Electric heavy-duty trucks, as a low-emission clean energy machinery, have attracted more and more attention. The "White Paper on the Development of China's Electric Heavy Truck Industry (2023)" jointly released by the research institution EVTank and the Evie Economic Research Institute recently shows that the output of China's electric heavy trucks will be 25,500 in 2022, a substantial increase of 102.2% year-on-year. The rate rose to 3.79%.

After the withdrawal of the "National Subsidy" in 2023, new energy heavy trucks will face a real market test. According to the terminal registration data, in January, the sales of new energy heavy trucks were 1,439 units, a year-on-year decrease of 37%. Among them, 1,373 electric heavy trucks were sold (excluding fuel cell heavy trucks and hybrid heavy trucks), a year-on-year decrease of 39%. However, due to the addition of objective factors such as the Spring Festival holiday, the decline in sales in January has particularities. The industry still generally has confidence in the market performance of new energy heavy trucks, and believes that electric heavy trucks will resume high-speed growth in late 2023.

Ouyang Minggao, vice chairman of the China Electric Vehicle 100, said at the expert media exchange meeting of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum (2023) that the electrification of heavy trucks will start in 2022 and will continue to grow at a high speed in 2023, and the growth rate is expected to reach 90%. -100%. "In 2022, 25,500 electric heavy trucks will be sold, which is an important starting point. Among them, 1,250 fuel cell heavy trucks will be sold, which is a very good result."

It is worth mentioning that in recent years, the battery swap model is becoming the growth engine of new energy heavy trucks. According to the terminal registration data, the cumulative sales of new energy heavy trucks in 2022 will be 25,152 units, a year-on-year increase of 141%. Among them, a total of 12,431 units of battery-swapped heavy trucks were sold, a year-on-year increase of 2.7 times. The growth rate far outperformed the market for new energy heavy trucks, accounting for nearly 50% of the share of new energy heavy trucks. Ouyang Minggao believes: "Among the electric heavy trucks sold in 2022, charging and battery replacement products are growing rapidly, and nearly half of them are battery replacement heavy trucks, indicating that the battery replacement model has been accepted by the market and is economical. It is expected that the proportion of battery replacement will be in the future. It will exceed 50%, and even reach 70%."

Zhang Xiang, dean of the New Energy Vehicle Technology Research Institute of Jiangxi New Energy Technology Vocational College, said in an interview with reporters earlier: "The combination of battery replacement and electric heavy trucks can effectively reduce costs. The operating characteristics of some electric heavy trucks are that the lines are fixed, which is also easy to install. Build a power station."

As pure electric heavy trucks in the battery swap mode are becoming more and more popular in the market, many companies have also accelerated the layout of related businesses. For example, in February 2023, GCL Nengke launched the extreme cold battery replacement solution to overcome the energy replenishment problem of electric heavy trucks in low temperature environments. The first batch of stations will be put into operation in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Hebei and other places.

At the same time, many places have also introduced policies to encourage and support the development of heavy trucks in 2022. For example, Yibin City plans to build 60 power-swapping stations by 2025, promote 3,000 heavy-duty trucks, and provide a purchase subsidy of 300 yuan per kilowatt-hour for heavy-duty trucks.

An industry expert told reporters: "In the future, policy support alone is not enough to further promote the electrification of heavy trucks. It is necessary to align the technical route with the real market demand, allow different technical routes to compete freely, and find a long-term effective method that does not rely on subsidies. "

Overall, as the heavy truck industry enters a new growth cycle, the development of related technologies and the improvement of charging and swapping infrastructure, the electrification process of heavy trucks will further accelerate. CITIC Securities predicts that in the next three years, electric heavy trucks are expected to accelerate their penetration into the market, with sales reaching 190,000 in 2025, with a penetration rate of about 16%. Editor/Xu Shengpeng