In late May, before the Chinese auto market emerged from the Beijing auto show, a technology feast full of electrification and intelligence, Toyota, together with Subaru and Mazda Guan Xuan, was “promoting the development of new engines”.
This has once again deepened doubts about Toyota, which has already been complained by its global counterparts about the slow electrification process.
“when is it still working on a new engine?” “Pure electrification is the future” for a time, Toyota, which has already been complained by its global counterparts about the slow process of electrification, ushered in a new round of complaints.
But in the months that followed, European and American car markets were using data to convey a trend that pure electricity really doesn’t smell good.
In European and American car markets, pure electricity cannot beat the mix.
Germany’s Federal Motor Transport Administration (KBA) said on Aug.
5 that the number of registrations of pure electric vehicles in Germany, the largest car market in Europe, fell 36.
8% to 30762 in July compared with a year ago.
It was the biggest drop since the German government abruptly scrapped subsidies for electric vehicles in December and the sixth consecutive month of decline in sales of all-electric models in Germany.
As a result, the number of pure electric registrations in Germany has fallen 20.
1% year on year so far this year, and its market share has narrowed from 16.
4% in the same period last year to 12.6%. Correspondingly, the number of new car registrations of hybrid models increased by 22.
4% year-on-year to 65059 in July, as well as the growing plug-in market.
So far in the first seven months of this year, German hybrid models have registered more than 530000 new superimposed plug-in hybrid vehicles, and their market share has climbed to 31% from 23% at the beginning of the year.
The growth rate of pure electric new car sales is slowing not only in the largest car market in continental Europe, but also in many car markets, including France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
European media attributed this to the gradual elimination of subsidies for new energy in various countries at the beginning of the year, and a large number of private customer demand quickly returned to the non-electric vehicle sector.
Currently the number of BEV orders from private customers is very low.
Thomas Peckruhn, vice president of the German Central Automobile Trade Association (ZDK), said frankly, “since the beginning of June, we have conducted a survey of car dealers, and the results show that 91% of the respondents are not optimistic about the electric car market in the second half of this year, and 63% of them gave ‘very bad’ comments.
” This is also happening all over the world.
According to the results of the latest McKinsey survey, in a questionnaire survey of 30,000 car owners, 29% of electric car owners around the world said they wanted to switch back to internal combustion engines, of which Australia ranked first, accounting for nearly half.
In second place, the United States still has 46% of pure electric car owners who want to return to internal combustion engines.
With insight into this change in demand, Ford postponed plans to launch new SUV and electric pickups at its Ontario plant in April to focus on producing fuel-powered trucks.
The reasons are nothing more than substandard charging infrastructure, high total cost of ownership of electric vehicles and anxiety about mileage, all of which were in fact important factors troubling the development of pure electric vehicles in China.
As a result, driven by the increasingly stringent emission regulations of various countries, the hybrid has received unprecedented attention.
Not only in Germany, but also with the slowdown in sales growth of electric vehicles in the United States, hybrids have become the main support for sales growth of many car companies, including Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai and so on.
Honda, for example, despite a marked slowdown in overall Honda sales growth in July, the group’s overall sales rose 8.
0% in July, thanks to a continued rise in sales of its hybrid models, according to GlobalData.
Honda officially said bluntly that nearly half of its CR-V sold in July were hybrids, with Accord growing by 51%, so total sales of the former rose 3.
4% year-on-year to 34216.
At the beginning of this year, Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda said, “the market share of pure electric vehicles will not exceed 30%, no matter how much progress they make in technology or cost reduction.
” the rest of the market will be occupied by hybrid vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and fuel vehicles.
” It has caused a lot of disputes inside and outside the industry.
After all, according to the terminal data of the Global Automotive Research Institute at that time, the penetration rate of pure electric passenger vehicles in China had exceeded 23% in 2023.
Although pure electric sales declined as a whole from January to February this year, the penetration rate has remained above 27% since March.
In May, it approached 30% for the first time.
In the view of China’s automobile industry, pure electric is the relatively definite end point of energy reform at present, and it is unstoppable.
And whether we admit it or not, European and American car companies are still slowing their pure electric transformation, even as EU emissions regulations make it clear that there will be a total ban on the sale of internal combustion engines in 2035.
In February, Mercedes-Benz CEO Kang Linsong announced that he had abandoned his plan to achieve full electrification by 2030.
Remember that in 2021, Mercedes-Benz said it planned to achieve 50% of hybrid and electric vehicle sales by 2025, and to fully switch to electric vehicle sales in major markets by 2030.
But the reality is that electric cars accounted for only 11% of Mercedes-Benz’s total sales in 2023, and even if you add in hybrid sales, it’s only 19%.
A few months later, Mercedes-Benz was reported to be gradually abandoning the pure electric platform MB.
EA platform, and will continue to update the research and development of internal combustion engines.
Martin Sander of Ford’s European passenger car business said bluntly, “European consumer demand for hybrid vehicles is stronger than pure electric cars.
” Based on this, Volkswagen, BMW, Audi, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo and many other car companies have expressed their optimism about the future of the hybrid market.
Compared with the European Union’s 2035 anti-combustion target, the US emissions regulations in 2032 are much softer, so that more car companies competing in the US auto market are no longer obsessed with pure electric vehicles.
