According to a recent report from Southern Weekend, in July this year, the first batch of 10 new energy pure electric tour buses were put into use by Shanghai Volkswagen Transportation. As the country's policy of promoting new energy vehicles under the influence of the financial crisis in 2008, new energy buses have become the hottest darling in the industry. Almost all bus companies have come up with their new energy bus plans and achievements.
However, the so-called new energy vehicles have emerged from such a situation. According to relevant reports, the new energy vehicles that have roared out have actually occupied a lot of markets as far as we have imagined. They are facing embarrassing and embarrassing situations. In addition to this, some companies are currently advocating new energy sources and ignoring the authorities, while others are deliberately beliving new energy vehicles. We must recognize that new energy vehicles are a strategic direction that cannot be relaxed and cannot be ignored. It is about the status of China in the future international competition in the automobile-related industries. Therefore, it is still the old saying, grasping the strategy, managing the present, both hands must grasp, both hands must be hard.
New energy vehicles , at least in the current state, are expensive. It can be said that it is almost impossible to implement. The underlying reason lies in the fact that the high prices caused before industrialization were not formed. So, how are these high prices actually formed? It can be seen at the exhibition that the low-floor city bus displayed by Foton on the display of the Euro V third-generation fuel cell technology has become the star of the opening day commercial vehicle exhibition. Although this symbolic passenger bus has zero emissions and some of its technical indicators are also at the leading level in China, the cost of bicycles for this bus has reached a record 5 million yuan. In fact, this embarrassingly high price is not a unique phenomenon in the domestic new energy vehicle sector. Coincidentally, before the development of the third-generation fuel cell bus in Futian, Suzhou Golden Dragon also showed a Hager new energy bus to the public. Although the price is not as high as that of Futian, its single-vehicle cost is also more than 3.5 million yuan.
It now appears that the new energy bus is experiencing a "market trap." Why do new energy vehicles have such a high cost? Is there no way to reduce costs? The high cost of production mainly involves two reasons. As new energy buses have just started, manufacturers have paid particular attention to new energy buses to build their own brands and deploy luxury. This is a major cause of high prices. What's more, pure electric buses are national 863 scientific research projects. At present, most of these projects are still under research and development, and no real industrial chain has yet been formed. High prices are inevitable. In fact, there are many factors that lead to high bus costs before industrialization is formed. For example, the high price of batteries and electronic control systems for pure electric buses directly leads to the increase in the prices of new energy buses. It is precisely these parts and systems that are still in the state of R&D. It is difficult to reduce costs during the process of advancing small batches. For example, the price of fuel cells for pure electric buses is currently still more than 1 million yuan.
It is inevitable that reducing configuration can reduce costs. However, there is still a distance from the price that the average buyer can accept. And in this, the battery is the biggest cost. In January 2009, Ankai Bus delivered 10 pure electric buses to Shanghai Ruihua Group. It is worth mentioning that the unit price of 10 pure electric buses sold by Ankai Bus is only over one million yuan. Although the price is still high, compared with the prices of Other electric buses that cost between RMB 35 million and RMB 5, the price is basically acceptable to customers. The similarities with pure electric buses also include relatively mature hybrid cars.
So what is the situation in other countries? Even if we look around the world, hybrid power can be regarded as a relatively mature technology in the field of new energy vehicles , and it has basically achieved commercial operation. However, due to its need to provide two sets of internal combustion engine power and electric power, therefore, there must be a high price phenomenon. Judging from the more common moderate blending in the market, nickel-metal hydride batteries need to provide motors with a peak power of 12 kW to 20 kW in an electric system, and the voltage must be in the range of 144 to 300 volts. This makes the cost of batteries undoubtedly high. It will increase a lot. In addition to these core technologies, automobiles also require drive control, instrumentation systems, and the like as an aid. If coupled with the hybrid car's own quality is better than the prototype car, the hybrid car's price will naturally be much higher than the prototype.
The key to new energy vehicles is also to go to the market. But now it seems really difficult. Although new energy vehicles have the advantages of energy saving and environmental protection, they may not be welcomed by consumers in the market. Although the country has repeatedly advocated energy-saving and environmentally friendly new energy vehicles, users who really pay for the car do not pay for it. May be more concerned about their own car costs and actual benefits, the social benefits of energy saving and environmental protection are not important to them. At present, the prices of domestic hybrid buses are generally in the hundreds of thousands of millions, which is much more expensive than that of an ordinary passenger car of the same type. It seems that the reduction in the cost of fuel consumption can hardly offset the higher purchase cost.
