中国电动汽车发展趋于成熟

Buoyed by generous subsidies and meteoric sales, more than 200 companies have announced their intention to make and sell new energy vehicles (NEVs) in China.

受益于慷慨补贴和销售火爆，逾200家公司宣布计划在中国生产并销售新能源汽车。

The Chinese government is pushing NEVs, cars that are either partially or fully electric, as part of a new industrial policy known as Made in China 2025, by which time it wants to have created national champions in 10 high-tech industries. China is already the world’s biggest car market and has set the ambitious goal of reaching 7m annual NEV sales by 2025. Last year, it sold 507,000.

中国政府正把新能源汽车作为一项新的工业政策“中国制造2025”的一部分，到那时，中国希望在10个高科技行业缔造国家冠军企业。新能源汽车要么是部分电动汽车，要么是纯电动汽车。中国目前已是全球最大汽车市场，并已制定了一个雄心勃勃的目标：到2025年，新能源汽车年度销量将达到700万辆。去年中国的新能源汽车销量为50.7万辆。

But this gold rush may be over before its starts for some. China is weeding out smaller NEV companies, some of which have sucked up government subsidies without producing commercially viable vehicles. The government hopes this will leave a handful of leaders that could one day compete with the likes of Tesla, the US company which in April surpassed Ford in stock market capitalisation.

但对于一些企业而言，这股淘金潮尚未开始就可能结束了。中国正在淘汰规模较小的新能源汽车公司，其中一些消耗了政府补贴，却没有生产可投入商用的汽车。政府希望此举将让少数领军企业有朝一日能够与特斯拉(Tesla)之流竞争，后者是一家美国公司，今年4月其股市市值超过了福特(Ford)。

China slashed subsidies on car sales by 20 per cent in January and will phase them out completely by 2020. In April, finance minister Xiao Jie signalled his irritation with NEV subsidy cheaters, companies that took subsidies but did not make cars. He said the government would claw back about Rmb2.3bn ($337m) in such concessions.

今年1月，中国将新能源汽车销售补贴下调20%，到2020年将彻底取消这项补贴。今年4月，中国财政部部长肖捷表达了他对骗取新能源补贴的公司（领取补贴但没有生产汽车的公司）的愤怒。他表示，政府已追回骗补资金和罚款约23亿元人民币（合3.37亿美元）。

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Industry is launching a lengthy certification process which requires that NEV production facilities have “mastered” the technology they are manufacturing. Dominik Declercq, head representative of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association in Beijing, says a probable aim of the measure “is to weed out some of the approximately 200 NEV makers who have benefited from state subsidies without, in some cases, having any real R&D capability”.

与此同时，工信部正启动漫长的认证程序，规定新能源汽车生产企业必须具备制造新能源汽车的技术。欧洲汽车工业协会(European Automobile Manufacturers Association)驻中国首席代表多米尼克?德克莱尔(Dominik Declercq)表示，此举很可能带有这样一个目的，即“淘汰近200家新能源汽车生产商中的一些企业，这些企业受益于政府补贴，但其中一些不具备真正的研发能力”。

Another government body, the National Development and Reform Commission, has issued 15 NEV manufacturing permits, and reports suggest authorities will not continue to issue them.

另一个政府机构国家发改委(NDRC)发布了15个新能源汽车制造许可，有报道称，当局不会继续发放这类许可。

The NDRC declined to comment.

发改委拒绝置评。

“The market will always lead to survival of the fittest, and only well-performing companies will survive, generally with some consolidations — not with a market of hundreds of companies making identical, low-end vehicles,” says Xu Haidong, assistant secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

中国汽车工业协会(China Association of Automobile Manufacturers)秘书长助理徐海东表示：“市场将永远是适者生存，只有业绩优秀的公司才会生存，一般是经过一些整合，而不是数百家公司生产相同的低端汽车。”

Many small companies, such as NIO and LeSee, have aspired to emulate the success of Tesla. But Chinese authorities have traditionally been attracted to a model of innovation that focused on national champions — the behemoths of the car industry such as electric battery maker BYD, as well as carmakers GAC, Geely and Changan.

