Hybrid vehicles are becoming popular, and their global market share will reach 5% this year

Benefiting from China's new version of the new energy vehicle points system and the expansion of the market size in Europe, the United States, and Japan, the market opportunities of hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) have attracted much attention. It is estimated that the global market share of hybrid electric vehicles will reach 5% in 2019. In contrast, the global pure electric passenger car market share is only 2%...

EnergyTrend, the green energy research division of market research firm TrendForce, said that thanks to China's new version of the new energy vehicle points system and the expansion of the markets in Europe, the United States, and Japan, the market opportunities for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) have attracted much attention. It is estimated that the global market share of hybrid electric vehicles will reach 5% in 2019. In comparison, the global pure electric passenger car market share is only 2%.

TrendForce senior research manager Lu Lishun pointed out that the Chinese government announced a new points system in June, which greatly increased the importance of points for hybrid vehicles. Previously, hybrid vehicles were regarded as traditional vehicles in China and were not eligible for points, but under the new system, they began to have market value in the form of points.

In addition, Volkswagen also announced that its mainstream models will begin to introduce hybrid systems in 2020, allowing the battery industry to expand from mid-to-high-end models to mass-market models. While electric vehicles still need to overcome the infrastructure issues of the charging environment, traditional gasoline vehicles have begun to set off a trend of hybrid power parity.

Lu Lishun said that the hybrid market is currently divided into two major trends, namely, mild hybrid/micro hybrid (Mild/Micro Hybrid) dominated by Europe, and strong hybrid (Strong Hybrid) led by Japanese car manufacturers. Judging from the development of various countries, the main driving force of the hybrid market still comes from the increasingly stringent emission regulations. For 48V mild hybrid systems, Europe is expected to fully implement a strict limit of no more than 95 grams/kilometer of carbon dioxide emissions in 2020-2021, especially for mid-sized mainstream models with high sales.

Europe has been slow to introduce hybrid systems, and without advantages in patents and costs, it has chosen to use gasoline vehicles as the main architecture, with minimally modified mild hybrids/mild hybrids to meet the most basic emission standards and effectively control the cost of power system modifications. Hybrid systems have now been gradually introduced to mainstream models.

As for Japan, full hybrid is the main focus. Japan will form a market dominated by strong hybrid and even plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), mainly because of early development investment, which allows the overall vehicle cost to remain in the middle price. In addition, as battery prices fall, Japanese car manufacturers are gradually switching from nickel-metal hydride batteries to lithium batteries. In addition, with the improvement of charging environment, they have recently actively guided some strong hybrid systems to plug-in hybrid systems.

In recent years, China has also begun to pay attention to the fuel efficiency of gasoline vehicles. The Chinese government plans to reduce the average fuel consumption from 6.9 to 5 L/100km from 2015 to 2020. New energy vehicles will become the key to meeting fuel consumption and emission requirements. China has been developing new energy vehicles for a long time, but due to the guidance of subsidy amounts, most of them are pure electric vehicles.

TrendForce believes that hybrid vehicles will become the main type of vehicle in the European, American and Japanese markets, and their growth rate will exceed that of pure electric vehicles. Whether China can keep up with the hybrid trend driven by the new points system will also be a focus from 2019 to 2020.

In terms of battery systems, although some car manufacturers have developed 12V or 48V micro-hybrid systems, the 48V design can support mild hybrid power, and the overall battery design will still retain the 12V battery, which will only be converted to 48V to drive when the load is large, such as the air conditioning compressor. If the hybrid vehicle has a voltage system above 12V, lead-acid batteries and lithium batteries can be selected.

Lead-acid batteries have lower costs but occupy a higher space. According to TrendForce, in order to achieve lightweight design, most car manufacturers will give priority to lithium batteries for voltage systems above 12V. Driven by the continued growth of hybrid vehicles above 12V, the total battery consumption of hybrid vehicles (lithium and nickel-metal hydride batteries, excluding 12V lead-acid) in 2019 will reach 10.68GWh, a 49% increase over last year.