A necessary condition for Apple to surpass Nokia is that Apple’s user experience has far surpassed that of Nokia. The world's auto market needs to value Akio Toyoda's voice. This is an objective voice from a car person based on the automotive industry and market reality. It tells us that in this era of uncertainty, any radical move may hurt a seemingly indestructible giant. When you really love her, don't give her all the candy.
Article丨AutoR Smart Driving?Aja?Wang Shuoqi
Toyoda Motors head Akio Toyoda’s words about the “over-hype” of electric vehicles have caused a stir not only abroad but also at home. discussion, and there is no lack of sarcasm towards Akio Toyoda.
One of the most heart-wrenching remarks is that Akio Toyoda criticizes pure electric vehicles on the one hand, and on the other hand he focuses on the research and development of solid-state batteries to prepare for the transition to electric vehicles.
Zhijiajun believes that although electric vehicles remain highly popular in the capital market and topics, Akio Toyoda’s criticism is not a sentimental statement.
Especially in the context of the two major auto markets of Europe and Japan, policies have turned sharply to the left and begun to set timetables for the ignition ban. Akio Toyoda's words should trigger the attention of China's auto market managers and be wary of embarking on the path of radical combustion bans in the European and Japanese markets.
First of all, let’s take a look at the specific context of Akio Toyoda’s statement:
On December 17, local time, according to the Wall Street Journal, the president of Toyota Motor Corporation Akio Toyoda criticized electric vehicles for being "over-hyped" at the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association's year-end press conference.
Toyoda Akio believes that those advocates of electric vehicles have not clearly considered the high costs caused by industry transformation and the carbon emissions caused by the electricity consumption of electric vehicles.
In addition, he also claimed that the price of electric cars is a "flower of the high mountains" for ordinary people. It means: a noble car that feels inaccessible and far away from real life. Beauty too far away.
Toyoda Akio also believes that Japan mainly relies on coal and gas-fired power generation, which means that electric vehicles are not only unhelpful to the environment, but can even cause serious carbon emissions.
Previously, Japanese media reported at the beginning of this month that the Japanese government is about to announce that it will ban the sale of new cars powered by pure internal combustion engines from 2035, but it will still allow gasoline-electric hybrid cars to continue to be sold.
This will be another country that has put an end to fuel vehicles after the UK’s radical burning ban. Given that Japan is a major automobile country, this will cause more ripple effects around the world.
The British Johnson government announced earlier this year that it would stop selling all internal combustion engine-driven vehicles, including hybrids, from 2030. The European Union and the United States followed the Biden administration's coming to power. Reuters reported yesterday , Canadian Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said this week that Canada and the United States may work together to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and develop plans to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars and trucks in North America.
Around the world, fuel vehicles are becoming the culprits responsible for global warming.
It is regarded as a thorn in the flesh by environmentalists around the world and governments bound by the Paris Agreement.
Promoting electric vehicles is becoming the new political correctness, which is actually not conducive to countries formulating reasonable and realistic automobile industry policies.
What Akio Toyoda said and his comments actually reveal the high cost that automobile electrification brings to society and enterprises:
To support the comprehensive transformation of electric vehicles, Japan needs The high cost of infrastructure construction is 14 trillion to 37 trillion yen (135 billion to 358 billion US dollars).
For ordinary consumers, policies and regulations will make electric vehicles a "flower on the high mountain", with high prices and out of reach.
He also said that hasty implementation of the ban on fuel vehicles will lead to the collapse of the current business model of the automobile industry, resulting in the demise of a large number of companies and the loss of a large number of workers.
This is not alarmist.
Both Daimler and BMW have carried out large-scale layoffs and invested heavily in new energy technologies this year.
In China’s current electric market, even with successful products such as Model 3, Wuling Hongguang Mini EV and Ideal ONE, it is undeniable that the pure electric vehicle market is still a A market matured by policies.
The historical point in time when electric vehicles will completely defeat fuel vehicles as a means of travel has not yet arrived.
In this cold winter, Zhijiajun tested a second-tier new electric vehicle. After driving normally for 30 kilometers with the heater on, the cruising range has dropped by 90 kilometers. If there is no home charging pile, With charging piles charging 2 yuan per kilowatt hour outside, the final calculation shows that not only is the experience of electric vehicles still flawed, but the actual cost per kilometer has exceeded the million-level majority of 3.0T? 6-cylinder models.
While the current infrastructure for electric vehicles has not yet been perfected, there is still a big gap between the experience of using electric vehicles and fuel vehicles, whether in cold winter or hot summer, or when traveling long distances.
