The key to the attraction of new energy to the countryside is to improve the consumption environment.

Promoting new energy vehicles to the countryside is a major project that the relevant state departments have been vigorously promoting in recent years. A few days ago, new energy vehicles went to the countryside to welcome the policy "olive branch". On May 17, the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Charging Infrastructure to Better Support the Rural Revitalization of New Energy Vehicles" (hereinafter referred to as "Opinions") formulated by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration was officially promulgated.

The "Opinions" pointed out that places where conditions permit are encouraged to provide new energy vehicles for rural registered residents in counties where their household registration is located, and provide support such as consumer vouchers; Strengthen the layout of public charging infrastructure and realize the "full coverage of counties" and "full coverage of towns" of regional charging stations suitable for using new energy vehicles; Encourage qualified places to introduce special support policies for the construction and operation of rural public charging infrastructure.

Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Association, said in an interview that the key to the success of new energy vehicles going to the countryside lies in improving the consumption environment, especially the construction of charging piles and rural sales service maintenance system, so that rural new energy vehicle users can realize "easy to buy a car, convenient to use a car and worry-free to repair a car".

Statistics show that from the performance of new energy vehicles going to the countryside in the second half of 2020, 202/kloc-0 and 2022, the sales volume increased by 80%, 169% and 87% respectively, with remarkable results. It is generally believed in the industry that the promulgation of the Opinions is of great significance for speeding up new energy vehicles to go to the countryside, meeting rural demand and boosting rural revitalization.

Promote new energy vehicles to the countryside

Tapping New Growth Points of China's Economy

As the first programmatic policy in China with the main content of promoting charging piles to the countryside, the promulgation of the Opinions can be described as timely. So, what is the consideration for mentioning "new energy vehicles going to the countryside" this time?

The data shows that in the first four months of this year, the domestic sales of new energy vehicles increased by 42.8% year-on-year, which was more than 50 percentage points lower than the annual growth rate in 2022. At this stage, finding new growth points has become an important task for the stable development of the new energy vehicle market.

"The rural population in China is as high as 5 1 100 million, which is an important direction to tap the potential of domestic demand. Accelerating the purchase and use of new energy vehicles by rural residents in areas suitable for the development of new energy vehicles and releasing rural consumption potential will not only help develop rural tourism and help rural revitalization, but also become an important starting point for the country to promote consumption and expand domestic demand. " Zhang Yueyou, a researcher at the Changjiang Industrial Economic Research Institute of Nanjing University, said in an interview that in the past three years, although the number of new energy vehicles in the vast county market in China has increased, the rural new energy vehicle market is still a blue ocean to be developed, mainly in two aspects: large new sales space and large demand for upgrading.

The Study on Electric Vehicle Travel in Rural Areas of China published by China Electric Vehicle committee of 100 shows that cities, small and medium-sized cities, counties and townships without purchase restrictions are expected to become huge incremental markets for new energy vehicles in the future. It is estimated that by 2030, there will be nearly 160 vehicles with thousands of people in rural areas of China, with a total of more than 70 million vehicles, and the market scale may reach 500 billion yuan. According to the data of the Federation, in March 2023, the penetration rate of pure electric passenger cars in counties and townships was 16%, and the penetration rate of plug-in passenger cars in counties and townships was 8%, which still has a lot of room for improvement.

Historically, China has twice introduced the policy of going to the countryside by car. The first time the car went to the countryside was from 2009 to 20 10, and the policy was mainly aimed at mini-cars, that is, cross-border passenger cars; The second bus trip to the countryside is from 20 19 to 2022. During this period, policies related to new energy vehicles going to the countryside were introduced every year. Relevant ministries and commissions launched new energy vehicles to the countryside, local governments followed up financial subsidies, and many car companies launched new models and preferential measures to the countryside.

"In 2009, the first batch of' cars going to the countryside' vehicles has been more than ten years, and it is welcoming the window period of upgrading. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Public Security, in 2022, the number of rural cars in China reached 65.438+0.4 billion, accounting for 44. 1% of the national total. According to the annual replacement rate of 10%, nearly 20 million rural motor vehicles need to be replaced every year. " Zhang Yueyou said.

"After the withdrawal of subsidies for new energy vehicles at the beginning of this year, sales in the first quarter did not meet expectations. In addition, the rural market itself is also a very large market. Now many people have gradually accepted new energy vehicles. Carrying out activities in rural areas at this time will help promote the consumption of new energy vehicles. " Tong Zongqi, Deputy Secretary-General of China Automobile Industry Association Charging and Changing Branch and China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, said.

On the other hand, there are many kinds of motor vehicles in rural areas of China. Including so-called agricultural vehicles, low-speed electric vehicles, diesel vehicles, gasoline vehicles and a large number of "used cars" with serious emissions exceeding the standard. This time, it is also of great significance to continue to promote new energy vehicles to the countryside, speed up emission control in rural transportation, and achieve the goal of "double carbon" as scheduled.

Xu Haidong, deputy chief engineer of China Automobile Association, suggested that the rural market is the increment of the future development of China automobile market, and automobile enterprises need to develop adaptive models according to the needs of rural consumers.

