Looking back at the "13th Five-Year" commercial vehicle industry to achieve high-quality development

During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, China's commercial vehicle sales increased year by year from 2.5 million in 2015, and sales exceeded 5 million in 2020, hitting a new record high. Ownership also jumped from 22.74 million vehicles to 30.71 million. At the same time, while sales and ownership jumped, product structure with the environmental protection requirements strict, control of overloading, vehicle industry structure adjustment and other multiple factors, there has been a high-end, lightweight, professional development pattern. At the same time, commercial vehicle enterprises in the "13th Five-Year" period, the product gradually to the "electric, intelligent, network, sharing" of the "new four modernizations" development transformation and development, product structure has significantly changed, intelligent network, new energy application landing prominent.

The growth rate of the development of the industry has not decreased

During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, the commercial vehicle industry, especially the representative truck market, has experienced a large increase in vehicle demand, and the truck has driven the rapid increase in the sales of the overall commercial vehicle industry, which stems from the large-scale management of over-limit overload based on the implementation of the new national standard GB1589 on September 21, 2016.

On July 1, 2017, National V emission standards for heavy-duty diesel vehicles were implemented nationwide. And in the promotion of a number of factors, commercial vehicle sales in 2017 reached 4.16 million, an increase of 13.95%, of which heavy goods vehicle sales of 1.116 million, an increase of 52.38%, whether it is the promotion effect of policies and regulations, or the effect of trucks on the whole industry is quite obvious.

In the following two years, commercial vehicle sales have remained high. In 2018, 4.3708 million commercial vehicles were sold, a year-on-year increase of 5.05%. Among them, sales of heavy goods vehicles were 11.47 million, an increase of 2.78 year-on-year, once again breaking the annual sales of one million units.

In 2019, the growth rate slowed down, and the annual sales of commercial vehicles were 4.324 million, down 1.1% year-on-year, while the heavy goods vehicle market remained at a high level, with the annual sales of 1.17 million, up 2.6% year-on-year.

The commercial vehicle market, represented by the heavy truck market, has never continued to run at a high level, and at the end of 2019, the industry remained cautious about the market for the next year, and even judged that "a certain degree of decline". At the beginning of 2020, the new coronavirus epidemic hit, the whole industry after the first quarter of silence, from the second quarter began to recover rapidly, in the heavy truck pulling effect of commercial vehicle sales hit a record high in a month, the annual sales exceeded 5 million, heavy truck sales reached 1.62 million, a record high.

For the continued growth of commercial vehicle market sales represented by heavy trucks, Xu Haidong, deputy chief engineer of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, analyzed in an interview with the Economic Daily - China Commercial Vehicle Network reporter: "The pulling effect of fixed asset investment and infrastructure investment is quite obvious." At the same time, various localities have promoted the sales of commercial vehicles in terms of mandatory scrapping of national three vehicles and control of overloading."

Xu Haidong said that in addition to the factors of investment and vehicle elimination and renewal, the urbanization process and the development of e-commerce, as well as the significant increase in the demand for logistics from the epidemic prevention and control, have also effectively boosted the demand for trucks.

Intensive farming market demand structure changes

Before entering the "13th Five-Year Plan", the commercial vehicle industry has experienced the initial stage of market ownership accumulation and product segmentation. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, commercial vehicles have continued to develop in high-end and specialized aspects, and it is this development direction that has achieved a simultaneous flight in quantity and quality, which all stem from structural changes in market demand.

Xu Haidong said that during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, China's economic development continued to transform to high-quality, the supply-side structural reform represented by "three to one down and one to make up" continued to advance, and the economic operation was generally stable. It has created a solid foundation for the development of the commercial vehicle industry, and the commercial vehicle industry has also promoted economic development and transformation through high-quality development.

In the process of winning the battle to protect the blue sky, China's automobile exhaust emission standards have been upgraded and accelerated. In 2017, the national five standard began to be gradually implemented, and the National Six standard will also be gradually implemented in 2021, but some areas even advanced to 2020. From country 4 to country 5 to country 6, two consecutive emissions standards have been upgraded within five years, whether it is the upgrade speed or the increase in standards, it has brought no small pressure to the industry, but also brought the power of vehicle replacement. Many dealers admitted in an interview that the pressure on environmental protection has shifted from the buyer group to the owner, and many factories and mines even prohibit national four vehicles from entering and loading and unloading goods, and the promotion effect is more obvious.

In addition to the structural changes in demand brought about by environmental protection pressure, market demand in the process of transformation of the whole society and the whole industry, the demand for high-end and specialized has become more obvious, which includes the following reasons. First of all, at the user level, with the upgrading of consumption and the younger driver, the comfort of the vehicle, the richness of the configuration, and the driving control have become the considerations for users to buy cars. A logistics company car captain admitted: "In the past to the driver scheduling also consider the new and old collocation, and now also consider the new and old vehicles, especially young drivers like to have those vehicles with Bluetooth configuration." Many dealers also say that even drivers who run short-distance logistics also have high requirements for vehicle comfort.

The continuous management of over-limit overload forces transport enterprises to replace the original non-compliant vehicles with compliant models, so the demand for vehicles has increased in the stable state of freight demand. At the same time, under the premise of compliant transportation, users' requirements for lightweight vehicles have increased. In addition, the specialization of transportation has gradually gained popularity, and the trend of commercial vehicle specialization and lightweight is obvious.

Future-oriented product upgrades continue to advance

On May 6, 2019, the public verification test of driverless truck formation following function organized by the Intelligent Network Automobile Sub-standard Committee of the Automobile Standards Committee was carried out in Xiqing District of Tianjin. Three companies, Dongfeng Commercial Vehicles, SinotruK and Foton Automobile, were invited to participate and completed the verification test on the open road.

On November 9 of the same year, SAIC Group, SIPG Group and China Mobile jointly announced that the three parties officially launched the world's first "5G+L4 intelligent driving heavy truck" demonstration operation. From Yangshan deep water Port logistics Park through the Donghai Bridge to Yangshan Port dock, the logistics loop of 72 kilometers round trip covers complex scenes such as ordinary roads, expressways, docks, storage yards, large traffic flows at night, and more than 60 days a year, it also has to withstand the "test" of 7 or more strong winds on the Donghai Bridge. The complex road environment and natural environment are extremely challenging for autonomous transport vehicles.

In addition, FAW Jiefang and SinotruK have autonomous vehicles put into operation in closed areas such as docks, and autonomous driving has taken the lead in many application scenarios of commercial vehicles.

In addition to the achievements in the exploration of cutting-edge technologies, the improvement of commercial vehicle products during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period is obvious to all. Taking heavy truck products as an example, FAW Jiefang, China National Heavy Truck, Foton Automobile, SAIC Hongyan have epoch-making new products launched, and quickly gained market recognition, these new products have been greatly improved in product quality, energy saving and emission reduction, driving control and other aspects.

In terms of pure electric products, represented by the special vehicle products of BYD and other enterprises, the proportion of pure electric vehicles in the public domain has increased significantly, and public transportation and special operation vehicles have pure electric products put into large-scale use.

Throughout the "13th Five-Year Plan" five years, the commercial vehicle industry in the market size of 4 million units on the basis of continuous specialization, electrification, intelligent demand structure, product development quality continues to improve, out of a veritable high-quality development of the road.