Although 2022’s total new car sales number has yet to settle, as of late January, the current estimation sits at 79.4 million units, 1.9% less than in 2021, while this year’s market scale estimation comes in at 80 million units by a margin of 1 million units. In other words, this year’s auto market won’t be any better than last year. However, 2022’s car market has a few note-worthy information:
The market scale of global EVs (BEV and PHEV) exceeds ten million units for the first time, coming in at 10.8 million units, with an annual growth rate of 62%, of which China’s global market share sits as high as 63%.
India’s car market surpassed Japan for the first time, becoming the third-largest global car market, second to Central America. With a fast-growing middle class, India’s car market growth rate will be similar to China's ten years ago, and surpassing the US car market will only be a matter of time.
Europe and the US’s car market growth stagnates. However, the US’s EV penetration rate sits on the lower end (only 6%) due to the slow deployment of charging infrastructure, while European EV sales blossom because of official incentives.
Among EV brands’ spontaneous establishments, BYD has the most legendary tale of its resurrection. Since the company’s ICE car sales discontinuation in March last year and its focus turned to EV models, BYD’s sales performance has been unstoppable, with an annual sales figure of 1.86 million units. This is only the first step in conquering the global EV market. In my opinion, BYD’s sales performance is likely to exceed 3 million units in China alone. With the company’s active planning for global markets (Europe, Japan, SE Asia, and South America) in the past two years, will it be possible for BYD to achieve its rumored internal challenge: four million units globally? If BYD could hit its target, the company would set itself as the most extraordinary achievement in the auto history of over a hundred years. Using merely thirty years to transform from an inconspicuous Chinese self-owned brand to a global top-ten company with EVs, now BYD might even conquer 8th place globally (according to 2021’s statistics).
Despite dominating the global EV industry for several years, Tesla fell behind BYD in 2022 and lags behind further every month. Under such fierce competition and immense inventory pressure due to multiple Giga Factories’ production expansion, Tesla slashed its pricing at the end of last year, utilizing its superior technology and high gross margin to retake its market share. As a result, we will see a wave of unhealthy EV startups go out of business this year, signifying the utmost importance of a stable supply chain in the EV industry.
EVs will account for over 50% of the total market share by 2030 or earlier (while most automakers estimated 40% by 2030). The new roadmap will pose an immense challenge to traditional carmakers worldwide. Hence, the compound annual growth ratio (CAGR) of the global EV sales penetration rate from 2023 to 2030 will fall between 20%~24%. However, in my opinion, the growth rate for the next few years will far exceed these figures. To put it more bluntly, traditional automakers will automatically lose a 5% average of business opportunities every year they fail to introduce brand-new EV products (EVs’ 2022 global penetration rate is 13.6%).
Aside from the electric transformation spawning a revolutionary wave for the global car market, “intelligentization” is another unstoppable trend. Intelligent cockpits, L2+ ADAS, and even human-machine speech interfaces will be the main competition between 2023’s automakers. With “luxury” as a value-adding concept now losing importance as AI technologies advance, the next two decades for the car industry will revolve around the tech advancement of AI and energy (batteries) and reform from the ground up, becoming brand-new mobility platforms all users (including the youth, the elderly, skilled drivers, and novice drivers) can equally enjoy.