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INSIGHT-Global
automakers face electric shock in China - Reuters News 6park.com
26-May-2022 07:00:05 AM
By Norihiko
Shirouzu 6park.com
BEIJING, May 26
(Reuters) - If global automakers think they can extend their dominance in China into
the electric era, they may be in for a shock.  6park.com
Kings of the combustion age such as General Motors and
Volkswagen are falling behind local players in the booming electric vehicle
(EV) market in China, a country that's key to funding and developing their
electric and autonomous ambitions. 6park.com
For Beijing office worker Tianna Cheng, the main dilemma
when she was buying a 180,000-yuan ($27,000) Xpeng electric crossover was
whether she should go for a BYD car instead, or a Nio; she did not seriously
consider overseas marques. 6park.com
"If I was buying a gasoline car, I may have
considered foreign brands," the 29-year-old said as she drove home from
work. "But I wanted an EV, and other than Tesla, I saw few foreign brands
applying advanced smart technology properly." 6park.com
Buoyed by demand from consumers like Cheng, electric car
sales are rocketing in China's roughly $500 billion auto market, the world's
biggest. 6park.com
In the first four months of 2022, the number of new
energy passenger cars - pure EVs and plug-in hybrids - more than doubled from a
year earlier to 1.49 million cars, according to data from the China Association
of Automobile Manufacturers.  6park.com
The cleaner technologies accounted for 23% of China's
passenger car market, where overall vehicle sales fell 12%, reflecting a steep
decline in demand for gasoline cars.  6park.com
There are no foreign brands among the top 10 automakers
in the new energy vehicle (NEV) segment this year, with the notable exception
of U.S. electric pioneer Tesla in third place, according to China Passenger Car
Association data. 6park.com
All the rest are Chinese brands, from BYD and Wuling to
Chery and Xpeng. China leader BYD has sold about 390,000 EVs in the country
this year, more than three times as many as global leader Tesla sold there. The
top-ranked traditional carmaker is Volkswagen's venture with FAW Group, in 15th
place for EV sales.  6park.com
Cheng said that overseas marques, whether the Buick
Velite 7 or Volkswagen's ID. series, failed to provide what she was looking
for: an EV capable of giving her the "comfort" of having a
smartphone-like experience in her vehicle. 6park.com
"Foreign brands are so far from my life and
lifestyle," said Cheng, whose digital assistant handles connections to
apps like Alipay and Taobao and "does everything for me from opening the
windows to turning on music", while her car software provides over-the-air
updates. 6park.com
It's quite a reversal. Global brands have dominated in
China since the 1990s, typically winning a collective 60-70% share of passenger
car sales in recent years. In the first four months of 2022 they captured 52%,
with their April monthly share at 43%.  6park.com
Signalling the scale of the challenge facing traditional
automakers, Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida told Reuters that some brands "could
disappear in three to five years" in China. 6park.com
"Local brands are becoming stronger," said
Uchida, who was formerly Nissan's China chief, adding that the quality of EVs
from Chinese makers had improved rapidly, with advances being made in the space
of months.  6park.com
"There will be a lot of transformation in China and
we need to carefully watch the situation," said the CEO, adding that carmakers
had to be nimble in the design, development and launch of new models.  6park.com
"In those aspects, if we were slow, we would be left
behind." 6park.com
  6park.com
'HI-TECH NATIVES' 6park.com
Bill Russo, a former Chrysler executive who now heads
Shanghai-based consultancy Automobility, said global brands need to turn the
situation around quickly because they controlled less than 20% of China's only
growth auto market. 6park.com
"Chinese brands are wining the race to EV,"
said Russo, adding that consumers' shift to cars that are essentially smartphones
on four wheels appeared irreversible and that traditional carmakers were having
trouble keeping up. 6park.com
"I think it's a secular shift toward hi-tech,"
he said of the consumer demand for a "user-centric digital services
experience" with a focus on interface, connectivity and apps.  6park.com
"Traditional companies are not hi-tech
natives." 6park.com
Volkswagen Group VOWG_p.DE brands, including Volkswagen,
Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche and Skoda, have led the market for much of
the past two decades, alongside General Motors GM.N marques such as Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac.  6park.com
The two global groups had overall auto market shares of
almost 13% and 12% respectively in China last year, according to LMC
Automotive. Detroit giant GM also has a 44% stake in the locally controlled
SAIC-GM-Wuling Auto (SGMW) venture, and includes its sales in group numbers,
though SGMW does not make American brands, only Wuling and Baojun cars. 6park.com
GM is now focused on winning over younger buyers in big
cities that have hitherto largely snubbed its models according to two people
familiar with the automaker's business in China.  6park.com
The group has announced electrification plans to spend more
than $35 billion globally by 2025, including more than 30 new EVs, over 20 of
them in China, starting this year with the launch of the all-electric Cadillac
Lyriq crossover SUV. 6park.com
The two sources said the Lyriq launch would be followed
by an electric Buick SUV and a smaller, sportier electric crossover, both also
planned for as early as this year.  6park.com
Sales of Buicks have declined 32% over the last five
years to 828,600 vehicles in 2021, while Chevrolet has shrunk more than half to
269,000 vehicles, according to LMC Automotive. 6park.com
GM told Reuters it was aiming to install capacity to
produce 1 million EVs a year by 2025 in China, adding that demand for the Buick
Velite NEV family and Chevrolet Menlo EV "both grew significantly" in
2021 and the first three months of this year.  6park.com
It said it was deploying smart technologies including
hands-free driver assistance on highways, "aviation-grade" cyber
security and over-the-air software updates.  6park.com

