Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Decision on Amending the" New Energy Vehicle Production Enterprises and Product Access Management Regulations "(draft for Comment)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft for Comment"), and the entry threshold has been relaxed.
From the "Draft for Comments", the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has made ten additions, deletions and modifications to the previous "New Energy Vehicle Production Enterprises and Product Access Management Regulations" (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Order No. 39), of which the most important modifications are: In the third paragraph of Article 5 of the original provisions, the "design and development capability" necessary for new energy vehicle production enterprises is revised to have the "technical support capability" necessary for the production of new energy vehicle production enterprises. In addition, most of the requirements related to design and development were removed.
Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the Association, said that the draft for comments is an adjustment measure for the development of new energy vehicles to keep pace with The Times. Further relaxing the pre-entry threshold, adopting more open and inclusive regulatory measures, and strengthening in-process and post-event supervision will give enterprises and the market more room for choice.
The industry entry threshold has been lowered
According to public information, the current "New energy vehicle access regulations" has been implemented since July 1, 2017, and the "New pure electric passenger vehicle Enterprise Management Regulations" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission on June 6, 2015 said that new energy vehicles "double qualification" management regulations. An enterprise entering the field of new energy vehicles must meet the aforementioned policy requirements in order to obtain the qualifications for the sale and production of new energy vehicles issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission.
Previously, it was extremely difficult to obtain dual qualifications for new energy vehicles, and NIO and Xiaopeng have so far only adopted the mode of cooperating with Jianghuai Automobile and Haima Automobile. Only 18 companies have obtained the production qualification of the NDRC, such as BAIC New Energy and Hezhong New Energy. Only 13 companies have obtained the sales qualification of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, such as BAIC New Energy and Changjiang Automobile.
With the development of the new energy automobile industry, the state is also gradually relaxing the industry access threshold. On January 10, 2019, the new version of the "Regulations on the Management of Investment in the Automobile Industry" replaced the 2015 "Regulations on the Management of New pure Electric Passenger Vehicle Enterprises", and the production qualification of new energy vehicles was therefore transferred from prior approval to record management.
This time, the "draft for Comments" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology made ten additions, deletions and modifications to the current "New energy vehicle access Regulations", the most important modification is "from the enterprise should have the necessary design and development capabilities for the production of new energy vehicle products", modified to "have the necessary technical support capabilities for the production of new energy vehicle products".
From "design and development" to "technical support", when enterprises apply for sales qualification to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, design and development ability is no longer an assessment indicator. In the previous provisions, the requirements for meeting the design and development capabilities are high and many, including eight specific provisions that enterprises should establish special design and development institutions, and be uniformly responsible for the whole process of product design and manufacturing process development.
Anhui Bowei Photoelectric Co., Ltd. focuses on the development and production of air tightness detection equipment for new energy vehicle lithium batteries, fuel pipelines, fuel tanks and air conditioners, and is very concerned about the development trend of new energy vehicles. Bowei helium leak detector Company learned from Cui Dongshu that the development and production of enterprises will be separated, and production is the guarantee function. The complete integration of their own research and development, their own production, their own sales, etc., is inconsistent with the current trend of more and more obvious division of labor in the industry, and the focus of the new energy automobile industry, which belongs to the production and manufacturing link, should be on the completion of production and manufacturing.
In line with the above amendments, the Draft for Comments also amended the "design and development capability" in the "Access review Requirements for enterprises affiliated to enterprise Groups" to "technical support capability; In the "New energy vehicle production enterprise access Application" deleted the total number of professional and technical personnel (people) ", "new energy vehicle product design capabilities and design and development process description (including research and development institutions and personnel, development tools and equipment, development process description, etc.)", "product development main facilities and equipment (including necessary software programs) list"; In the "New energy Vehicle Annual Report", the "new product research and development situation" and "research and development capacity and condition construction situation" were deleted.
In addition, the draft for comments also deleted two requirements related to new energy vehicle production enterprises and product approval, including that new energy vehicle production enterprises that have obtained access should be transformed in accordance with these provisions, and submit a review plan meeting these provisions within 6 months from the date of implementation of these provisions, and pass the review within 24 months.
