Under the vision of achieving carbon neutrality, how can the global new energy vehicle industry better achieve marketization? How can relevant government departments and enterprises work together to promote the realization of carbon neutrality? At the 2021 World New Energy Vehicle Conference held recently, participants focused on the theme of "fully promoting marketization, accelerating cross-industry integration, and working together to achieve carbon neutrality" for discussions.

　　"Green and low-carbon development and accelerating the transition to electrification are the main paths for the automotive industry to achieve carbon neutrality. We need to jointly build a good industrial development environment, break through development bottlenecks, strengthen cross-border collaboration, continuously expand the application scale of new energy vehicles, and comprehensively promote the green and low-carbon development of the entire life cycle and the entire industrial chain of new energy vehicles." Wan Gang, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology, pointed out.

　　 The inflection point for full marketization has arrived.

　　Statistics show that in 2020, global sales of new energy vehicles in major countries exceeded 3.2 million units, with China's sales reaching 1.367 million units, accounting for 5.4% of new vehicle sales. By the end of 2020, global cumulative sales of new energy vehicles exceeded 10 million units, with China accounting for more than 50%.

　　"Globally, the market share of new energy vehicles is rapidly increasing, especially in countries and regions such as the European Union and China, where new energy vehicles are experiencing a breakthrough inflection point in full marketization." Wan Gang said.

　　Wan Gang pointed out that after nearly 10 years of development, the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China has increased from 1% to 10%. "The accelerating growth rate indicates that user demand will be the main driving force for market development, and the entire new energy vehicle market is moving towards a stage driven by both policy and market, with more reliance on market forces."

　　Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology, introduced that under the support and guidance of national policies, the new energy vehicle industry has developed rapidly, showing a good momentum of simultaneous improvement in market scale and development quality, with production and sales scales reaching new highs, the vigorous development of Chinese brands, new progress in technological innovation, and new achievements in international development.

　　With the deepening impact of a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, cross-border collaboration has become an inevitable trend in industrial development. The convergence and empowerment of "vehicle-energy integration," "vehicle-road collaboration," and "vehicle-grid interconnection" inject new impetus into the high-quality development of the new energy vehicle industry.

　　 Urgent need to overcome technological bottlenecks

　　Behind the booming market for new energy vehicles, there are still concerns. Technological bottlenecks such as limited low-temperature performance of vehicles, frequent high-temperature performance problems, hydrogen supply for fuel cells, and system and cost issues need to be overcome.

　　Xin Guobin pointed out that China's new energy vehicle industry faces new challenges. The industry itself has shortcomings, the cost of new energy vehicle is too high, safety and reliability, low-temperature practicality, and ease of use still need to be improved; in addition, the recycling channels for power batteries are not smooth enough, and key components of electric vehicles, power batteries, face pressure from resource security and price increases of lithium, cobalt, and nickel.

　　The "2021 World New Energy Vehicle Conference Consensus" released during the conference calls on all parties to strengthen international exchanges and cooperation, strengthen upstream and downstream industrial chain collaboration, strengthen power battery recycling, and jointly address challenges such as the research and development, production, supply, and resource shortages of power batteries and automotive-grade chips.

　　Xiang Libin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology, emphasized that the current efforts to achieve carbon neutrality have become an international consensus. Carbon neutrality in the automotive industry is a complex system project that requires a systematic approach and collaborative efforts to promote energy saving and emission reduction throughout the life cycle and the entire industrial chain of the automotive industry.

　　"We should vigorously develop power battery technology as the main direction for achieving vehicle-energy synergy, use the development of fuel cell vehicles to drive the application of green hydrogen energy and energy transformation, and unswervingly adhere to the direction of intelligent development, using technological innovation to cultivate new impetus for the development of the new energy vehicle industry." Xiang Libin said.

　　 Strengthening collaboration across the entire industrial chain

　　Promoting the low-carbon development of the entire life cycle and the entire industrial chain of new energy vehicles is a major current issue. "The market has a huge demand for zero-emission vehicles, and we are ready to seize this opportunity. Accelerating the transformation of the transportation sector is very important, and it must rely on greater efforts from transportation, energy, and smart grid operators, as well as seamless international cooperation and experience sharing." Dan Dona, Director of the Secretariat of the Clean Energy Ministerial, expressed his expectations for the future of green travel.

　　Wang Xiaoqiu, President of SAIC Motor Corporation Limited, said that the choices of market users are the long-term determining force for achieving the vision of carbon neutrality. SAIC Motor's emission reduction work will focus on the product end, accelerating the extension to the production end and the use end, and focusing on the development of new energy vehicles.

　　Li Bin, founder, chairman, and CEO of NIO, hopes that industry departments will promote consensus, set clear emission reduction targets for the industrial chain; form cooperative alliances to jointly promote the green industrial chain; and national policies will support the acceleration of the carbon neutrality process of the industrial chain.

　　Xin Bao'an, chairman of the State Grid Corporation of China, introduced that the State Grid will further improve the standard system and promote the revision and formulation of standards for two-way interaction between vehicles and grids, charging and swapping facilities, and distributed energy storage.

　　Regarding the automotive industry's move towards carbon neutrality, Wan Gang put forward suggestions: First, strengthen joint research and academic exchanges on carbon neutrality technologies in areas such as new energy vehicle products, energy supply, material supply, production and manufacturing, and transportation; second, strengthen upstream and downstream collaboration in the industrial chain, key material recycling, and jointly maintain the stability, improvement, and development of the global industrial chain and supply chain; third, explore international mutual recognition of low-carbon certification standards for complete vehicles and key components, and promote the interconnection of carbon emission information for automotive products; finally, establish a cooperation and dialogue mechanism in the field of low-carbon management policies for the global automotive industry, and form an international automotive trade low-carbon management mechanism based on fairness and collaboration.