補貼減少，競爭放開，中國電動汽車市場迎來群雄逐鹿時代

北京新能源汽車股份有限公司（下文簡稱“北汽新能源”）的總部坐落于中國首都的邊緣地帶。在這個玻璃鋼鐵結構建筑群的內部，一間自助餐廳正在等待裝修，以便廚師們為該公司預計將聘用的外國人制作披薩和其他西餐?！拔覀冃枰黾右稽c國際范兒?！蓖跏罎ㄒ糇g）說。在德國獲得儲能專業碩士學位之后，這位中國工程師返回國內，嘗試著在方興未艾的電動汽車行業一展身手?！翱偛荒軓娖韧鈬艘恢背灾胁桶??！?/p>

中國政府已經決定，官員們也不能繼續積極引導中國消費者購買國產品牌。一個不可避免的現實是：北汽新能源亟需升級改造。

在本土之外鮮為人知的北汽新能源，不僅是中國最大的純電動汽車制造商，也是全球僅次于特斯拉的第二大制造商。這家公司成立于十年前，它的發展在很大程度上得益于政府的鼎力支持。

但現在，中國政府開始逐步收回這些援助。它正在削減最便宜電動汽車的買家所享受的政府補貼，而這類汽車恰恰占據北汽新能源銷量的大頭。此外，中國正在向實力更強的西方制造商開放其電動汽車市場。外界普遍認為，此舉是為了平息全球貿易戰。

有鑒于此，北汽新能源必須大幅提升其技術造詣，而且動作要快。因此，該公司計劃從國外聘請一批電動汽車專家。

中國電動汽車市場的規模遠勝于其他國家。彭博社新能源財經的數據顯示，去年全球共銷售了130萬輛純電動汽車，其中的60%拜中國市場所賜。此外，電動汽車的市場需求增長預計將超過傳統汽車。正因如此，外國公司認為這是一場關乎其未來運勢的戰斗。特斯拉、通用汽車、大眾和寶馬正在加緊擴大各自的地盤。

中國的電動汽車競賽具有重大的地緣政治、經濟和環境意義。對于地球來說，中國發生的事情將是迄今為止對電動汽車能否真正取代燃油汽車的最大考驗，這可能對石油行業和氣候產生巨大影響。在電動汽車競賽的第一階段（西方是主戰場），世界上的傳統汽車巨頭被特斯拉搞得尷尬不已。對于這些公司來說，對中國市場的爭奪將決定它們能否最終挫敗備受爭議的特斯拉CEO埃隆·馬斯克。對中國自身而言，這場競賽將考驗其工業發展是否已經達到一定程度，以至于像北汽新能源這樣的本土公司能夠在一個仍處于起步階段、全球領軍企業尚未鞏固其地位的行業中擊敗西方競爭對手。

彭博新能源財經駐北京分析師寇楠楠表示，中國電動汽車市場正在迫使“國際汽車制造商加快實施其全球電動汽車戰略”。

成立于2009年的北汽新能源是中國最大的汽車制造商之一、國有企業北汽集團的子公司。今年2月，馬坊列被任命為該公司總經理，成為這家擁有約6000名員工的企業的掌門人。北汽新能源表示，他的前任是“由于健康和家庭原因”而離職的。

在書面回答《財富》雜志的問題時，馬坊列承認北汽新能源面臨巨大挑戰。隨著政府補貼的減少，他問道：“新能源汽車如何才能打動消費者？”至于競相涌入中國的西方汽車企業，它們的“品牌積累和技術實力是不容低估的?！钡逼履茉戳私庵袊袌?，并且正在努力改進自己的汽車?！拔覀冋J為，車企之間的競爭最終要看誰的血更多，誰的血流得更慢?！瘪R坊列說。

2018年，根據能源咨詢公司Wood Mackenzie的數據，純電動汽車占中國新乘用車銷量的3.3%，高于2015年的0.7%，是這類汽車在美國市場所占份額（1.3%）的兩倍多。合并計算的話，純電動汽車和插電式混合動力車占2018年中國市場的4.5%。

據彭博社報道，北汽新能源2018年在中國銷售了約15.2萬輛純電動汽車，比中國第二大制造商比亞迪售出的純電動汽車多出近50%。如果加上插電式混合動力車的話，比亞迪是中國最大的插電式汽車制造商，去年售出24.8947萬輛。北汽新能源不生產混合動力車。

中國政府正在考慮制定電動汽車的長期銷售目標。中國汽車工程學會宣稱，到2030年，電動汽車或插電式混合動力車應該占到乘用車銷量的40%。中國的雄心壯志蘊含著三大戰略目標：治理污染、限制石油進口，以及打造有競爭力的電動汽車公司。各級政府一直在通過胡蘿卜加大棒的方式來實現這些目標。

