Competitive strategy for the new energy automobile industry – case study of a automobile company in China

Qiao, Jinghui (2024) Competitive strategy for the new energy automobile industry – case study of a automobile company in China. Master dissertation/thesis, UTAR.

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Abstract

With the continuous progress of society, the global economy has also developed rapidly. Although people’s living standard has improved, at the same time, our environment has also been destroyed, which can be viewed as the result of economic development as well. Therefore, more and more countries are beginning to pay attention to environmental problems. Achieving green and sustainable economic development has become one of the economic development goals of many countries. At present, the world’s reserves of traditional energy are decreasing. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), we know that our world is experiencing an energy crisis. It is caused by many factors, for example, the extraordinarily rapid economic rebound following the pandemic, natural gas price strong increase and others (Global Energy Crisis, 2023). In 2021, energy market has become tightened. Especially, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the situation of global energy crisis escalated dramatically. In addition, gasoline price is continuously increasing, which has achieved the highest level from 2008 as for the gasoline price. This is also one important reason that make more and more people be willing to purchase the new energy vehicles. It is recognized that develop and use the clean energy is one effective way to relive consumers’ economic pressure under the background of rising poverty and slowing economies around the world. Based on the above factors, in order to alleviate the energy crisis and ensure energy security, many countries have begun to develop new energy to replace the traditional energy. The development and utilization of new energy will help relive the pressure of traditional energy reduction and reduce the damage and pollution to the natural environment, which also can be seen as one of the development potentials of the new energy industry. As indicated by Guan et al. (2009), Muntean et al. (2018), Shan et al. (2018), and Shan et al. (2020), China’s CO2 emissions and energy consumption are in the world’s leading position. According to Fang et al. (2022), we know that China ranks first in the world in terms of total carbon emissions, of which transport emissions account for about 11% of the national carbon emissions, and road transport emissions account for about 86% of the total carbon emissions. As the world’s largest developing country, China should actively assume international responsibilities to reduce emissions and protect our environment. In this global context, the Chinese government has introduced the “double carbon” policies, which are carbon neutrality that will be realized in 2030 and carbon emission peak that will be realized in 2060. Although global and China’s annual growth rate of carbon emissions have both decreased in recent years, China’s carbon emissions are still relatively higher than the global carbon emissions (Liu, et al., 2022), which shows that China has a great pressure on reducing emissions and realizing the goal of carbon neutrality. According to the relevant statistics, most of the air pollution is caused by vehicle exhaust emissions, thus, controlling automobile exhaust emissions is of great importance to environmental protection. As Liu et al. (2022) said that transport emissions account for about 25% of the global total carbon emissions. Although our traffic department has issued an implemented a policy to restrict cars from driving, as per capita car ownership continues to rise, the effect of this policy on the environment is limited. Vehicles can be seen as one of the representations of energy consumption. Compared with traditional fuel vehicles, new energy vehicles are undoubtedly a more appropriate choice, especially under the background that energy conservation and environmental protection have become the common goal of the development of all mankind. As early as the 1960s and 1970s, developed countries represented by the United States and Japan had already begun to formulate development strategies for new energy vehicles (NEVs). But at that time, the NEV industry was not well developed. With the continuous emergence of environmental problems such as environmental pollution, the depletion of oil resources, and global warming, people have begun to pay attention to the fields of energy conservation and environmental protection, the development of the traditional automobile industry has been impacted, and the new energy automobile industry has once again received social attention. However, the advantages of NEVs powered by clean energy and relatively less exhaust pollution are welcomed by countries all over the world. In China, new energy vehicle is used to describe automobiles that are fully or mainly powered by electric energy, including plug-in electric vehicles, battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and full cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) (PRTM Management Consultants, Inc., 2011; Shen, S., & Shirouzu, N., 2013). The development of new energy and the improvement of public awareness of environmental protection have made the global market for NEVs continue to expand. After more than ten years of development, the current sales of NEVs still show a good trend of year-on-year growth, so the industry still has great potential for development. The advent of the information age not only accelerates the progress of society, but also makes the market environment constantly changing. The expansion of the consumer market has made the competition among enterprises more intense. Due to the complexity and uncertainty of the market environment (Quan, et al., 2018), NEV companies still face more challenges

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