蔚来(NIO)和LeSee等很多小公司一直希望仿效特斯拉的成功。但中国政府传统上感兴趣的是注重国家冠军企业的创新模式，这些企业是汽车行业的巨擘，例如电动汽车电池制造商比亚迪(BYD)和汽车制造商广汽(GAC)、吉利(Geely)和长安(Changan)。

At the same time, it is creating obstacles for smaller companies. China is all but forcing large local and foreign automakers to begin producing NEVs. New rules will require 8 per cent of car sales in China to be electric as early as next year and 12 per cent by 2020 — targets automakers have deemed overly ambitious. Automakers that miss their quotas will have to purchase credits from NEV makers — one industry insider who asked not to be named said this was simply a way for the government to spend less on subsidising NEVs by forcing the auto industry to do so.

与此同时，这正给规模较小的企业制造障碍。中国几乎是在迫使大型国内外汽车制造商开始生产新能源汽车。根据新的规则，明年电动汽车就必须占到各企业在华汽车销量的8%，到2020年将达到12%，汽车制造商认为，这些目标过于雄心勃勃。未能达到这一比例的汽车制造商必须从新能源汽车制造商那里购买积分；一位要求匿名的业内人士表示，政府迫使汽车行业这么做，只是为了减少自己对新能源汽车的补贴支出。

Incentives to produce NEVs include generous subsidies that once amounted to nearly 60 per cent of an electric vehicle’s price. Sales quadrupled in 2015 as a result. The craze over electric vehicles has even sparked heavy trading in China in commodities such as lithium and cobalt, which are key battery components.

生产新能源汽车的激励措施包括慷慨的补贴，这类补贴曾经占一辆电动汽车价格的近60%，其结果是2015年电动汽车销量增加3倍。围绕电动汽车的疯狂热潮甚至在中国引发了锂和钴（它们是重要的电池原料）等大宗商品的活跃交易。

But for many smaller players, NEVs have proven to be a siren song, their allure masking their risks.

但是对许多较小企业来说，新能源车被证明是“海妖之歌”，它们的诱惑掩盖了风险。

Embattled tech conglomerate LeEco may be the most striking warning of a company partly led astray by NEVs. Jia Yueting, the company’s founder and chief executive, wrote a public letter last November admitting that rapid expansion, including into NEVs, was burning cash. LeEco has since struggled and construction on a plant run with Faraday Future, a US partner, has halted.

如果说有哪家公司在一定程度上被新能源车引入歧途，那最引人注目的例子可能是如今陷入困境的科技巨头乐视(LeEco)。该公司创始人和首席执行官贾跃亭在去年发表的一封公开信中承认，快速扩张（包括进军新能源车）的努力正在“烧钱”。乐视自那以来陷入困境，搁置了在美国建厂、并由其美国合作伙伴法拉第未来(Faraday Future)运营的项目。

Weeding out the smaller players would push the survivors towards partnering with larger companies — exactly what Beijing wants.

淘汰较小规模的企业将推动幸存者与较大公司合作，这正是北京方面希望的。

Flashy electric vehicle start-up NIO told the Financial Times that, although it has not obtained a government permit to build NEVs, it does not need one because of its partnership with JAC, a local automaker that does.

高调的电动车初创企业蔚来汽车向英国《金融时报》表示，尽管还没有获得制造新能源车的政府许可，但因为与国内已获许可的汽车制造商江淮汽车(JAC)合作，它并不需要这种许可。

“A lot of companies, big existing ones with their own production permits, would easily open up their shop floors to manufacturing for other brands as a contract manufacturer,” says Thomas Glendinning, a senior analyst at BMI Research.

BMI研究(BMI Research)高级分析师托马斯?格伦迪宁(Thomas Glendinning)表示：“现在拥有生产许可的许多大公司，将可轻易开放车间，作为代工制造商为其他品牌制造汽车。”

Additional reporting by Sherry Fei Ju

俱菲(Sherry Fei Ju)补充报道

The downside of sharing — a car chairman’s view

一位汽车企业董事长的观点：共享的缺点

China’s car industry is casting a wary eye on the rise of the sharing economy, taking a gloomy view of its impact on car sales.

