an active practitioner of the Paris Agreement. At the general debate of the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, President Xi Jinping clearly proposed the "dual carbon" development goal, which provided strategic guidance for vigorously promoting China's economic and social development into a green transformation in an all-round way, fully demonstrating the responsibility of a major country.
Vigorously promoting energy transformation is an important area for achieving green and low-carbon development. In recent years, China has made remarkable achievements in the utilization of renewable energy such as photovoltaic and hydropower. Automobile is a major energy user. In order to gradually get rid of dependence on fossil energy, electrification has become the consensus of the global automobile industry. In the past 20 years, China's automobile industry has been developing along the path of energy conservation, low-carbon and electrification. In terms of emission reduction of fuel vehicles, it has caught up with the most stringent standards of the EU; In terms of electrification transformation, China and western developed countries started at the same starting line. Now, more than a decade has passed, China has made great achievements in the development of new energy vehicles. At the same time, it also makes us deeply feel that the transformation of the century old automobile industry to electrification is a huge system engineering, which needs huge scale market support.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's automobile industry has accelerated its transformation to electrification. During this period, industrial policies have played an important role in guiding the development of new energy vehicles. The technological innovation of enterprises has continued to make major breakthroughs, and the industrial chain supply chain of new energy vehicles has been formed. The continuous improvement of charging infrastructure and the gradual recognition and acceptance of new energy vehicles by consumers have promoted the rapid development of the new energy vehicle industry and created excellent performance and comparative advantages of new energy vehicles in the world, which have attracted the attention of global peers. The 2024 Beijing International Auto Show also well confirms this.
Summarizing the past experience, China has made remarkable achievements in four major projects, including technological innovation, market cultivation, infrastructure construction, and policy support. In terms of technological innovation, from the strategic layout of "three vertical and three horizontal", to the demonstration application of "ten cities and thousands of vehicles", to the full marketization now, China has formed a relatively complete industrial chain supply chain system, and has become the source of innovative development of global new energy vehicles; In terms of market cultivation, by guiding consumers to improve their awareness and acceptance of new energy vehicles, it has strongly supported the enterprise's enthusiasm for innovation and accelerated the iterative upgrading of products; In terms of infrastructure construction, the development strategy of "first try, moderately advanced" has been adopted, and the charging anxiety in the first and second tier cities has been basically alleviated, and the charging infrastructure construction in low tier cities and rural areas has also been steadily promoted; In guiding transformation, strategic focus is the guide, and policy measures are the guarantee. In the process of transformation for more than ten years, a series of top-level design policies such as the Plan for the Adjustment and Revitalization of the Automotive Industry, the Plan for the Development of Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicle Industry (2012-2020), and the Plan for the Development of New Energy Vehicle Industry (2021-2035) have been put forward in due time, which has accelerated the transformation of the automotive industry to electrification and green development, and promoted the investment and transformation of enterprise production lines, China's new energy vehicles took the lead in entering the era of electrification.
Li Qiang, Premier of the State Council, stressed during his research at the 2024 Beijing International Automobile Exhibition: "At present, the new energy vehicle market in China and the world is growing continuously, with huge demand space. To a certain extent, intelligent connected new energy vehicles are also the product of global industrial cooperation, and future development will require all parties to play their advantages and deepen division of labor and cooperation." The innovative achievements of China's new energy automobile industry will bring new development opportunities to the global automobile industry. Chinese enterprises going global will also drive the prosperity of the local market, stimulate local economic development, and bring benefits to employment. China will always adhere to a high level of opening up. We are very willing to share the experience accumulated in the new energy vehicle industry with our foreign counterparts, rely on the comparative advantages of the super large market and the whole industry chain, share development opportunities, and help the global automotive industry achieve green and low-carbon transformation.
(Fu Bingfeng, the author, is the executive vice president and secretary-general of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers)
