爲何電動汽車市場晦暗無光

Even for a foreign visitor to Shanghai, renting an electric car is easy. All that's required is a valid driver's license and a passport. And it's surprisingly cheap: eHi Car Service Ltd. charges the equivalent of just $25 a day for a Chinese-built Roewe with a range of about 90 kilometers.

就連外國遊客都能在上海輕而易舉地租輛電動汽車，只需要一張有效駕照和一張護照。而且租金還出奇地便宜：一嗨汽車租賃有限公司(eHi Car Service Ltd.)一輛續航里程90公里的國產榮威(Roewe)租金僅相當於25美元/天。

But having completed the paperwork, picked up the keys and eased silently into Shanghai's chaotic traffic, the first-time electric car driver in the city quickly notices that nobody else appears to be driving one. In fact, there are at most 500 electric cars in Shanghai out of a total of about one million passenger vehicles, according to Zhang Dawei, the founder of EV Buy, a Shanghai company that sources and services electric cars for individuals and corporate users.

但在填完表格、拿到鑰匙、悠然加入到上海車流之中後，你很快就會發現，似乎別人沒有開電動汽車的。事實上，高瞻電動車(EV Buy)創始人張大偉說，在上海的大約100萬乘用車保有量中，電動汽車頂多只有500輛。高瞻電動車是一家上海公司，面向個人和企業用戶提供電動汽車經銷、配套服務等業務。

In fairness, electric cars have met consumer resistance everywhere, not just in China. Carmakers around the world have struggled to improve battery technology. Still, Shanghai's dismal failure to popularize electric vehicles, despite a national auto policy to go electric--and generous subsidies for consumers--speaks to the immense challenges that China's leaders face in rolling out an ambitious program of economic overhauls approved at a Communist Party meeting this month. Those policies are intended to encourage innovation that leads to higher-quality and more sustainable growth driven by consumption--precisely the logic behind China's drive to build an electric car industry.

平心而論，電動汽車在全球各地都遭遇了消費阻力，不止是在中國。全球汽車製造商都在竭力提高電池技術。儘管中國汽車政策的方向是推廣電動汽車，而且還爲消費者提供慷慨補貼，但上海普及電動汽車的努力還是遭遇了挫敗，這體現出中國領導人在貫徹三中全會經濟改革方面面臨的巨大挑戰。經濟改革的目標是鼓勵創新，並以此實現高質量的、更加可持續的消費驅動型增長模式，而這正是中國打造電動汽車行業計劃的初衷。

More than a decade ago, state industrial planners seized upon electric cars as the answer to a set of industrial, environmental and national-security dilemmas. Developing electric cars, the planners thought, would enable China to leapfrog the world's leading manufacturers of combustion engine vehicles, who China otherwise could never hope to challenge. It would also reduce China's rapidly growing dependence on imported oil, which leaves the world's second-largest economy vulnerable to destabilizing supply shocks. And it would mitigate chronic pollution in Chinese cities.

十多年前，國家工業規劃部門把電動汽車當做解決工業、環境、國家安全等一系列問題的鑰匙。規劃者們認爲，發展電動汽車將使中國另闢蹊徑、不必再糾纏於內燃機汽車領域，中國遠遠不是國際先進內燃機汽車廠商的對手。另外，發展電動汽車還可使中國降低對進口石油日益嚴重的依賴，這種依賴令中國很容易受到供應震盪的威脅。同時，中國城市長期污染的問題也將得到緩解。

In the West, many assumed that these policy imperatives, combined with China's vaunted prowess at rolling out transport infrastructure--as well as government ownership of the country's big carmakers--would assure the success of the national push for electric vehicles. China, it was widely thought, had the chance to lead the world in an emerging technology, while pioneering a more sustainable urban growth model. Even Warren Buffett took a stake in Shenzhen-based battery and electric carmaker BYD in 2008.

西方國家很多人認爲，考慮到中國的這些政策規定，再加上中國在交通基礎設施建設方面的高歌猛進，以及大型汽車製造商的國有性質，中國推動電動汽車發展的戰略必將取得成功。外界曾經廣泛地認爲，在探索更具可持續性的城鎮化增長模式的同時，中國將有可能引領全球新興科技的潮流。就連巴菲特(Warren Buffett)也在2008年入股總部位於深圳的電池和電動汽車生產商比亞迪(BYD)。

But China's electric car strategy hasn't worked out. Why?

但中國的電動汽車戰略並未取得成效。這是爲什麼呢？

First, state planners badly miscalculated consumer demand. The wealthy elite have little interest in buying an electric car to flaunt their concern for the environment: For them, a car is still the prized marker of wealth and social status. The less well off, particularly first-time car buyers, who constitute the vast majority of car buyers in China, aspire to the thrill and freedom of the road--and a limited driving range is a turn-off.

首先，國家規劃部門嚴重誤估了消費需求。富裕階層對購買電動汽車、標榜自己的環保意識興趣不大：對他們來說，汽車仍是財富與社會地位的標誌。而對經濟條件較差的人羣，特別是佔絕大多數的初次購車者來說，他們渴求的是駕車上路的那種興奮、自由的感覺，電動汽車續航里程的限制是一個致命弱點。

On the supply side, state carmakers dropped the ball, says Greg Anderson, a U.S.-based auto industry consultant and the author of the book 'Designated Drivers: How China Plans to Dominate the Global Auto Industry.' The incentive for state auto firms isn't to innovate, but 'to get as big as possible, as fast as possible, and make as much money as possible,' he says. That's best achieved by milking their existing joint ventures with foreign auto makers rather than sinking resources into new technologies.

