The amount of new energy vehicles in China has reached 2 million. It can be predicted that the new energy vehicles mainly consisting of pure electric vehicles will replace the fuel vehicles in the near future. However, in order to bring the era of new energy vehicles into full swing, the price is a threshold. All media reporters have noticed that battery accounts for about 40% of the cost of electric vehicles, which is also one of the reasons for the high price of electric vehicles. When will the price of new energy vehicles fall, even cheaper than fuel vehicles? In this regard, there is a broad consensus in the industry recently: by 2020, the cost of pure electric vehicles will be reduced by nearly 40%, that is, in five years the price is expected to be lower than that of fuel vehicles.
How can electric cars be sold when subsidies are tightened?
Driven by various subsidies, the number of new energy vehicles in China has exceeded 2 million. However, the current price of new energy vehicles, including pure electric vehicles, is very expensive, and if there is no national and local subsidies, there may be little interest. And in the future, the subsidy policy for new energy vehicles will be gradually tightened. All media reporters have noticed that in the new energy subsidy policy implemented on June 12 this year, the subsidy for pure trams with a duration of less than 300 kilometers has been reduced by 50%, and those with a duration of less than 150 kilometers will no longer enjoy subsidy. By 2020, the subsidy policy will be completely abolished. For this trend, many consumers have questioned: today, a new energy vehicle with a combined range of more than 400 kilometers will sell at a price equivalent to about 6% of the official guidance price after the subsidy. Without subsidies in the future, even if car companies cut prices, consumers need to bear at least 30% higher car prices, is it still worth choosing?
Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the National Ride Federation, said that it was the general trend to abolish subsidies. Only when policies were tightened, could the real strength of automobile enterprises be reflected. So, even if the future subsidies are abolished completely, there is no need to worry about it. With the automobile companies shifting most of their energy to the field of new energy vehicles, technological progress and large-scale production, the overall price of new energy vehicles such as pure electric vehicles will eventually be lowered.
All media reporters have noticed that the positive effect of the new subsidy policy is remarkable. Those electric vehicles with low price and low endurance mileage have been eliminated in the market. Although there are still some problems in details, workmanship and quality of body parts of most self-owned brand new energy vehicles on the market, the improvement of endurance and quality are visible progress.
Survey: Why are pure electric cars so expensive?
Why are pure electric vehicles, the mainstream of the new energy market, so expensive? Taking an independent brand electric vehicle as an example, the lowest official selling price of the fuel version is only about 70,000 yuan, but the lowest official selling price of the electric version is about 210,000 yuan. After deducting state and local subsidies, the lowest terminal selling price is about 130,000 yuan.
All media reporters noticed that the difference between the electric version and the fuel version of the same model was between 50,000 yuan and 80,000 yuan, mainly in the power system. The core unit of pure electric vehicle is battery, motor and electric control. Luo Chengcai, deputy director of Beiqi New Energy Project, said that the cost of electric vehicles is precisely affected by the distribution volume. It is reported that the current cost of power battery batteries is about 1,500 yuan per kilowatt hour. At present, most of the hot-selling pure electric vehicle batteries in the market are between 40 and 60 degrees, and only the cost of batteries needs 60,000 to 90,000 yuan.
In addition, besides the cost of production, pure electric vehicles also have huge R&D costs. Because the current sales volume is not high, the R&D cost shared by each mass-produced pure electric vehicle is very high. When the sales of electric vehicles increase and the cost of batteries decreases, can the whole price of pure electric vehicles also be reduced? The answer is yes.
How difficult is it to reduce battery costs?
All media reporters noticed that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in the "medium and long-term development plan of the automotive industry" proposed that "by 2020, the specific energy of new energy automotive power battery system strives to reach 260 wh/kg, and the cost is reduced to less than 1 yuan/watt-hour." The "China Automobile Industry Development Report 2018" more optimistically predicts that the cost of power batteries is expected to reach 1 yuan/Wh by the end of 2018 and 0.55 yuan/Wh by 2025. This is almost two-thirds less than the current cost of batteries.
Industry experts believe that this figure means that after the stripping of subsidies, electric vehicles will be able to compete with traditional fuel vehicles in price in three to five years.
According to the data of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the cost of power batteries in China dropped by 79% from 2010 to 2017 with the progress of technology and the scale of battery production.
Sun Liqing, an associate professor at the School of Machinery and Vehicle of Beijing University of Technology and a member of the Electric Vehicle Professional Committee of the China Electrical Technology Society, believes that the battery cost will account for 20%-30% of the whole vehicle in the five-year follow-up voyage of 600-800km electric vehicles, and the cost of research and development caused by scale reduction, so it is reasonable that the purchase price of electric vehicles is cheaper than that of fuel vehicles.
Forecast: How much will the cost of electric vehicles be reduced in the future?
In the next five years, the price of pure electric vehicles is lower than that of fuel vehicles, which is not a fantasy. Sun Liqing and other experts believe that in the next five years, new energy vehicles dominated by pure electric vehicles will experience two stages of substantial cost reduction: from 2018 to 2019, because of intensified competition, excessive capacity, the price of Class A vehicles with a range of 300 km may be reduced to 100,000 yuan or less after subsidy; in the second stage, from 2020 to 2021, new energy vehicles subsidy will be withdrawn, while new energy vehicles will be subsidized. The price of a class A car with 300 km range will probably drop to about 80,000 yuan after subsidy.
National Automobile Circulation