Analysis of China Tourist Coach Market in the First Quarter of 2012 ⅠB

www.chinabuses.org :
 
 
Part Three: New energy coaches are now gradually popular in tourist coach market. But now, the new energy coaches are still not the mainstream coach products in the tourist coach market. The development of the CNG coaches is the main force that contributes to the new energy coaches, but the hybrid coaches and pure electric coaches are now in the decline status.

Table Three: Sales statistics of China tourist coaches driven by different fuels in the first quarter of 2012
    

In the first quarter of 2012, it sells 10,111 units of tourist coaches. The new energy coaches account for 2.3 precent of the total sales of tourist coaches. Most of them are CNG coaches and a few are hybrid coaches and pure electric coaches. Compared to the sales of the first quarter in 2011, the new energy coach's sales growth in the tourist coach market is 10.38 percent.

According to the market research, as we know, the natural gas is rich in Sichuan Province, Chongqing Province etc., so the new energy coaches, especially CNG coaches are suitable for the tourist coach market in these areas and become the popular coach products. However, for the hybrid coaches and the pure electric coaches, at this moment, they are impossible to become the main coach products in the tourist coach market. The main reasons are following:
　　

1. The demand of the new energy tourist coach in tourism market is different from the other markets' demands. It is the inter-city coaches for tourism, so its driving range cannot generally be confined in a city and it should have the above 300 km cruising ability. Besides, it requires convenient and quick energy supplement. At present, as the main new energy vehicle model -- the pure electric coaches, the cruising ability of it only run less than 300 Km mileage.

2. Because all kinds of new energy vehicles are driven by different types of powers, so there exists this or that kinds of problems, such as:

(1) The coaches with hydrogen fuel cells as power could make the coach be zero emissions and high efficiency. But its manufacturing costs and maintaining cost are very high. Besides, it is not convenient to add fuel, and the supporting facilities is not perfected.

(2) The hybrid coaches have some advantages such as high efficiency, convenient fuel supplementary, strong cruising ability and the perfect facilities. But due to the high costs of both  the manufacturing and maintenance together with its own weight and fuel supplementary, the users also have to choose carefully.

(3) Pure electric coaches have the highest energy efficiency with zero emissions, but manufacturing and maintain costs are also high. Due to the characters of the new energy coaches, such as poor power, short running mileage and not perfect of the charging or facilities , the pure electric vehicle at present are only suitable for driving in the designed lines and regional tourism operation lines. And they are not suitable for inter-city passenger travel market.　

According to the research on the target users in the tourist coach market, it is found that the users are now concerning more and more on the tourist coach modeling, the appearance and internal comfort etc. Requirements. Due to the passengers concern more on those, the tourist coach company have to pay much attention on the art work, modeling and internal comfort of the tourist coaches when purchasing them. A professional consulting company in Shanghai has done a survey on 1000 tourist coach users in the quarter of 2012, according to the sampling survey, the statistics of the survey are as follows:

Table Four: Statistics of the tourist coach users' concerning points in the quarter of 2012 
   

Chart Three:Statistics of the tourist coach users' concerning points in the quarter of 2012

From above data, it is seen that for the tourist coaches, the most concerning point is the comfortableness of the coaches, then it is followed by interior trimmings, paint brightness and modeling. And the ten indexes data in the first quarter of 2012 are higher than the data of the first quarter of 2011, which could act as a guide the tourist coach manufacturing enterprises in the coach's production and marketing in some extend.