In March this year, the National Environmental Protection Agency issued the 2032 emission standard.
Among them, light vehicles with passenger vehicles as the core of the industry by 2032, the average greenhouse gas emission target is 85 grams per mile, a 49% reduction compared with 2026, which is called the strictest emission regulation in the history of the United States.
How can it be realized? Ali Zaidi, the White House’s national climate adviser, said: “by 2032, the fleet of some automakers may be a mixed model, and a car that is pure electric.
” The rest are various models of internal combustion engines.
” This is very similar to Akio Toyoda’s “the market share of pure electric vehicles will not exceed 30%.
” Hyundai Motor is re-evaluating the American auto market.
In May, it decided to use its investment in electric vehicles and battery production facilities in Georgia to produce hybrid vehicles.
Toyota may give up selling fuel models in North America in order to fully switch to hybrid products, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Currently, Toyota has stopped offering 2025 pure gasoline models of the Camry (the best-selling car in the United States) in the North American market, and its Land Cruiser and Sienna minivans only offer hybrid versions.
Mary Bora, CEO of General Motors, a local auto giant, said bluntly on the same day that the new rules were announced that she planned to introduce plug-in hybrid models already in production in other markets to North America.
And the “other market” here is China.
The first Chevrolet plug-in SUV.
photo source: SAIC GM.
In March this year, Zhuang Jingxiong, then general manager of SAIC GM, said that the domestic joint venture mix is still in the era of 1.
0 and does not have the real competitive strength, while SAIC GM will directly enter the era of plug-in 2.0. Based on this, both Chevrolet and Buick have launched new plug-in models.
Chinese hybrid, to participate in the international competition, in the early years, there was a plan about hybrid technology: “there are two types of hybrid technology in the world, one is Toyota hybrid technology, the other is other hybrid technology.
” Only in a literal sense, we can feel the high recognition of Toyota hybrid technology in the consumer market, and its patent wall deters a lot of car companies that want to study hybrid technology.
Today, however, this classification has long changed.
According to the terminal data of Gaishi Automotive Research Institute, the sales of PHEV (including REEV) passenger cars in China remained within 250000 from 2018 to 2020.
However, by 2021, that number jumped to more than 500000 and exceeded 2.
3 million in 2023.
Among them, BYD, ideals and questions become the main sources of increment.
In 2024, the competition pattern of China’s hybrid power market is becoming more and more obvious.
According to statistics, Chinese brands accounted for 98.
48% of the market share of PHEV (including REEV) passenger cars in China in the first half of the year, an increase of 4.
8% from 93.
68% in the same period last year.
Among them, BYD ranks first with nearly 40% of the market share, followed by ideal car, accounting for 11.
32% of the market share.
Brands such as Wanjie, Galaxy and Deep Blue also performed well, ranking third, fourth and fifth respectively.
The rise of the autonomous hybrid car market obscures the efforts of foreign car companies to struggle forward.
In fact, in the early years, joint venture brands launched a number of plug-in models in China, and even in 2020, the top three sales of the global plug-in market were occupied by Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW respectively.
However, with BYD’s DM hybrid technology, major local car companies such as Great Wall lemon hybrid DHT, Changan BlueKing iDD hybrid system, Chery Kunpeng Power, Geely Raytheon Intelligence engine Hi X, Dongfeng Mach Power, Guangzhou Automobile giant wave hybrid and other major local car companies have successively released their hybrid brands / platforms, rapidly overthrowing the joint venture car companies that still use “oil to electricity”.
Xu Min, dean of the Automotive Engineering Research Institute of Shanghai Jiaotong University, spoke highly of the performance of Chinese car companies in the field of hybrid power.
He believes that the development of China’s automotive power technology has entered an innovation-driven stage, which can be comparable to the world’s automotive power development level.
Especially in the field of PHEV, Chinese car companies have embarked on their own path, showing a strong ability of innovation.
As many auto industry leaders export the common view when communicating with Galaxy, “as long as you can win the market in China, the global market will benefit from it.
” Not only GM, but many foreign car companies, such as Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover, Hyundai and Mazda, are adding their mixed products in order to polish enough competitive products in China to feed their competitive strength in the European and American market.
You know, the best-selling plug-in model in Europe was the Ford Kuga, which starts at nearly 47000 euros (373000 yuan) in Germany, and the WLTC has a range of 88 kilometers.
BYD Seal U DM-i, the BYD plug-in model that will go on sale in the UK in September, has a pre-price of 33205 pounds (310000 yuan) for the front-drive model and 39905 pounds (374000 yuan) for an all-drive model with a range of 109km.
BYD Seal U DM-i sold to European market Photo: BYD, at the same time, considering the imperfect overseas charging facilities, a number of Chinese car companies, including Chery, are improving their hybrid technology camp, such as Chery’s new energy product series “Fengyun” launched in September last year, which has the most comprehensive new energy technology types of Chery, including PHEV, REEV and HEV, to meet the diversified needs of the global market.
Next, as more and more Chinese automakers enter the hybrid field and enter the international market, they may be expected to seize the new growth opportunities in the European and American automobile markets and become a new symbol of the internationalization of Chinese brands.
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