 6park.com
AUTOBAHN SPEED? 6park.com
Volkswagen, which is spending around $55 billion globally
on EVs by 2026, launched its new-generation of ID. series in China early last
year but missed its goal of selling 80,000 to 100,000 cars last year. It aims
to sell 160,000 to 200,000 ID. cars this year, though it has sold only 33,300
through April.  6park.com
A key concern for foreign brands, according to one of the
people close to GM plus a Volkswagen insider, is that their new EVs are being
designed more for American and European markets in mind, with a heavier focus
on performance and durability.  6park.com
"Autobahn speeds? In most big cities in China
traffic is so congested people can't even drive above 60 km/h on most
days," said the source close to GM, who is familiar with the automaker's
product plans and product-development processes. 6park.com
Volkswagen said NEV demand in China was strongly linked
to the "smart car" theme, adding that it was investing in local
R&D, especially in software. 6park.com
"Our strategy will enable us to achieve our
ambitious targets in China. By 2030, we also want to be the market leader in
e-vehicles and thus ensure that Volkswagen remains the number one in China in
the future," it added.  6park.com
The challenge for global brands is to find the formula to
win over consumers in big cities with disposable incomes, like Cheng in Beijing
and Li Huayuan, a civil engineer from Shanghai.  6park.com
Li only half-heartedly considered Japanese and German
brands when he bought his BYD electric sedan last year for 290,000 yuan
including insurance. 6park.com
"Seems to me only Tesla stands out when it comes to
American brands," he said from his parked BYD car in the Sichuan
provincial city of Mianyang where he's working on a project. "The other
brands don't even look competitive to me." 6park.com
($1 = 6.6499 Chinese yuan renminbi) 6park.com


(Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu; Additional reporting by
Zoey Zhang in Shanghai, Kevin Krolicki in Singapore and David Dolan in Tokyo;
Editing by Pravin Char) 6park.com
(c) Copyright
Thomson Reuters 2022. Click For Restrictions -
https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html 6park.com
Keywords:
CHINA-AUTOS/EV (REPEAT, INSIGHT, PIX, GRAPHIC)

贴主:我爱胡静于2022_05_26 8:37:54编辑