胡蘿卜包括大量的補貼——就某些車型而言，消費者購買一輛電動汽車只需支付官方指導售價的一半。2018年中國最暢銷的電動汽車，是北汽新能源生產的一款名為EC的經濟型轎車：補貼后的實際售價約為8000美元。

對許多司機來說，大棒至少同樣重要。像北京這種以交通堵塞著稱的特大城市，已經大幅減少了傳統車輛的新牌照數量，并且嚴格限制這些車輛在某些地區的行駛時間。但各大城市正在發放更多的綠色電動汽車牌照，同時不限制其行駛時間。

給北汽新能源敲響警鐘的是，中國正在將電動汽車補貼轉向效率更高、每次充電續航能力更強的車型。該公司也在努力應對政府著手取消保護主義政策這一事實。長期以來，這些政策讓國內企業備受嬌慣。

中國仍然要求在境外生產汽車的外國汽車制造商繳納進口稅。但從2018年起，外國企業不再需要與中國企業組建合資企業，就可以在國內生產——從而避免關稅。

中國今年開始實施的一項要求進一步放開了外國競爭。根據這項新政策，任何一家在中國銷售燃油汽車的汽車制造商，要么必須銷售最低數量的電動汽車（這一數字跟相關汽車制造商的總銷量掛鉤），要么從其他汽車制造商那里購買所謂的新能源汽車積分。這是中國效仿加州的一項環保規定。

2018年，大眾汽車在中國僅售出約8000輛電動和插電式混合動力車。據彭博社報道，該公司計劃到明年銷售令人瞠目的40萬輛，到2025年實現高達150萬輛的年銷量目標。此前，當中國仍然要求外國汽車制造商建立合資企業的時候，特斯拉一直拒絕在中國生產。政策調整后，特斯拉改變策略，并于今年1月在上海開工建造它在美國本土之外的首家工廠。特斯拉表示，該工廠每年生產的電動汽車最終將達到50萬輛。

在如此猛烈的沖擊下，北汽新能源陷入掙扎。從明年開始，該公司計劃銷售50萬輛電動汽車，并且正在開拓海外市場。在公司總部的一間會議室（和其他房間一樣，它也是以一個全球大城市的名稱命名的——這間叫“柏林廳”），北汽新能源的工程師王世濤解釋說，中國汽車制造商一直專注于提供諸如Wi-Fi這類輔助汽車功能，但在安全性和高速操控等基本性能方面仍然落后于那些久負盛名的汽車巨頭。

“在最基本的事情上，他們擁有豐富的經驗?！闭劦轿鞣礁偁帉κ謺r，王世濤這樣說道?！霸谖磥?，我們需要關心汽車的質量——不能只是宣稱我們的汽車最便宜?！彼a充說：“我們需要迎頭趕上?！?span>（財富中文網）

本文最初刊載于2019年4月的《財富》雜志，標題為《中國電動汽車市場迎來關鍵時刻》。

譯者：任文科

Inside Beijing Electric Vehicle's headquarters, a glass-and-steel complex on the Chinese capital’s edge, a cafeteria awaits renovation so that cooks can crank out pizza and other Western fare for the posse of foreigners the company expects to hire. “We need to have a more international feeling,” says Wang Shitao, a Chinese engineer who earned a master’s degree in Germany in energy storage before returning to his country to ply his skills in its new and booming electric-car industry. “You cannot force them to eat Chinese food all the time.”

Nor, the Chinese government has decided, can bureaucrats continue to aggressively steer Chinese electric-car buyers to domestic brands. The inescapable reality: Beijing Electric Vehicle needs a tune-up.

All but unknown outside its homeland, Beijing Electric Vehicle, or BJEV, is China’s largest maker of pure-electric vehicles and the world’s No. 2 manufacturer, behind Tesla. A decade old, BJEV owes its growth to state support.

But now the Chinese government is ratcheting back that aid. It’s slashing customer subsidies for the cheapest electric cars, which are the bulk of BJEV’s sales. And it’s opening the country’s electric-vehicle market to greater competition from the West’s better-established automakers, a move widely seen as a bid to tamp down the global trade war.

As a result, BJEV must get a lot more sophisticated, and fast. Thus its plan to hire an army of electric-car experts from abroad.

Because the electric-car market in China dwarfs those of all other countries—China accounted for 60% of the 1.3 million electric-only cars sold globally last year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance—and because the growth in demand for electric cars is expected to outpace that for conventional vehicles, foreign firms see it as a fight for their futures. Tesla, General Motors, Volkswagen, and BMW are ramping up their presence.

