Chinese auto manufacturers are getting ready to replace around 100 million cars by the end of the decade as the first significant quantities of vehicles bought during the last Chinese auto boom at the beginning of 2010s are getting ready to be scrapped.
Based on China Automotive Technology and Research Center research, the peak of the scrapped cars is expected in 2030, when the demand for a replaced or a second vehicle is expected to peak at 20M units. The average annual demand is estimated at 12M. Despite the data showing the number of replacement buyers falling by four percentage points compared to 2019, the replaced vehicles still made around one third of all car sales or over 6 million units per year since 2020.
Recent survey by one of the leading automotive news outlets in China, Autohome, shows that BYD might reap the most from the replacement and second car market as Shenzhen carmaker was the top choice among consumers who had been looking to replace their ICEV with NEV in the first five months of the year.
The outlet’s survey showed BYD leading among domestic and foreign brand owners. Nearly 40% of domestic ICE brand owners chose BYD, Tesla and SGMW followed at 5% and 4% respectively. Among foreign ICE brand owners. BYD was choice for 34%, Tesla for 12% and GAC Aion around 4%. The only category were BYD did end on top were luxury ICE brand owners. At nearly 16% it took the second place behind Tesla with 18%. Lixiang was the third at 8.6%.
The largest pool of new BYD owners came from Volkswagen. Almost 12% of the new BYD owners recorded between January and May were previously driving a Volkswagen. The second largest pool came from BYD itself, while Toyota owners were the third largest source at 5.67%. Among domestic and foreign brand owners, BYD was first choice for over 20% of the surveyed in both groups. Among luxury brand owners, Audi was the largest source of future customers at 28.14%.
Looks suspiciously to me as if powerful vested interests – linked not least to the mining sector – have succeeded in delaying or stopping the price-crushing, highly-disruptive sodium ion “threat” aka revolution. Predictable – sadly almost inevitable.
Paul G