Since the beginning of this year, the structural adjustment of the domestic heavy truck industry has continued to advance, and new energy heavy trucks have shown a strong alternative trend. According to the data of the traffic insurance, from January to July this year, the cumulative sales of domestic new energy heavy trucks exceeded 34,000 vehicles, which has exceeded the total amount of last year. At the same time, the recent intensive introduction of the old operation truck scrap renewal subsidy policy has added a "fire" to the new energy heavy truck market, which is expected to further stimulate market demand and promote the rapid growth of new car sales.

 

The market may be even hotter in the fourth quarter

 

After three years of cyclical adjustment, the heavy truck industry has gradually stabilized in 2024, but the market growth momentum is still insufficient. According to the data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to July this year, China's heavy truck cumulative sales of various models of 562,800, an increase of 2.35%, the overall market performance is relatively flat. However, the new energy heavy truck market is showing a very different picture, the cumulative sales in the first 7 months reached 34,300 units, an increase of 148%, its strong development momentum and the overall market is in sharp contrast to the lukewarm.

 

"This year, the new energy heavy truck market continues to be hot, and sales performance has increased significantly for several months. Among them, sales in July soared to 6,600 units, an increase of 179%, accounting for 14.2% of the total market sales in the month, which is the third time in the year that the penetration rate of new energy heavy trucks exceeded 10%. In addition, since February 2023, the sales of new energy heavy trucks have achieved "18 consecutive increases" compared with the same period last year. A group of bright data, all means that the domestic new energy heavy truck market has entered a period of rapid growth." Beijing new energy heavy truck dealer Li Hewen said.

 

With the rapid increase in sales scale and market penetration, new energy heavy trucks are accelerating their popularization and application across the country. From January to July this year, a total of 12 provinces in the country registered more than 1,000 new energy heavy trucks. Among them, the number of registered vehicles in Hebei exceeded 5,000, and the number of registered vehicles in Shanxi, Guangdong, Sichuan, Hunan and Jiangsu provinces exceeded 2,000. After July, 19 provinces and autonomous regions, including Guangdong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Fujian and Xinjiang, registered more new energy heavy trucks than the whole year of last year.

 

In the view of the industry, the acceleration of the new energy heavy truck market is mainly due to the continuous promotion of the "double carbon" goal, as well as a series of encouragement and support policies introduced by the government since last year. At the same time, the decrease in the cost of power batteries directly leads to the reduction of the cost of new energy heavy trucks, coupled with the continuous optimization of product performance, such as the emergence of new models with large power, making the application scenarios of new energy heavy trucks increasingly rich, and the economic advantages of late operation appear, and the cost of vehicles in some scenarios is close to or even lower than that of fuel vehicles. This makes more and more logistics enterprises and users regard new energy heavy trucks as the ideal choice for vehicle renewal.

 

"Now, with the help of a new round of subsidy policies, the new energy heavy truck market is expected to usher in explosive growth." Ren Shifa, an expert in the commercial vehicle industry, said that according to the subsidy issuance standard, the purchase of new energy heavy trucks can get a subsidy of up to 140,000 yuan (scrap subsidy + new purchase subsidy), which has a significant advantage compared with the new purchase of diesel heavy trucks. This also shows that the government attaches great importance to and firmly supports the development of new energy heavy trucks. It is particularly noteworthy that in order to promote the promotion and application of new energy heavy trucks in the central and western regions, the state finance bears a higher proportion of subsidy funds, which will further stimulate the enthusiasm of users in the central and western regions to buy. At the same time, the policy also sets a time limit for the purchase of new energy heavy trucks before the end of the year to ensure that owners can receive subsidies in a timely manner after scrapping old vehicles, which will undoubtedly accelerate the release of market demand and accelerate the electrification transformation process of the heavy truck industry.

 

In this regard, a number of mainstream heavy truck companies believe that subsidy policies will promote new energy heavy trucks to usher in a new round of development climax. It is conservatively expected that nearly 10% of scrapped vehicles will be replaced by new energy heavy trucks by the end of the year, which will bring an increase of about 44,000 vehicles to the market, and annual sales are expected to break through the 70,000 mark.

 

Two market segments offer opportunities

 

With the continuous increase of policy support and the gradual release of market potential, the acceleration of the process of heavy truck electrification has become an irreversible trend. In this context, a number of segments show great potential for development.