The reason why the sales growth of extended-range electric vehicles like Ideal ONE exceeds that of Weilai and Xiaopeng is indispensable because of the shortcomings of electric vehicles in terms of battery life and charging convenience.
Yesterday, He Xiaopeng, the founder of Xpeng Motors, called Akio Toyoda’s remarks in WeChat Moments a replica of Nokia, which was quoted by many people.
In fact, this is unfair to Akio Toyoda.
Nokia was acquired by Microsoft in April 2014. Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila said after agreeing to the company's acquisition: "We didn't do anything wrong, but we didn't know why we lost."
p>Nokia is known as a typical example of one that failed to keep pace with the times and was eliminated.
However, Toyota has far deeper accumulation than Nokia, and it is still and will continue to be a force that cannot be ignored in the world automobile market.
Are electric cars really environmentally friendly?
Let’s return to Toyoda Akio’s criticism. Are electric cars really environmentally friendly?
Toyoda was not the first person to ask this question, but in the context that electric vehicles have been established as a future trend by the world's auto industry giants, Toyoda's question again is not a one-sided one.
The China Automotive Research Center recently released the "China Automobile Low-Carbon Action" report, and compiled the carbon emission reduction benefits of each model within a 150,000-kilometer vehicle cycle.
It can be seen from the report that the three drive types of cars on the market were investigated, and each type of car model was marked with benchmark values ??and actual measured values. It can be seen that most models are still lower than emission baseline value.
In this report, some of the pure electric models are much higher than many fuel vehicles in the survey. Therefore, electric vehicles are synonymous with environmental protection, which does not seem to be true here.
And models including Toyota and Honda hybrids have less than half the carbon emissions of many pure electric models.
Although electric vehicles save energy during use, the carbon emissions produced by electric vehicles are higher than those of fuel vehicles in terms of battery production, power production, and vehicle scrapping. Moreover, while recycling the batteries, they also Make sure not to pollute the environment.
From a macro perspective, the carbon emission reduction gap between pure electric vehicles and fuel vehicles is very small.
Although the driving process of electric vehicles does not produce carbon emissions, the electricity used by electric vehicles does have carbon emissions.
At present, less than 1/3 of China's East China power grid uses renewable energy to generate electricity, and in the northern region, coal power plants are mainly used. Let’s take the East China power plant as an example. One kilowatt hour of electricity produces approximately 0.928KG of carbon emissions.
According to the "Emission Account of Electric Vehicles", the current carbon emissions of most electric vehicles are 60g/Km~?100g/Km. Although it is still lower than that of fuel vehicles, the current high-efficiency small fuel vehicles The carbon emissions have reached about 100g/km. If we only compare economy-class cars, the carbon emission savings between electric vehicles and fuel vehicles are less than 40g/km, and most of them are within 30g/km.
If the extra 4.5 tons of carbon emissions from the manufacturing process are used, electric vehicles would have to drive at least 110,000 kilometers to make up for the difference. And this is equivalent to about 10 years of mileage for an average family.
Therefore, the environmental protection of electric vehicles only transfers carbon emissions from the use stage to the production and energy stages. In the context that most countries still use coal to generate electricity, the environmental protection of electric vehicles is still a false proposition.
Back to the Japanese market, Japan stopped the expansion and development of nuclear energy after the Fukushima nuclear accident, and Japan’s electricity sources are currently returning to coal and natural gas.
In the short term, achieving carbon neutrality will face huge difficulties in the electricity market alone.
Toyota’s various technical routes and cooperation in my country
Different from the current situation in Japan, as a Japanese society with a very high penetration rate of hybrid power, if we say that the ban on hybrid power in 2035 There are certain prerequisites for the sale of fuel vehicles. The recently released "Technical Roadmap for Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicles 2.0" in my country is completely adapted to local conditions and has made corresponding adjustments based on the current development status of new energy vehicles in my country.
According to the "Technology Roadmap 2.0", the proportion of hybrid power in my country will reach more than 50% and 75% respectively by 2025 and 2030, and reach 100% by 2035. The original version 1.0 proposed that by 2025, the proportion of hybrid vehicles would increase to 20% and 25% respectively in 2030. This adjustment in share ratio means that in the next 15 years, my country's automobile industry will vigorously develop hybrid vehicles. Various car companies will also increase research and development and investment in hybrid power.
For Toyota, the adjustments made by the Chinese government based on the current development status of new energy vehicles are both a major industry benefit and a good industry investment opportunity.
