The actual sales of natural gas heavy trucks exceeded 3000 in January, up 30%! Liberation of more than 1000 vehicles won the championship, and the growth rate of many enterprises exceeded 100%

Sales of 3254 vehicles in January increased by 30% year on year, making a good start in the new year

According to the terminal sales data (compulsory insurance coverage, excluding exports and military products) held by the First Commercial Vehicle Network, in January 2023, 3254 domestic natural gas heavy trucks were actually sold, down 9% from December last year, but the monthly sales remained above 3000. You should know that before December last year, the natural gas heavy truck market had sold less than 3000 vehicles for four consecutive months; The year-on-year growth rate continued to reach 30%, and the natural gas heavy truck market continued to grow until 2023 after achieving a year-on-year increase in the last month of last year.

The line is always at the bottom. In fact, the performance of sticking to the ground began in the second half of 2021. It is obvious that the "cold winter" of the natural gas heavy truck market began in the second quarter of 2021. It can be seen from the above figure that in January of recent years, especially in the three years from 2021 to 2023, the opening performance of the natural gas heavy truck market has not changed much, that is, the level of 3000 vehicles. In 2022, the average monthly sales volume of natural gas heavy truck market was about 3100, and the sales volume in January 2023 was only slightly higher than this level. Therefore, although the natural gas heavy truck market achieved a year-on-year growth of 30% in January this year, should we say that the natural gas heavy truck market has fully recovered? I'm afraid we still need to observe.

Since the second half of 2021, the natural gas heavy truck market has been hovering at a low level because the two major factors affecting the natural gas heavy truck market - demand and gas price have been very unfriendly. In 2022, the most friendly month for LNG price is January, about 5000 yuan/ton. Few other months are less than 6000 yuan/ton, and even more than 8500 yuan/ton at the beginning of March (as shown below). Remember the LNG price in 2020? Less than 4000 yuan/ton, and even less than 3000 yuan/ton for several months. Therefore, from the perspective of gas price, the economic advantage of natural gas heavy truck has been suppressed for a long time.

In January 2023, the price of natural gas showed a downward trend compared with last December, but the decline was quite limited, and the average price was also close to 7000 yuan/ton. According to the analysis of the First Commercial Vehicle Network, the natural gas heavy truck market has achieved growth for two consecutive months (although it is largely due to the low sales volume in the same period last year) under the high gas price, which indicates that the "two consecutive increases" of the natural gas heavy truck market and the "good start" still have some gold content.

From the perspective of terminal sales regions, in January 2023, a total of 22 provinces, cities and autonomous regions across the country had natural gas heavy trucks listed on the road, and the regional distribution still showed a very uneven state. In major resource-based logistics and transportation provinces such as Shanxi and Xinjiang, they "received" most of the sales of natural gas heavy truck terminal markets in January this year (as shown in the figure below). In January, Shanxi and Xinjiang, the top two terminal regions in sales, both accounted for more than 20%, reaching 35% and 25.8%, respectively, In January this year, 1138 and 840 natural gas heavy trucks were listed on the road in Shanxi and Xinjiang, respectively. More than 60% of the natural gas heavy trucks listed in January this year were "Jin" and "Xin"; Ningxia and Hebei ranked third and fourth in the number of licenses, with 308 and 228 natural gas heavy trucks listed in January, accounting for 9.5% and 7% respectively; Shaanxi, Sichuan, Henan and Inner Mongolia, which ranked the fifth to eighth in the number of license plates in the region, also registered more than 100 natural gas heavy trucks in January this year, accounting for more than 3%.