 

From the perspective of sales structure, new energy tractors have always been the "backbone" of the new energy heavy truck market. From January to July this year, the cumulative sales of new energy tractors were 20,300, an increase of 202%, not only outperforming the growth rate of the new energy heavy truck market, but also occupying 59.11% of the market share, highlighting its core position in the field of new energy heavy trucks.

 

"New energy tractor application scenarios are rich, from steel mills short-distance transportation to coke, cement, thermal power and other industries are capable of carrying tasks, the model in the actual operation of the economy has gradually gained market and user recognition." Under the strong promotion of the policy, the new energy tractor is expected to continue to maintain a relatively large growth trend in the fourth quarter and the next period of time." Ren Shifa thus judged.

 

From the latest announcement of the 386th batch of new cars published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, it can also be seen that major mainstream heavy truck companies have turned their attention to the new energy tractor market, competing to launch new models to seize the opportunity. Among the 209 new energy heavy trucks announced, the tractor (including semi-tractor) has a total of 47, and the number and proportion are much higher than the new energy models such as dump trucks (including dump garbage trucks), stirring trucks, trucks, etc., which also shows that mainstream enterprises have great confidence in the new energy tractor market.

 

In addition to new energy tractors, the dump truck and some engineering vehicles market will also usher in growth opportunities brought by new car replacement. "Although the penetration rate of new energy in these market segments is already relatively high, there is still potential to be tapped. With the acceleration of fixed asset investment and infrastructure projects, as well as the increasing demand for the replacement of old operating vehicles, the demand for new energy dump trucks and engineering vehicles will continue to rise, bringing new growth points to the industry." Liu Zaiwen, a new energy heavy truck dealer in Beijing, said.

 

From the perspective of power type, pure electric models (including electric heavy trucks) continued to occupy the core position of the new energy heavy truck market, accounting for 94.66% of sales in the first half of the year. Looking forward to the fourth quarter, Ren Shifa believes that the growth momentum of the new energy heavy truck market will still rely on pure electric heavy trucks. This judgment is based on two reasons: First, in the recent batch of new car announcements, the number of pure electric heavy trucks on the list increased significantly year-on-year, indicating that its market leading position is expected to be further consolidated; Second, the price of new energy heavy trucks has fallen sharply, coupled with the help of high subsidy policies, making the terminal price of pure electric heavy trucks more affordable, thus stimulating market demand. At the same time, it is worth noting that the fuel cell heavy truck market performed brightly in the first half of the year, and it is expected that this market segment will also show strong growth potential in the future.

 

Products and services are the key to future competition

 

At present, the new energy heavy truck market shows a sustained momentum of development, which also indicates that the entire industry will fully enter the outbreak period. However, behind the prosperity, the "price war" accompanying the high growth of the market has gradually surfaced.

 

Recently, when the reporter visited the market, he found that the price of new energy heavy trucks ushered in a "big dive", and even showed signs of the same price of oil and electricity. A number of dealers said that the price reduction of new energy heavy trucks is relatively large, and the preferential intensity is generally 20% to 30%. For example, 280kWh pure electric heavy truck, which cost about 600,000 yuan last year, has dropped to about 400,000 yuan this year. Although such a pricing strategy can attract users and boost sales in the short term, in the long run, relying solely on "price wars" to exchange market share is not a sustainable way to develop.

 

In view of this market situation, Ren Shifa believes that with the gradual emergence of market scale effect and the continuous progress of technology, the price gap between electric heavy trucks and diesel heavy trucks will be increasingly narrow, which is an inevitable trend of industry development. However, in the short term, truck manufacturers should avoid relying solely on "price war" as a competitive strategy, but should strive to maintain orderly market competition, pay close attention to changes in market demand and industrial development trends, and increase investment and layout in incremental segments. Liang Linhe, chairman of Sany heavy truck, also stressed that new energy heavy truck enterprises should actively adjust market strategies, focus on improving product performance and service quality, and avoid falling into the vicious circle of low-price competition and ineffective "internal volume". In the future, only by continuing to innovate products, improve service quality and user experience, enterprises can steadily move forward in the fierce market competition.

 

In the view of Zhong Weiping, secretary-general of the Commercial Vehicle Professional Committee of the China Automobile Circulation Association, in order to promote the accelerated development of the new energy heavy truck industry, major car companies and the entire industry need to work together to focus on solving the core pain points in the promotion process of new energy heavy trucks, including overcoming technical difficulties, reducing vehicle operating costs, and improving the charging and replacing infrastructure system. And effectively alleviate users' anxiety about energy supplementation, so as to comprehensively promote the prosperity and development of the new energy heavy truck market.

 

China Automotive News, September 3, 2024