"Rural residents pay more attention to cost performance when buying a car, and it is difficult to have a market than models with higher prices of fuel vehicles of the same class; In addition, farmers pay more attention to the multi-purpose of one car, such as taking into account special needs such as transportation, agriculture and cargo pulling, and require new energy vehicles to have not only travel functions, but also production functions. " Zhang Yueyou also said that new energy vehicles need a considerable number of micro-surface, pickup trucks, micro-cards, light trucks and other products to go to the countryside.

Solve the difficulties in the construction of charging infrastructure

The industry calls for the introduction of financial subsidy rules

In fact, there are still some difficulties in promoting new energy vehicles in rural areas. For example, there are some problems in rural areas, such as insufficient construction of public charging infrastructure, difficult installation of charging facilities in residential areas, and prominent contradiction between supply and demand in different periods, which restrict the release of consumption potential of new energy vehicles in rural areas.

"I chose a new energy vehicle because I can save a lot of money on fuel consumption in one year. But my family lives in the countryside and there is no infrastructure such as charging piles. Finally, I ran downtown to find a charging station. Sometimes the location is full and it takes some time to charge. " Ms. Zhang from Zhoukou, Henan Province, told reporters that the biggest headache in using new energy vehicles at present is to find charging piles everywhere.

In addition to the uneven distribution of charging infrastructure, issues such as cruising range, safety and pile construction cost have also become the most important issues for rural consumers when choosing new energy vehicles. In addition, how to ensure the smooth after-sales service and supporting service process of new energy vehicles in the rural market is also one of the topics concerned by rural consumers.

In this regard, Zhang Yueyou said frankly that there are two main reasons for the current shortage of rural charging infrastructure: First, the market is invalid. In rural areas, the number of new energy vehicles is small, the operation and maintenance cost of charging facilities is high, and the return on investment is poor, so charging operators are reluctant to invest in construction. Second, the government is difficult. The deep-seated problems of rural charging infrastructure construction lie in the difficulty of site land use and power grid expansion.

"In terms of land use, the construction of public charging piles and stations needs to go through the corresponding land procedures, while rural land is mostly collective land. The collection of charging piles requires both policy support and collective consent of farmers; In terms of power grid, the construction of charging piles in rural areas, especially high-power fast-charging piles, needs certain power capacity support. Public transformers in towns and villages often cannot meet the demand and need to be replaced in large quantities. Even rural power grids need to be upgraded and expanded, which not only involves a wide range, but also costs a lot. " Zhang Yueyou said.

Based on this, the Opinions takes "charging piles first" as an important orientation, combining the most prominent infrastructure supporting problems and previous rural promotion experience, and carries out top-level design from three aspects of charging pile construction, operation and maintenance, and formulates five detailed rules for construction, operation and maintenance, aiming at accelerating the process of convenient use and popularization of new energy vehicles in rural areas.

Regarding how to support local governments and enterprises to jointly promote the work, the Opinions proposes to promote it from three aspects: finance, land and electricity. In terms of financial support, the policy proposes to use local government special bonds and other tools to support the construction of qualified charging and replacing infrastructure such as expressways and ordinary national and provincial trunk highway service areas (stations), bus and tram stations and bus passenger stations. In terms of land use and electricity consumption, we will increase support such as land use security, carry out the construction and transformation of supporting power grids, and enhance the support and guarantee capacity of rural power grids.

The Opinions require local governments to issue special policies to support rural charging infrastructure construction, but they do not give specific guidelines on subsidy standards. In this regard, many enterprises engaged in the construction of charging infrastructure reflect that at the specific implementation level, they expect to introduce financial subsidy rules for charging infrastructure construction as soon as possible.

"Promoting new energy vehicles to the countryside cannot rely solely on financial subsidies. We must support the corresponding thresholds and environmental policies, and mobilize various forces such as OEMs, aftermarket service providers and charging infrastructure operators to jointly promote them. " Zhang Yueyou suggested that the existing space should be revitalized in infrastructure construction such as charging, including widening roads, increasing parking spaces along roads, laying open spaces and opening public parking lots, so as to build more parking spaces for new energy vehicles.

In terms of after-sales service, Zhang Yueyou said that on the one hand, in view of the problems that consumers are concerned about that the warranty period is not long enough and the residual value of electric vehicles is low, the warranty period is appropriately extended and the battery warranty conditions are relaxed for rural use scenarios; On the other hand, the government should promote the healthy development of the new energy used car market, improve the recycling system, and improve the residual value of electric vehicles to return to the reasonable range of the market.

In the past ten years, for the demonstration and promotion of new energy vehicles, charging pile enterprises have been crossing the river by feeling the stones-the business model is not closed-loop, and the business profitability is difficult, which has always been a problem hanging over the charging pile enterprises. In this regard, Tong Zongqi suggested that local governments should introduce more policies to support rural charging infrastructure construction according to their own financial situation, such as providing construction subsidies and operating subsidies.

Although there are still many problems to be solved urgently when new energy vehicles go to the countryside, as Su Hui, executive vice chairman of china automobile dealers association Tangible Market Chamber of Commerce, said, the policy of going to the countryside has proved to be a valuable experience in driving China's automobile industry and automobile market as a whole, and its future results are worth looking forward to and paying attention to.