美國的汽車行業諮詢師、《代駕司機：中國如何計劃佔領全球汽車市場》(Designated Drivers: How China Plans to Dominate the Global Auto Industry)一書的作者Greg Anderson說，在供應方面，中國國有汽車製造商犯了一個錯誤，它們的動機不是創新，而是儘可能快地做大，賺儘可能多的錢。它們一心利用與海外汽車廠商組建的現有合資企業賺錢，而不是投入資源進行技術革新。

State carmakers all paid lip service to the government's electric car strategy by coming up with working models, says Mr. Anderson. But they failed to deliver breakthroughs in core technologies, including batteries and battery management systems. So today, while hundreds of combustion engine car models compete in the world's largest car market, there are only a handful of electric vehicles in production for consumers to choose from.

Anderson表示，對於中國政府發展電動汽車的戰略，國有汽車廠商往往通過設計一些模型來敷衍了事。在電池和電池管理系統等核心技術方面，它們都未能取得突破。因此在中國這個全球最大的汽車市場，現在雖然有上百種內燃發動機汽車，卻只有少數幾種已經投產的電動汽車可供消費者選擇。

For its part, the government failed to deliver the infrastructure. According to China's current five-year plan--a holdover strategy from the Stalinist economy--there are supposed to be more than 400,000 charging piles nationwide by 2015. But in today's Shanghai, a city of 24 million people, only 1,000-2,000 have so far been installed, says Mr. Zhang of EV Buy--far off the pace required to help China achieve its goals.

從政府這方面來講，它沒有做到給市場發展提供完善的基礎設施。根據當前的“十二五”規劃，到2015年中國將建成超過40萬個充電樁。但是高瞻電動車的張大偉說，在擁有2,400萬人口的上海，目前只建成了1,000-2,000個充電樁，遠遠達不到實現“十二五”目標的速度。

Bureaucratic infighting partly explains the inertia in developing the industry. For example, State Grid Corp, the near-monopoly grid operator, has been pushing to own the battery market by promoting a national battery swapping system for car owners, says Axel Krieger, a principal in the Beijing office of McKinsey & Co. That arrangement would give it a large part of the industrial value chain, but is resisted by car manufacturers, who want to use their own batteries.

官僚鬥爭也是造成電動汽車行業發展緩慢的一個原因。比如，麥肯錫(McKinsey & Co., Inc.)北京分公司的管理人士柯明逸(Axel Krieger)就指出，國家電網公司(State Grid Corporation of China)通過推進構建覆蓋全國的智能充換電服務網絡，希望藉此控制電池市場。這種模式將使國家電網佔據行業價值鏈的一大部分，但遭到了電動汽車廠商的抵制，後者希望使用自己的電池。

In addition, local governments have been promoting their own technical standards as a protectionist measure to support local car makers. It's hard to drive an electric car from one city to another when plugs aren't compatible. 'Every local warlord defends their own standards and technologies,' says Mr. Krieger.

另外，地方政府一直在推行自己的技術標準，作爲扶持本地汽車廠商的一種保護措施。在充電器插頭不兼容的情況下，電動汽車很難從一個城市開到另一個城市。柯明逸說，每個地方政府都在保護自己的標準和技術。

Finally, foreign auto makers have been scared away by government attempts to force them to hand over their intellectual property in electric vehicles in exchange for market access.

最後，中國政府要求外國汽車廠商交出電動汽車知識產權以換取市場準入的做法也嚇跑了許多外國廠商。

The upshot of all this is that China is hopelessly behind on its target for electric car ownership. The five-year plan calls for 500,000 battery-electric and plug-in electric vehicles by 2015, and five million by 2020. But last year, Chinese consumers bought only 11,375 electric cars and 1,416 plug ins, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. That's despite subsidies that go as high as $20,000 per car.

由此造成的結果是，中國電動汽車的保有量遠遠落後於目標。根據“十二五”規劃，到2015年中國純電動汽車和插電式混合動力汽車的數量將達到50萬輛，並在2020年達到500萬輛。但中國汽車工業協會(China Association of Automobile Manufacturers)的數據顯示，2012年中國消費者僅購買了11,375輛純電動汽車和1,416輛插電式混合動力汽車，儘管每輛車政府最高給予2萬美元的補貼。

The Chinese government's new strategy appears to be to promote plug-in hybrids as an interim technology before fully electric cars kick in. That appears to be a pragmatic response to the collapse of a key policy initiative. But it's a lesson in the potholes that President Xi Jinping faces on his long road to creating an innovative economy.

中國政府的新策略似乎是在普及純電動汽車前，先把插電式混合動力汽車作爲一項中間過渡技術進行推廣。這似乎是對普及純電動汽車的政策倡議失敗採取的務實對策。但是，這也是習近平在發展創新型經濟的漫長道路上碰到的一個教訓。