Finding the Main Crux of New Energy Vehicle Development

It is understood that in 2018, the global sales of new energy vehicles (including pure electric and plug-in hybrid) exceeded 2 million vehicles, of which China sold 1.256 million vehicles, accounting for about 63%, becoming the world's largest producer and seller of new energy vehicles, with the second largest sales country being the United States. China and the United States together account for more than two-thirds of global sales. Both governments play an important role in the promotion and application of new energy vehicles. For example, the United States has adopted policies such as direct economic incentives and preferential road rights, while China has adopted policies such as unlimited purchase and subsidies for car purchases. There are also some differences in the promotion and application between the two governments. For example, the United States combines the promotion of new energy vehicles with air pollution control. Cities with greater promotion efforts are often cities with more serious air pollution.

New energy vehicles from the early stage of development to control air pollution and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but compared with traditional fuel vehicles, is new energy vehicles more environmentally friendly and worthy of vigorous promotion? There are many doubts on this issue, especially on the power supply. In the early stage of the development of new energy vehicles, it is not very significant to compare with traditional fuel vehicles. There are two main reasons: one is the rapid technological innovation of new energy vehicles; the other is the increasing proportion of clean electricity consumption. In any case, new energy vehicles offer the possibility of clean energy use.

Even with the current average mileage of new energy vehicles, the emission of new energy vehicles may be less than that of traditional fuel vehicles. Based on the comprehensive fuel consumption data published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2017 and assuming that all the electricity consumed comes from thermal power, the pollutants emitted by a new energy vehicle driving 100 kilometers are calculated according to the power generation efficiency and average pollutant emissions of thermal power plants. The results show that the sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxidation emitted by the new energy vehicle are the main pollutants emitted by the new energy vehicle. It's slightly higher, but carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide are less than conventional fuel vehicles. With the increasing proportion of clean energy and electric power in China and the technological progress of new energy vehicles, new energy vehicles may have comprehensive environmental protection advantages in the future. For China, new energy vehicles also have the epitaxy of oil substitution, reducing oil dependence on the outside world and ensuring energy security. As a major oil consumer, oil dependence on foreign countries may threaten the steady growth of the economy, making the domestic economy more and more vulnerable to fluctuations in international oil prices, and large-scale development of new energy vehicles may achieve a large-scale alternative to oil.

New Energy Vehicles have other denotative meanings. For example, pollutants can be concentrated. In the past, every traditional fuel vehicle was an independent source of pollution. Now power plants will become a concentrated source of pollution. Centralized pollution control and emission reduction are easier than decentralized treatment, which can reduce the cost of pollution control. Moreover, transferring pollution from areas with high population density to areas with low population density can reduce the cost of environmental protection. New energy vehicles should also be an important part of China's clean and effective power system. Residents and businesses in China use about 30% of their electricity, compared with nearly 75% in the United States. With the increase of income level, China's residential and commercial electricity consumption is increasing substantially every year, and China's peak power consumption will be greatly increased, which also puts forward higher requirements for the cost and efficiency of the power system. If electric vehicles enter millions of households in the future, taking measures to hedge peak power can not only improve the efficiency of the power system, but also greatly reduce the system cost.

Government subsidy is not sustainable

As far as the development of electric vehicles is concerned, China's electric vehicle policy is undoubtedly successful. However, the development of electric vehicles under the subsidy also has bigger problems. It is said that at present at least 250 enterprises in China are qualified to produce new energy vehicles, but in 2017 only 18 of them produced more than 10,000 vehicles, and more than 70 of them did not. The quality of production is uneven, "small, scattered and disorderly" prominent. This is closely related to the emergence of "fraudulent subsidy" phenomenon in new energy automobile enterprises. Fortunately, the subsidy for new energy automobile is declining continuously at present, so relevant departments can give new energy automobile enterprises more time. In addition to gradually abolishing the subsidy, other measures should be taken to promote the new energy automobile industry. Now it is a breakthrough in the development from quantity to quality. The subsidy policy of 2019 has the following characteristics: First, from the perspective of subsidy policy, the key point is to raise the technical threshold requirements, clearly encourage the application of high energy density and low energy consumption vehicles, and tilt the subsidy funds to higher technology level vehicles. Maintain the original subsidy for fuel cells unchanged, and directly eliminate the subsidy for vehicles with a range of less than 250 kilometers. The requirements for battery energy density technical indicators are also further stringent. The second is to inherit the idea of "phased implementation" in the subsidy policy of 2018, and still set up a transitional period of subsidy, which will be implemented according to the new subsidy standard from June 26, 2019. Third, the new subsidy policy abolishes the local government's subsidy for new energy vehicles (excluding buses and fuel cell vehicles) after the transition period, and converts this subsidy for car purchase into subsidy for charging infrastructure, etc. In practice, consumer-side subsidies also have a negative impact. Firstly, enterprises pay more attention to the output rather than quality of new energy vehicles, which will also lead to the problem of "fraud compensation". In the process of policy-making, it is difficult to classify and define subsidized products completely. For example, the current subsidy policy is based on continuity.