Autonomous driving fell behind, and hindsight Japanese cars began to catch up

Image source @ Visual China

Text | Tabornet

If you want to choose a new energy vehicle, the list may include Tesla, Wei Xiaoli, BYD, Geely and even BBA, but the name of Japanese cars may rarely appear.

In the past year, domestic new energy vehicles and automation tracks have surged and entered the era of national car manufacturing, but Japanese cars facing technological transformation have collectively muted.

In recent years, there has been no shortage of comments about the precarious future of Japanese cars. Coupled with the rise of the European origin of the concept of electrification by Chinese cars, the afterglow of the "Japanese automobile despair theory" continues to be repeated.

Conservatively closed, the process of change is slow

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, once said in a media interview: "Japanese cars have shortcomings in the pure electric vehicle market, mainly because Japanese car companies are unwilling to change. ”

The resistance of Japanese car companies to change is obvious to all.

At the 26th UN Climate Summit, Toyota, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Mazda, Subaru and other car companies from Japan refused to sign the Glasgow Climate Convention, which stipulates the phasing out of fossil fuel vehicles by 2040.

This means that these car companies will not give up on fuel vehicles.

In addition, Toyota Motor President Akio Toyoda has also publicly expressed his opposition to electrification many times.

On December 25, 2020, the Japanese government officially released the "Green Growth Strategy", that is, to ban the sale of traditional fuel vehicles by 2035 and completely switch to hybrid or pure electric models.

As soon as the policy came out, Akio Toyoda said that if Japan too hastily banned gasoline-powered cars and switched to electric vehicles, the current business model of the automotive industry would collapse.

In September this year, Toyota also explicitly opposed Japan's plan to "ban the sale of fuel vehicles in 2030".

Akio Toyoda has repeatedly "criticized" electric vehicles in public, believing that there is "over-hype" and pointing out that fuel vehicles should still be mainstream or core, and the automotive industry should not take pure electric as a technological change.

In the tide of electrification transformation, the reason for the retrograde behavior of Japanese cars may be inclined to the achievements of their fuel vehicles. As we all know, fuel vehicles have always been a place of pride for Japanese car companies.

In the field of fuel vehicles, Japanese car companies are favored by consumers for their durable engines and fuel savings. "Cheaper than the United States, durable than the German system", in China, whether it is a sedan or SUV segment, it is not difficult to see the figure of Japanese cars in the top ten models sold.

According to the data of the Association, in the 2020 domestic joint venture automobile market share ranking, The Germans ranked first with a market share of 25.5%, followed by the Japanese with 24.1%.

If you want to transform to electrification, it will mean that Japanese car companies will have to give up their proud engine advantages and choose to return to the same running line as other car companies.

In this regard, some insiders said: "Japanese cars do new energy mainly because of the pressure of environmental protection, the development of new energy models to redevelop the platform, the investment is relatively large, and they produce new car product standards and research and development cycle is much longer than the domestic car companies, so the burden of Japanese car companies is relatively heavy, very hesitant." ”

In addition, compared with electrification, Japanese car companies are more inclined to hydrogen energy, and Japanese companies account for 90% of the world's automotive patents in hydrogen energy.

Japan, which is very scarce in resources, most of the coal, natural gas and other imports, in order to achieve full electrification, maintaining daily electricity demand is a great pain point. Akio Toyoda once said, "If all vehicles in Japan are electric, then there will be a shortage of electricity in the summer."

Based on the status quo, Japan certainly does not favor electrification.

Take a head start and accelerate layout electrification

The Japanese car, which was electrified and did not catch up with the late set, did get up early in the morning.

In fact, as early as the 1970s, Japan began to start the electrification of automobiles. Nissan, Toyota, Honda and other Japanese car companies have laid out the new energy field early under the policy dividend.

In 1973, Nissan pioneered the first self-developed pure electric vehicle model, the EV4-P, and launched a new pure electric vehicle again ten years later. In 1992, Toyota established the Electric Vehicle Planning Division within the company to promote the development of hybrid vehicles and other models. Honda is also developing a parallel hybrid system.