中国汽车业警惕地注视着共享经济的兴起，它们对共享经济对汽车销售的影响持悲观态度。

Feng Xingya, chairman of GAC Motor Group, one of China’s largest domestic carmakers, has laid out a pessimistic vision. “Current predictions are one-in-five in car sharing for shared vehicles — that means in the future if there are 5m shared cars, they will replace 25m private cars,” he said at an automotive conference earlier this month in Chongqing.

中国最大汽车制造商之一广汽集团(GAC Motor Group)的总经理冯兴亚作出了悲观的预测。他在本月早些时候在重庆召开的一个汽车行业会议上表示：“当前的预测是，每辆共享汽车有5个驾车者共享，这意味着未来如果有500万辆共享汽车，那它们将取代2500万辆私家车。”

Mr Feng added that, assuming no shared cars in market, China’s car sales should hit 40m in five years but if 25m were replaced by shared cars — most of which will be electric — “China car sales would be immediately reduced to 15m”.

冯兴亚补充称，假设市场上没有共享汽车，中国的汽车销量将在5年后达到4000万辆，但如果2500万辆汽车被共享汽车取代——大部分将是电动汽车——“中国汽车销量将立即下降至1500万辆”。

GAC declined to clarify the time period to which Mr Feng was referring and said he was speaking hypothetically.

广汽拒绝澄清冯兴亚提及的时间范围，并表示他这么说只是假设。

Most analysts consider those numbers exaggerated, but note they highlight the apocalyptic mindset in the car industry, which faces disruption by a number of new technologies such as autonomous driving and electrification, as well as car sharing.

大多数分析师认为这些数据有所夸大，但是他们指出，这突显出汽车行业的末日心态，除了汽车共享以外，该行业面临着众多新技术的颠覆，如自动驾驶和电气化。

Major cities are encouraging car sharing to mitigate pollution and traffic jams. Beijing and Shanghai have rolled out measures to encourage the industry — including subsidising shared rentals, building charging stations for shared new energy vehicles and encouraging government use of shared new energy cars.

各大城市鼓励汽车共享以缓解污染和交通拥堵问题。北京和上海出台举措鼓励共享行业，包括为共享租赁提供补贴，为共享新能源汽车建设充电站，以及鼓励政府部门使用共享新能源汽车。

China has shown itself uniquely attracted to the car sharing economy. In five years since it was launched, Didi Chuxing, China’s answer to Uber, has surpassed its US rival in most metrics and boasts 17.5m drivers across China.

中国已经表明其对汽车共享经济有独特的吸引力。在推出5年后，滴滴出行(Didi Chuxing)在多数衡量标准上超过其美国竞争对手优步(Uber)，号称在中国有1750万名司机。

But the market is still tiny. According to China's Ministry of Transportation, there are just 40,000 shared rental cars nationwide and 95 per cent are new energy vehicles.

但是这一市场仍然非常小。中国交通部的数据显示，全国只有4万辆共享租赁汽车，其中95%是新能源汽车。

Other predictions for the growth of car sharing are more conservative than Mr Feng’s. A study by consultancy Roland Berger into the temporary car rental market in China estimated that given 45 per cent growth, the number of shared rentals would reach 600,000 by 2025. It did not estimate how many private cars this would replace.

与冯兴亚相比，其他人对共享汽车增长的预测更加保守。咨询公司罗兰贝格(Roland Berger)对中国临时汽车租赁市场进行了调查，结果显示，按45%的增长估计，到2025年共享租赁汽车数量将达到60万辆。它没有估计这将会取代多少私家车。

Shu Chang, a Shanghai-based consultant at Roland Berger, sees car sharing as a longer-term threat to car sales. In 20-30 years, “with the maturity of autonomous driving, people’s need for car ownership will be much smaller and cars will become part of daily infrastructure just like elevators”, he says. “This is when the auto sales market will be significantly harmed.”

罗兰贝格驻上海咨询顾问舒畅认为，从更长期来说，共享汽车会威胁到汽车的销售。他说，20至30年后，“随着自动驾驶技术的成熟，人们拥有汽车的必要性将会大幅下降，汽车将成为日常基础设施的一部分，就像电梯一样，届时汽车销售将会遭受显著冲击。”

Sherry Fei Ju and Charles Clover in Chongqing

俱菲和尔斯?克洛弗(Charles Clover)重庆报道