The fact is that the National 863 Plan has proposed that the price of hybrid buses cannot be higher than 30% for ordinary diesel passenger cars, and the fuel saving rate is also 30% higher than that of ordinary diesel passenger cars. Contrary to the facts, hybrid buses not only have fuel savings far below this target, they are also much more expensive than ordinary diesel passenger cars. Although some passenger car products can reach the above-mentioned fuel-saving goal in the experimental field, they are difficult to achieve under actual conditions. High prices and low fuel-saving rates are just typical problems. More realistic is that the hybrid buses we purchase can only be operated during off-peak hours. The main reason is that these domestic passenger cars have frequent electronic system failures, which seriously affect the use of bus operations. The electronic systems adopted by several hybrid buses that have "demonstration" significance for Beijing bus operations are produced by domestic companies. Even so, the prices of these new energy buses are far from the price range and standards required by the state. Because of this, China's hybrid passenger car control system still uses more expensive imported products. This also caused the high price of domestic hybrid buses. Obviously, the high cost of new energy buses is the main reason why it is difficult to obtain large-scale promotion in the market. On the other hand, if the sales scope is small, it will be difficult for the company to truly realize industrialization, thus creating a vicious circle for new energy vehicles and directly impeding the healthy development of new energy vehicles. To get out of the vicious circle, only the government can solve this problem.
It can thus be seen that the development of new technologies in China's new energy vehicles is a matter of urgency if they want to move from research institutes to “marketplace lifeâ€. The research and development of new materials, new devices, and parts and components, and continuous efforts to reduce manufacturing costs are also hurdles for new energy vehicles to go to the market. Otherwise, new energy vehicles will certainly suffer from high prices. From the current point of view, after 2010, China's new energy vehicles will only grow at a faster rate, and the degree of marketization will become even higher. Whether the use of new energy vehicles is safe is another issue that consumers are concerned about. New energy vehicles can be initially divided into alternative fuel vehicles, hybrid vehicles, pure electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Although from the 90s of last century, domestic auto companies have begun to develop new energy vehicles, but so far, the technology of new energy vehicles is still not mature enough, especially pure electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. If only emissions are considered, the advantages of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are unmatched. However, hydrogen consumes a lot of energy in the process of extraction and storage. At the same time, the manufacturing cost of hydrogen tanks, the increase in the weight of vehicles, and the construction of hydrogen refueling stations all increase the price of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Electric cars have a limited life span because of their own battery life. If handled improperly, the resulting pollution is greater than traditional cars. Alternative fuel vehicles need to use biological materials such as food, and it is difficult to see the necessity of vigorous promotion. In fact, how to promote new energy vehicles is a common problem facing the global automotive industry. New energy vehicles have large R&D costs and high costs. In order to support the development of new energy vehicles, the governments of the United States, Japan, and other countries have taken measures to reduce the purchase tax and consumption tax. Especially in Japan, the government directly subsidizes consumers who buy hybrid cars. With regard to the subsidy for difference, we still do not have such ability. Perhaps we can also use the tax policy to properly encourage and guide the consumption of new energy vehicles.
At the same time, we urgently need to develop a high-tech hybrid vehicle that can be easily implemented from the point of view that the promotion technology is not complicated. Hybrid power can be divided into mild hybrid power, moderate power hybrid power, and heavy hybrid power. The higher the level, the more fuel-efficient. The other type is plug-in hybrid, which provides fuel consumption while consuming electricity. As for the industrialization of new energy vehicles, the scope of government subsidies is only a small amount of money. According to the calculation and calculation of demonstration projects for the “10 cities, 1,000 vehicles†electric vehicle recently started by the relevant departments, 10 cities will be developed each year in the next 3 years. Each city will launch 1,000 new energy vehicles in the public service area to carry out demonstration operations to subsidize the vehicles. The total amount is only more than 30,000 vehicles, and the intensity seems to be weaker. At the same time, the government should also encourage companies to increase investment in new energy research and development, especially the development of key technologies such as new types of batteries and motors. In addition to its own high cost, there is a phenomenon worth noting. Compared with overseas markets, the price of new energy vehicles in the domestic market is much higher than that in the passenger vehicle market.
On the surface, China and foreign countries are on the same starting line in the field of new energy vehicles , but this is not the case. Compared with the relatively mature new energy automobile market in foreign countries, China is still at the initial stage. From the current point of view, the world's major automotive companies basically focus their sales of hybrid vehicles on European and American markets. They value the share of European and American markets and sales profits. In the Chinese market, Japanese auto companies like Honda are more inclined. The concept of playing cards, in order to take the lead in the Chinese consumer market to form a brand effect. As sales performance and market share are relatively secondary, high prices are inevitable.
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