The Chinese electric-car race has big geopolitical, economic, and environmental stakes. For the planet, what happens in China will be the biggest test yet of whether electric cars can meaningfully displace gasoline cars, with potentially huge repercussions for the oil industry and the climate. For the world’s conventional-auto giants, embarrassed by Tesla in the electric-car race’s first stage—the one in the West—the scramble on Chinese turf will determine whether they can finally outflank Tesla’s controversial CEO, Elon Musk. And for China, the competition will test whether the country’s industrial push has advanced to the point where homegrown companies, such as BJEV, can best Western rivals in a still-fledgling industry in which global leadership has yet to solidify.

China’s electric-vehicle market is forcing “the international automakers to accelerate their electric-vehicle strategies globally,” says Kou Nannan, a Bloomberg analyst in Beijing.

BJEV, founded in 2009, is a unit of state-controlled Beijing Automotive Group, or BAIC Group, one of China’s biggest automakers. In February, Ma Fanglie was named to lead the unit, which has around 6,000 employees. His predecessor left, the company says, for “physical and family reasons.”

In written answers to questions, Ma acknowledges BJEV’s challenges. With subsidies falling, he asks, “how can new-energy vehicles impress consumers?” As for the Western auto companies piling into China, their “brand accumulation and technical strength cannot be underestimated,” he says. But BJEV knows the Chinese market and is scrambling to improve its vehicles, says Ma: “We believe that the competition between car companies is to see who has more blood and who is bleeding slower.”

Pure electrics accounted for 3.3% of new passenger-car sales in China in 2018, up from 0.7% in 2015 and more than double the U.S. share of 1.3%, according to Wood Mackenzie. Together, pure electrics and plug-in hybrids accounted for 4.5% of China’s market in 2018.

BJEV sold about 152,000 pure-electric cars in China in 2018, according to Bloomberg. That was nearly 50% more than the number of pure electrics sold by China’s No. 2 manufacturer, BYD. Adding plug-in hybrids, BYD was China’s top maker of vehicles that plug into a socket, selling 248,947 of them last year. BJEV doesn’t produce hybrids.

The Chinese government is mulling long-term targets for electric-car sales. China’s Society of Automotive Engineers has said 40% of passenger-vehicle sales should be electrics or plug-in hybrids by 2030. Behind China’s ambition are three strategic goals: combating pollution, curbing oil imports, and building competitive electric-car firms. Governments at every level have been pursuing the goals through carrots and sticks.

The carrot consists of big subsidies, which, in the case of some models, make buying an electric car half as expensive as it would otherwise be. By far the bestselling electric car in China in 2018, an econobox from BJEV called the EC, sold for about $8,000 after subsidies.

For many drivers, the stick has been at least as important. Traffic-clogged megalopolises such as Beijing have greatly reduced the number of new license plates they issue for conventional vehicles and have limited when such cars may drive in certain areas. But cities are issuing more electric-car license plates, which are green, while not restricting when electric cars can be used.

The wake-up call for BJEV was China’s shifting electric-car subsidies to car models that are more efficient and go farther on every charge. The company is also grappling with the government’s eliminating protectionist policies that coddled domestic firms.

China still requires that foreign automakers pay import duties if they manufacture the cars outside the country. But as of 2018, foreign companies no longer need joint ventures with Chinese firms to undertake local manufacturing and thus avoid tariffs.

Further unleashing the foreign competition is a Chinese requirement taking effect this year that any automaker selling petroleum-powered vehicles in the country must either sell a minimum number of its own electric cars—a number pegged to its total-vehicle sales—or buy so-called new-energy-vehicle credits from other automakers. It’s an environmental mandate China modeled on one in California.

VW, which sold only about 8,000 electric and plug-in hybrids in China in 2018, according to Bloomberg, says it plans to sell an eye-popping 400,000 annually by next year and 1.5 million annually by 2025. Tesla, which resisted manufacturing in China when the country still required joint ventures, shifted strategy after the policy changes and broke ground in January on a factory in Shanghai, its first factory outside the U.S. Tesla says the plant will ultimately produce 500,000 electric cars annually.

Amid that onslaught, BJEV is scrambling. It has targeted selling 500,000 electric vehicles annually starting next year, and it is pursuing foreign markets. In a meeting room at the company’s headquarters that, like others, is named for a major global city—in this case, Berlin—Wang, the BJEV engineer, explains that Chinese automakers have focused mostly on ancillary car features, like Wi-Fi, but still lag established auto giants on the basics, such as safety and high-speed handling.

On “the fundamental things, they have the experience,” Wang says of Western rivals. “In the future, we need to care about the quality of the car—not only to say we are the cheapest.” He adds, “We need to catch up.”

This article originally appeared in the April 2019 issue of Fortune with the headline “China’s Electric-Car Showdown.”