The new energy automobile industry is full of development opportunities in the next few years, and the first half of new energy vehicles has not yet completely ended, and the second half has just begun. An industry consensus is that marked by whether the new energy automobile industry has entered a new stage of development, the development of new energy vehicles is divided into the first half and the second half, which has two important characteristics, one is electrification and the other is intelligence. The new content of electrification, coupled with intelligence, constitutes the main feature of the second half of the new energy vehicle, and its background is that electric vehicles have achieved large-scale development.

The industry generally predicts that domestic new energy vehicle sales will exceed 6.5 million units this year, and for next year, the more optimistic judgment is to easily exceed 10 million units, of which pure electric and extended range, plug-in hybrid account for about half, and the penetration rate will reach 40%, or even close to 50%; Considering the impact of negative factors such as subsidy withdrawal and prepayment of consumption in the early stage, the slightly conservative judgment is about 8 million vehicles. Overall, industry judgment is optimistic, and it is relatively easy to achieve 8 million to 1,000 new energy vehicle sales in 2023.

So, what are the important opportunities in the second half, which is characterized by the starting point of new content and intelligence of electrification?

There is still potential for breakthroughs in next-generation battery technology

In the short term, the vehicle lacks new investment opportunities, and has now entered the adjustment stage, but there are still many supply chain opportunities, among which the most innovative area is the power battery.

On the one hand, the performance of the power battery has not yet been cured, and there is still great potential for improvement. In 2025, the energy density of power battery cells is expected to exceed 350Wh/kg, and the system cost will be reduced to less than 0.5 yuan/Wh in 2030.

On the other hand, the competition pattern of a new generation of batteries such as solid-state, lithium-sulfur batteries is far from forming, and there are still new development opportunities for each entity. Therefore, it is necessary to do a good job in the layout of the next generation of batteries and focus on original innovations. The development of energy storage may make the industry's long-awaited sodium battery will have explosive growth, so it is necessary to accelerate the large-scale test demonstration of sodium batteries and initially form industrialization in 2023; Increase R&D investment in solid-state batteries, lithium-sulfur batteries, lithium-metal batteries, etc., enhance the integrity of the industrial chain, and realize the loading test application of a variety of products around 2025, and achieve large-scale application around 2030.

The development of new energy vehicles for commercial vehicles will accelerate

When the penetration rate of new energy passenger vehicles exceeded 30%, the second half entered a completely market-driven development track, and the penetration speed of new energy commercial vehicles varied. Up to now, the increase in buses in major cities in the mainland has basically achieved 100% new energy. According to our research in recent months, the pace of new energy conversion of commercial vehicles in the logistics sector has accelerated significantly.

It is worth noting that it is unlikely that there will be "new forces" in new energy passenger vehicles, but there may be a number of new forces similar to Tesla and "Wei Xiaoli" in the field of commercial vehicles, and the entry of these new forces will have a bottom-level impact on the future commercial vehicle market.

The international market will become a new growth point for enterprises

The third opportunity is in the international market. From January to September 2022, China's new energy vehicle exports were 389,000 units, a year-on-year increase of more than 1 times, and it can be seen that the export scale is getting bigger and bigger. By 2030, global sales of pure electric vehicles will exceed 35 million, which means that China's export potential for electric vehicles and batteries is huge. Therefore, the export of finished vehicles will become an important development opportunity at present.

The construction of diversified energy replenishment infrastructure will become an industrial hot land

After the development of new energy vehicles is scaled, especially 10 million electric vehicles a year on the road, energy facilities will become more and more important, which is also the biggest bottleneck at present. In the past, the main contradiction in the new energy automobile industry was "building cars", but now, the main contradiction in the next few years will change to "how to make consumers use electric vehicles better", which means that a networked energy infrastructure needs to be built urgently.

In the future, diversified energy replenishment methods such as slow charging, high-power charging, power exchange, and hydrogen refueling stations will be applied in different scenarios to meet the diversified energy replenishment needs of users. It is expected that in 2025, 800V high-voltage platform models and high-power fast charging piles will achieve large-scale commercialization, and the range of 400 kilometers in 10 minutes of charging will greatly improve the dilemma of electric vehicles. At the same time, the cost of high-power DC fast charging is about 20% of what it was 5 years ago.

The new generation of automotive energy industry has become a new investment track

The upstream energy industry of new energy vehicles is worth paying attention to. In the future, cars will follow energy, and where there is new energy, there will be a new energy vehicle industry.

Multi-element collaborative systems such as new energy vehicles, power grids, wind energy, photovoltaics, hydrogen energy, and energy storage will gradually take shape. Among them, electric vehicles gradually solve the discontinuity and instability of renewable energy power generation affected by seasonal, meteorological and regional conditions through orderly charging, vehicle-network interaction (V2G), battery swapping, in-use and retired battery energy storage, and it is expected that the intraday V2G and orderly charging flexibility adjustment capacity of electric vehicles will be close to 12 billion kWh in 2035.

Low-carbon technology will become a new competitiveness for enterprises

Car companies and battery manufacturers are currently pursuing low-carbon, which company can achieve low-carbon or even zero-carbon, which enterprise is easier to go out. Therefore, low-carbon technologies that empower manufacturing companies will be a rigid need for the automotive industry in the coming years.

At present, the supply of zero-carbon technologies in China is insufficient, so there are huge investment opportunities in this field, and not only automakers need zero carbonization, but also the entire supply chain. The zero-carbon transformation of the entire automotive chain will release a large number of market opportunities, and will also absorb and cultivate a large number of cross-border technologies outside of automobiles.

Servitization promotes the formation of new business formats

When tens of millions of new energy vehicles are on the road, the automotive aftermarket is also "servitization", which naturally becomes more and more important. Based on servitization, a new generation of service entities such as operators, logistics operators, solution operators, and aftermarket service operators will be formed.

Intelligence is the top priority in the second half of the competition

Intelligent technologies and products will reshape the competitive landscape of the industry and create new industrial value. From the perspective of the existing competition pattern of the new energy vehicle industry, the technical routes have entered a relatively stable state. The focus of competition for automotive products and enterprises is no longer entirely on the power system, but more on the second half of the competition in the automotive industry, that is, intelligence on the basis of electrification.

Which technical route is deeply combined with intelligence, widely combined, and integrated early, which technical route will have better development with the help of intelligence. Intelligence will become the core of the future competitiveness of the industry, and will also determine the future fate of different technical routes.

A new systematic project is formed based on intelligent networked vehicles

The development of China's intelligent networked vehicles involves many fields such as cars, roads, cities, and networks, and will form a new industrial ecology based on this, which is a systematic project that brings changes far beyond the car itself.

Chen Qingtai, chairman of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Association, pointed out that "jumping out of the car to see the car, jumping out of the car to develop the car", which requires seamless connection of multiple aspects to establish our own systematic industrial advantages. 

Technology companies are an important force driving change in the second half

In the future, we believe that the main thing is not to rely on existing companies, but technology companies that have just entered or are ready to enter, because they represent cross-border and represent a new way of thinking. In the field of passenger cars, commercial vehicles and other complete vehicles, we need new forces; We also need new players throughout the electrification supply chain. Intelligence needs new entrants, and cross-border technology companies may be the leading force in the second half of the change of new energy vehicles. If the industry policy can be sorted out smoothly and the cross-border forces can enter smoothly, it is crucial for the second half of China's new energy vehicles.