the automobile industry has reached a turning point in history.
in the third quarter, tesla's sales of new energy vehicles exceeded mercedes-benz in the united states, which was the first time in history and a landmark breakthrough in the history of new energy vehicles, because tesla surpassed traditional car companies for the first time in the field of luxury vehicles.
this indicates that the trend of electric vehicles has been formed from a concept to production, growing in doubt, then surpassing the traditional automobile enterprises and subverting the whole industry.
data show that from july to september 2018, tesla sold 69925 vehicles (model 3, s and x), while traditional german brand mercedes-benz sold 66 542 vehicles (excluding commercial trucks freightliner, metris and sprinter).
not to mention, bmw has sold 71,679 cars in the united states in the past three quarters, and tesla's production has approached bmw's. organizations predict that with the release of tesla's production capacity, the likelihood of overtaking bmw in the fourth quarter is very high.
so where are mercedes-benz and bmw in the u.s. automotive sales? through a picture we can see:
as you can see from the chart above, the united states ranks ninth and tenth in car sales in 2017, with mercedes-benz and bmw in close proximity. but at tesla's higher price, if only in the luxury car brand area, sales are already very high.
from december 2017 to may 2018, tesla model 3, with a market share of about 31%, became the highest-selling mid-class luxury car in the u.s. market, beating mercedes-benz c, bmw 3, audi a4 and lexus is.
from the first automobile released in 2008 to full blossom in 2018, tesla has completed a magnificent transformation in 10 years, and the future automotive industry may follow the direction of electric vehicles.
the industry as a whole is weak and automobile enterprises must find a way out
unlike tesla's boom, global growth in new car sales is slowing and may be the first in 10 years. the cold and warm market also shows that automobiles are turning to new energy.
in order to let you have a relatively direct concept, let's first show you a set of data. global automobile sales in 2017 reached 96.8444 million vehicles, an increase of 3.09% over 2016. among them, in 2017, european automobile sales were 20.916 million, an increase of 3.88%, american automobile sales were 25.789 million, a slight increase of 0.93%, and china's sales ranked first, reaching 29.125 million.
that is to say, china's automobile sales last year were larger than the whole european market and higher than the north american market. from a regional perspective, europe, north america and china are the most important automotive markets in the world. but global car sales are slowing.
data from market research institutes predict that global car sales will reach 97 million vehicles this year, a growth rate of only 1.7% compared with 2017, which is significantly lower than the average growth rate of 5% since 2010.
specifically in the united states, japan and other major automobile consumers, car sales also show signs of slowing down. in the united states, sales of new cars in august were 1.482.3 million, down 0.1% from a year earlier; in january-august, total sales of 463.4 million vehicles increased by only 1% from a year earlier. in japan, sales of new cars fell 2% to 4854,000 in september from a year earlier, while in january-september, cumulative sales fell 0.9% to about 402,377,000.
what's more, we can see that volkswagen's global sales data in september show that volkswagen's brand car sales fell by 18.3% to 485,000 vehicles, including 46.4% to 73,000 vehicles in western europe, 47.1% to 233,300 vehicles in germany and 105% to 277,800 vehicles in china.
against the background of the slowdown of global automobile production and sales growth, china's domestic automobile sales also show signs of weakening, which is very normal. reference news network quoted foreign media reports that the performance of most automobile manufacturers in september was weak, with overall sales falling 11.6% year-on-year to 2.39 million vehicles.
the reason is that the preferential range of purchase tax in 2017 is reduced, which leads to the overdraft of passenger car market in 2016. it is also one of the factors that can not be ignored.
recently, some foreign media reported that the china automobile circulation association proposed to halve the purchase tax of 2.0l or less in order to prevent the chinese automobile market from shrinking for decades. subsequently, the china automobile association came out to refute the rumors.
in addition, the emergence of the shared economy may also be one of the factors that reduce the demand for automobiles. according to pwc consulting, by 2030, 37% of the trip will depend on car sharing and self driving cars. in china alone, there are hundreds of shared vehicle operation platforms.
the rise of new energy vehicles in the future
compared with traditional automobiles, new energy automobiles have many natural advantages, such as less pollution, less noise, renewable use of energy and so on, which is also the inevitable way for future development of science and technology. some auto companies even say that they will not produce traditional cars in the next 20 - 30 years, but will instead produce all new energy vehicles.
since it's called a new energy car, it's certainly more environmentally friendly and renewable than previous energy sources. this can ease our dependence on petrochemical energy and solve the problem of limited petroleum energy in the future.
1. the cost of new energy vehicles is low.
for example, electric vehicles consume 15 - 20 kwh of electricity in 100 kilometers, while ordinary cars consume about 10l of fuel. the cost of 100 kilometres is 12 yuan when the cost of domestic electricity is 0.6 yuan; even if the price of 92 gasoline is calculated at 6.0 yuan/l, the cost of 100 kilometres is 60 yuan, which is a new energy.