The new content of the "Draft for comments" is only the five national standards of the "Special inspection projects and Standards for New energy vehicle Products". Specifically, GB/T 33978-2017 "Proton exchange membrane Fuel cell Module for road Vehicles", GB/T 34585-2017 "Technical Conditions for pure electric trucks", GB/T 37154-2018 "Hydrogen Emission Test Method for Fuel cell electric vehicles", GB/T 37153-2018 "Electric Vehicle Low speed tone", GB/T 34598-2017 "Plug-in hybrid electric Commercial vehicle technical conditions".
Open up OEM route, good for industry development
The release of the Draft for Comments has further reduced the industry access threshold. Cui Dongshu said that this is also a new situation in China's new energy vehicle market facing a new situation of reform and opening up, and gradually cooling down after blind investment in new energy vehicle projects in the early stage. Make new energy vehicle production enterprises and product access management regulations more emphasis on production and product quality assurance and other core projects, so that research and development and other front-end work and manufacturing to achieve division of labor cooperation, better promote the transformation and upgrading of existing enterprises, is good for the development of the industry.
Zheng Yun, Roland Berger global partner and vice president of Greater China, said that the draft will separate production and design and development and clear the way for capacity utilization. "There are many vetoes in the current" new energy vehicle access regulations ", and the new adjustment no longer takes the design and development ability of the enterprise as a necessary condition, but has the guarantee ability, which opens up the route for the enterprise foundry."
Zheng Yun also said that the adjustment will be more beneficial for foreign brands. This will promote the further development of the new energy vehicle market as a whole and achieve the 2025 share target as soon as possible.
Mei Songlin, a senior analyst in the auto industry, believes that the draft for Comments is more conducive to the landing of foreign enterprises. The revised regulations separate product design capabilities from production capabilities, creating conditions for some foreign new energy vehicle companies to land production in China, which also means that the new energy vehicle industry is increasing its efforts to open up.
Relaxing entry barriers is not the same as relaxing regulations
Does the release of the Draft mean that it is easier to enter the new energy vehicle industry? Or does it mean deregulation of the industry? Auto analysts say such concerns are misplaced. Zhang Xiang said that after years of development of China's new energy vehicles, the industry has entered the standardized development, new energy vehicle capital investment has calmed down, the state does not need to continue to maintain strict administrative supervision, has come to the market to regulate the development of the industry time.
"Now there are excellent new energy vehicle products such as BYD and Tesla on the market, and the industry competition pattern has also initially formed." New entrants must have certain competitiveness to make consumers choose their products, otherwise they will eventually be eliminated by consumers and the market. The draft seems to lower the threshold, but in fact, there is no need for the state to regulate, because the threshold to enter the industry has been much higher than in previous years." Zhang Xiang said.
Li Qingwen, president of the Automotive Evaluation Research Institute, believes that the view that strict management can ensure quality is backward and does not meet the current era of perfect competition and the actual situation of the Chinese auto market. Only with a fully competitive market to eliminate backward products and technologies is the right way. Relying on approval to raise the threshold for strict control cannot guarantee the health of the industry. Companies with problems in some industries are instead "approved" to come in. Some enterprises that have not been "approved" have become industry leaders, such as NiO and Xiaopeng.
"So from this point of view, lowering the threshold is right, the past provisions are too detailed, according to the past method of approval of enterprises, some have withdrawn from the market, which proves that the past approval terms should be revised."
It is worth mentioning that several enterprises that have obtained the dual qualification of new energy vehicles have been exposed to layoffs, arrears in employee wages, production suspension and other news. Among them, Yangtze River Automobile and Min 'an Automobile have not yet been mass-produced, but came the news of arrears of employee wages and factory shutdown, and Lanzhou Zhidou Automobile is directly into bankruptcy auction.
Wang Binggang, leader of the National New energy vehicle Innovation Engineering expert group, even said that there is no fundamental change and upgrade of China's car access system. To this end, Wang Binggang suggested that we can refer to the access methods of developed countries and change the access approval system to the record system. Let non-third-party testing institutions return to the enterprise, for their own product development and quality testing services, they are responsible for their own reports, provide reports for archiving, do not assume more social functions.