It has been confirmed that Toyota has decided to provide hybrid technology support to Guangzhou Automobile Group. This is the first time Toyota has provided its core hybrid technology to a foreign company. BluE Nexus, a Japanese company that currently develops and supplies hybrid vehicle drive systems, has reached a technology transfer agreement with Guangzhou Automobile Group. BluE?Nexus is a joint venture between Toyota, Denso and Aisin?Seiki.
According to reports, BluE? Nexus also agreed to provide this technology to Geely Automobile.
As one of the first automakers in the world to enter the field of alternative energy, Toyota has an absolute lead in hybrid technology. Since the launch of the Prius in 1997, its cumulative global sales of hybrid models have exceeded 15 million vehicles, while maintaining a record of zero battery accidents.
In addition to its mature gasoline-electric hybrid technology, Toyota also includes preliminary research on hydrogen fuel cells and solid-state batteries. Compared with gasoline-electric hybrid technology, Toyota's continued investment in the field of hydrogen fuel cells is more like a technology placeholder; as for the development of solid-state batteries that do not have liquid electrolytes and do not require cooling modules, according to a report by Bloomberg in 2019 The analysis pointed out that Toyota has at least 233 solid-state battery-related patents, which is almost three times that of other major competitors.
In other words, based on the three major paths to achieve new energy vehicles, Toyota has enough wealth to share with global companies, but it is crucial that Toyota, as a corporate animal, considers technology During evolution, the impact of different global markets on their market share as technology evolves must be considered.
According to Toyota's plan, Toyota's global new energy vehicle sales will reach 5.5 million units by 2025, including 4.5 million hybrid vehicles, 1 million pure electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel vehicles.
Although Toyota's electrification pace has obviously accelerated, its greater advantage lies in the fields of hybrid power and hydrogen fuel, and its layout in the pure electric market is slightly slower, but it is speeding up to make up for its shortcomings. In China in 2020 It is the first to launch pure electric vehicles such as Toyota C-HR, Yize, Lexus UX and other models, and plans to launch 10 new electric models in the Chinese market by 2025.
Toyota is not a rejecter of electrification.
A reasonable comment on Toyoda's remarks is that he opposes radical and blind all-electricity.
Currently, Toyota still ranks first in the world in terms of production and sales, but investors in the capital market have thrown their chips to Tesla and other electric car companies.
It needs to be pointed out that the capital market is fanatical and powerful, but it is also short-sighted.
Especially this year, Tesla’s high valuation has been fueled by various factors. In the face of the huge wealth effect, pure electrification has become the only answer to the vehicle power route.
In order to save energy, emissions and protect the environment, many countries around the world have successively issued timetables to ban the sale of traditional fuel vehicles. This will undoubtedly face tremendous pressure on traditional fuel vehicle giants such as Toyota and Volkswagen. In fact, governments of various countries should give them the opportunity to make their voices heard and set automobile industry policies rationally.
But as far as the current trend is concerned, promoting pure electrification too quickly is not good for consumers, nor is it good for the industry. Ideal ONE’s extended-range electric car, or the mini car Wuling Hongguang EV The hot sales also confirm the mileage anxiety of electric vehicles from the side. It is a fact that the price is expensive and not cost-effective.
At this point, one thing that needs to be made clear is that Zhijiajun is a supporter and advocate of the electrification of the automobile industry, but our more distinctive label is the market side of electric vehicles, that is, giving consumers choices The right to let the market choose to promote vehicle electrification.
If the view that electric vehicles have high carbon emissions is considered in a country like China, and in the next ten or twenty years, electric vehicles will definitely have huge advantages.
This is that only by having a large number of electric vehicles on the market can we find exports for my country's wind energy and solar power and form an energy Internet with electric vehicles after the Internet and the Internet of Things.
This is a critical step for mankind to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, and this all depends on the maturity of the electric vehicle market.
But before the electric vehicle market truly matures, both policy and investors must be patient.
Overly radical transformation, even giants like Toyota are worried that they will not be able to bear the huge sunk costs, and the same is true for China's independent brands that have just started to develop.
The good news is that the "Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0" announced by my country's think tank this year has raised hybrid technology to an unprecedented level, and the increase in hybrid models in the Chinese market this year is actually even greater. On top of electric cars.
In fact, pure fuel vehicles are withdrawing from the stage of history, 48V hybrid technology is becoming popular, and electricity and oil are entering a moment of technological integration.
The world auto market needs to value Akio Toyoda’s voice.
This is an objective voice made by a car person based on the automobile industry and market reality. It tells us that in this era of uncertainty, any radical move may hurt a seemingly indestructible giant.
This is also a wake-up call for us: when you really love her, don’t give her all the candy.
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.