In 2010, Nissan launched the pure electric vehicle Leaf, which won the global annual sales champion of pure electric vehicles for consecutive years. In 2014, facing the Chinese market, Nissan developed a pure electric vehicle Morrowind based on Leaf technology.

It is worth mentioning that this is also the first pure electric vehicle of the joint venture car company in China.

At present, China has become the world's largest automobile sales market, in addition to domestic policy support, traditional car companies have accelerated the transformation of electrification. Under this general trend, Japanese car companies have to accelerate the electrification layout in order to share this cake.

At this year's Shanghai Auto Show, Honda unveiled China's first Honda brand pure electric prototype. In addition, Honda also said that it will launch 10 Honda brand pure electric vehicles in China within 5 years.

Toyota unveiled its new all-electric series, toyota bZ, and exhibited the FIRST CONCEPT CAR IN THE SERIES, THE TOYOTA bZ4X CONCEPT. It is reported that the car is promoting domestic production plans and is expected to achieve global sales by mid-2022. By 2025, Toyota will also launch 15 EV models worldwide.

Nissan announced that it will introduce nine electric-driven models to the Chinese market by 2025, and by 2025, there will be six models equipped with Nissan e-POWER technology in the Chinese market, and by the beginning of 2030, Nissan plans to achieve 100% electric drive of new models in the core market.

According to incomplete statistics, by 2025, Japanese brands will have nearly 30 new electrified cars introduced into the Chinese market. Despite the resistance, in the great wave of the times, the slow Japanese car has gradually awakened.

For the electrification process of Japanese car companies, an automotive analyst said, "The organizational structure, development process, and global layout of Japanese car companies are different from domestic, and the long-term development process of domestic car companies is oriented to the Chinese market, so domestic car companies develop new energy vehicles is very convenient, the development cost is very low, and Japanese car companies are generally developed in Japan, and then do some simple localization in China, then its development cost is very high, the response speed is also very slow, and it is necessary to investigate the Chinese market. I also have to go to China to investigate. ”

Some time ago, Akio Toyoda, who has always been tough, announced the future strategy of Toyota and Lexus-branded electric vehicles at a media briefing in Tokyo.

He said that next, Toyota will speed up the pace, is expected to come up with 30 new pure electric vehicles in 2030, and set a plan for annual sales of 3.5 million units worldwide.

According to Toyota's plan, it will achieve 100% pure electrification in China, Europe, and North America by 2030, and electric vehicles will account for 100% of global vehicle sales by 2035. For a brand that is slow to make progress in pure electricity, this is undoubtedly an ambitious plan.

But when a reporter interviewed Akio Toyoda: "You have publicly supported hydrogen energy and hybrid vehicles several times, but now you have turned your head and plunged into the arms of pure electric vehicles. ”

Akio Toyoda's answer is intriguing: "I'm not interested in the pure electric vehicles of the past, but I am interested in the pure electric vehicles that Toyota is now developing for the future." ”

Sometimes, making a choice is not from the heart, and it may be a last resort.

Catch up with autonomous driving

Japanese car companies, known for their conservative and cautious attitude, do not currently have aggressive self-driving research and development plans.

In the context of the current autonomous driving market at home and abroad, many car companies have mentioned the L4 or even L5 level, and even announced the realization of the car. In the Japanese automotive market, the most emphasized is the L2 level.

It was not until April this year that Toyota announced the realization of L2-level autonomous driving technology "Advanced Drive", and took the lead in installing two models, lexus LS and Toyota Mirai.

The night before the outbreak of autonomous driving is approaching, and Japanese car companies that feel the pressure can no longer reverse the trend.

A few days ago, according to the Nikkei Shimbun, Toyota, Mazda and other Japanese automakers plan to equip major models with automatic driving functions around 2022, mainly L2 level and above automatic driving technology, which will still be mainly controlled by the driver during the vehicle driving process.

According to Toyota's plan, the new Crown sedan launched at the end of 2022 will be equipped with L2 level automatic driving function, while considering this function also in low-end models such as the Corolla, subaru said that it will introduce L2 level automatic driving function for global sales models.

In the wave of new technologies, The Japanese car companies that are aware of hindsight are gradually awakening. If they continue to fall behind, will Japanese cars decline like Japanese home appliances?