Nearly 90% of the production capacity is idle, and the gap between supply and demand is 130 million. Is the production capacity of new energy vehicles in excess or in short supply?
Introduction: At present, more than 15 traditional car companies have clarified the timetable for the suspension of sales of fuel vehicles. BYD’s new energy vehicle production capacity will be expanded from 1.1 million to 4.05 million within two years. The first phase of the automobile factory…
But at the same time, the National Development and Reform Commission made it clear that it requires no new production capacity to be deployed before the existing base of new energy vehicles reaches a reasonable scale.
On the one hand, the traditional fuel vehicle manufacturers have pressed the “lane change” accelerator button, and on the other hand, the state strictly controls the rapid expansion of production capacity. What kind of industry development logic is hidden behind the seemingly “contradictory” phenomenon?
Is there excess capacity of new energy vehicles? If so, what is the excess capacity? If there is a shortage, how big is the capacity gap?
01
Nearly 90% of production capacity is idle
As the focus and direction of future development, it is an inevitable trend for new energy vehicles to accelerate their development and gradually replace traditional fuel vehicles.
With the support of policies and the enthusiasm of capital, the main body of my country’s new energy vehicle market has increased rapidly. At present, there are more than 40,000 vehicle manufacturers (company check data). The production capacity of new energy vehicles has also expanded rapidly. By the end of 2021, the existing and planned total production capacity of new energy vehicles will total approximately 37 million units.
In 2021, the output of new energy vehicles in my country will be 3.545 million. According to this calculation, the capacity utilization rate is only about 10%. This means that nearly 90% of the production capacity is idle.
From the perspective of industry development, the overcapacity of new energy vehicles is structural. There is a huge gap in capacity utilization between different car companies, showing a polarized trend of high capacity utilization with more sales and low capacity utilization with less sales.
For example, leading new energy car companies such as BYD, Wuling, and Xiaopeng are facing a shortage of supply, while some weaker car companies either produce very little or have not yet reached the stage of mass production.
02
Resource waste concerns
This not only leads to the problem of overcapacity in the new energy vehicle industry, but also causes too much waste of resources.
Taking Zhidou Automobile as an example, during its heyday from 2015 to 2017, the car company successively announced its production capacity in Ninghai, Lanzhou, Linyi, Nanjing and other cities. Among them, only Ninghai, Lanzhou and Nanjing planned to produce 350,000 vehicles per year. Exceeding its peak annual sales of about 300,000 units.
Blind expansion combined with a sharp drop in sales has not only put companies into debt distress, but also dragged down local finances. Previously, the assets of Zhidou Automobile’s Shandong Linyi factory were sold for 117 million yuan, and the receiver was the Finance Bureau of Yinan County, Linyi.
This is just a microcosm of impulsive investment in the new energy vehicle industry.
Official data from Jiangsu Province shows that from 2016 to 2020, the utilization rate of vehicle production capacity in the province has dropped from 78% to 33.03%, and the main reason for the decline in capacity utilization by nearly half is that the newly introduced projects in Jiangsu in recent years, including Salen , Byton, Bojun, etc. have not developed smoothly, resulting in a serious shortfall in their entire production capacity.
From the perspective of the entire industry, the current planned production capacity of new energy vehicles has far exceeded the volume of the entire passenger car market.
03
The gap between supply and demand reaches 130 million
But in the long run, the effective production capacity of new energy vehicles is far from enough. According to estimates, in the next ten years, there will be a gap of about 130 million in the supply and demand of new energy vehicles in my country.
According to the forecast data of the Market Economic Research Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council, by 2030, the number of automobiles in my country will be about 430 million. According to the overall penetration rate of new energy vehicles reaching 40% in 2030, the number of new energy vehicles in my country will reach 170 million by 2030. By the end of 2021, the total planned production capacity of new energy vehicles in my country is about 37 million. According to this calculation, by 2030, my country’s new energy vehicles still need to increase the production capacity of about 130 million.
At present, the embarrassment faced by the development of the new energy vehicle industry is that there is a huge gap in effective production capacity, but there is an abnormal excess of inefficient and ineffective production capacity.
In order to ensure the high-quality development of my country’s auto industry, the National Development and Reform Commission has repeatedly asked all localities to conduct a thorough investigation of the production capacity of new energy vehicles and be alert to excess capacity of new energy vehicles. Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission has made it clearer that it requires no new production capacity to be deployed before the existing base of new energy vehicles reaches a reasonable scale.
04
Threshold raised
The situation of overcapacity does not only appear in the new energy automobile industry. Mature industries such as chips, photovoltaics, wind power, steel, coal chemical industry, etc. all face the problem of overcapacity more or less.
Therefore, in a sense, overcapacity is also a sign of the maturity of an industry. This also means that the entry threshold for the new energy vehicle industry has been raised, and not all players can get a share of it.
Take the chip as an example. In the past two years, the “chip shortage” has become an obstacle to the development of many industries. The shortage of chips has accelerated the establishment of chip factories and the pace of increasing production capacity. They also threw themselves in, blindly started projects, and the risk of low-level repeated construction appeared, and even the construction of individual projects was stagnant and workshops were controlled, resulting in waste of resources.
To this end, the National Development and Reform Commission has provided window guidance to the chip industry, strengthened services and guidance for the construction of major integrated circuit projects, guided and standardized the development order of the integrated circuit industry in an orderly manner, and vigorously rectified the chaos of chip projects.
Looking back at the new energy vehicle industry, with many traditional car companies turning the rudder and vigorously developing new energy vehicles , it is foreseeable that the new energy vehicle industry will gradually change from a blue ocean market to a red ocean market, and the new energy vehicle industry will also change from a blue ocean market to a red ocean market. Extensive transformation to high-quality development. In the process of industry reshuffle, those new energy vehicle companies with small development potential and mediocre qualifications will find it difficult to survive.
Post time: May-04-2022