New energy vehicles surpass fuel vehicles for the first time. Has the “turning point” come?
2024-08-14
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Recently, the China Automobile Dealers Association released the "Analysis of the National Passenger Car Market in July 2024". In July, the national passenger car market retailed 1.72 million vehicles, of which conventional fuel vehicles retailed 840,000 vehicles and new energy vehicles retailed 878,000 vehicles.
In July, the monthly sales of new energy vehicles in China exceeded that of gasoline vehicles for the first time, and the retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles reached 51.1%, breaking through 50% for the first time in a month. Has the “turning point” really come?
Instead of engaging in price wars, traditional car companies announced "price increases"
In mid-July, some automakers tried hard to "turn the tide" and tried to put the brakes on what industry insiders considered to be an "outrageous pricing system."
BMW announced its withdrawal from the price war, followed by news of price adjustments from Mercedes-Benz and Audi. Soon after, joint venture brands such as Honda, Toyota, and Volkswagen were also reported to follow suit and raise prices.
The reporter found through random interviews that the sales prices of some brands of bare cars have indeed been adjusted down, or to be more precise, the discount has been reduced.
A salesperson at a BMW 4S store in Jinan said that the BMW 325 long-wheelbase sports night version can be discounted to about 260,000 yuan with a three-year interest-free installment loan, while the installment low-interest loan price of this model was about 245,000 yuan in June. Previously, the main discounted model - the pure electric BMW i3, had a price back to about 210,000 yuan. In addition to BMW, a salesperson at a Mercedes-Benz 4S store said that the price of all Mercedes-Benz models will increase by about 10,000 to 20,000 yuan.
Crazy promotion of new products, new energy vehicles are "rolling to death"
Traditional car companies have changed their thinking in the competition, but "price increase" may not be a panacea. Because new energy car companies are competing fiercely at the rate of "an average of one high-quality car per month".
This year, Xiaopeng X9 was launched on New Year's Day, the sports car Yangwang U9 priced at 1.68 million yuan was launched in February, Ideal MEGA was launched on March 1, Xiaomi SU7 was officially launched on March 28, BYD Qin L was launched at the end of May, and so on. The first half of the year for new energy vehicle companies was exciting.
The China Automobile Dealers Association analyzed that the price war in the auto market at the beginning of this year "started early", the price reduction of nearly 20% for some popular new energy models was "strong", the time span was "long", from after the Spring Festival in February to the end of April, and the number of models participating in the price reduction was close to the number of models that were reduced in price throughout last year.
The recent update of the passenger car scrapping subsidy policy of "trade-in old for new" and the increase of new energy subsidies to 20,000 yuan have further boosted consumption. Therefore, the trend of new energy vehicles in July was better than the expectations of the passenger car manufacturers' forecasting team.
Data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers website
In the 100,000-200,000 yuan range, sales competition is the most intense
Do new energy vehicles that continue to reach new heights really impress consumers?
We can get a glimpse of this from the passenger car data. Passenger cars include sedans, mini cars, light buses with less than nine seats, as well as SUVs, MPVs and cross-passenger cars. In my country, residents' car purchases are mainly classified as passenger cars.
According to the automobile sales data from January to July released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the total sales of traditional fuel vehicles are still higher than those of new energy vehicles, but the sales of each level have declined to varying degrees. On the other hand, for new energy vehicles, except for the decline in sales of A00 level, the sales of other levels have shown positive growth, among which the D level has the largest increase.
In terms of price range, from January to July, sales of traditional fuel passenger cars were mainly concentrated in the 100,000-150,000 price range, with a total sales of 2.816 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 8.8%. Sales of new energy passenger cars were mainly concentrated in the 150,000-200,000 price range, with a total sales of 1.554 million units, a year-on-year increase of 13.8%.
Young and male people are more willing to buy new energy vehicles
In fact, when consumers choose new energy vehicles, the first thing they consider is no longer policy factors such as license plates, but product factors such as low vehicle cost, good driving experience, and high degree of intelligence.
In the "2024 China New Energy Vehicle Potential Consumer Big Data Insight Report", Apex Consulting mentioned that potential consumers of new energy vehicles are mostly young people aged 24-40, of which males account for about 64%. Users in Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang and other places pay more attention to new energy vehicles and have diversified preferences.
Of course, when consumers buy new energy vehicles, the biggest concern is still the battery life, as well as high maintenance costs and incomplete charging facilities. In order for new energy vehicles to achieve wider popularization and development, they need to continue to work hard in technology research and development, infrastructure construction, and service optimization. Only by continuous improvement and upgrading can we better meet the needs of consumers and promote the new energy vehicle industry to a more mature and prosperous future.
(Reporter Xu Jia from Dazhong News)
