It's been more than two years since Toyota announced its hybrid patent.
In 2019, when Toyota announced the first generation of THS hybrid technology "free of charge", domestic Geely and Trumpchi took the lead in taking action. Geely bought the technology for a dollar, and Trumpchi cooperated with Toyota in the field of hybridization, and will use the THS system to launch a new model.
There is no free lunch in the world, Toyota's move is to attract many car companies to join the hybrid market, because the "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology clearly pointed out that in 2025, hybrid new vehicles account for more than 50% of traditional energy vehicles, and 100% in 2035. The hybrid market is destined to be a huge cake, Toyota can not "swallow" alone, but it hopes to be able to eat this cake, are "Fengjia class" people.
However, in the past two years, is the reality really the same as Toyota expected?
BYD
Perhaps in most people's minds, the Prius is the model that makes the Toyota Hybrid famous, but back in the domestic market, it is Corolla and Ralink who really promote the hybrid technology. Although hybrid technology is a fuel-saving technology, more than a decade ago, it symbolized a "flagship" identity. The reason why the Prius introduced by FAW Toyota did not become too much of a climate was because the price of more than 200,000 at that time was not understandable and affordable by ordinary consumers. Moreover, the model that used Toyota hybrid technology the most at that time was not Toyota itself, but the high-end brand Lexus. It was not until Toyota lowered the price of hybrids on the Corolla and Leiling to about 150,000 that the technology gradually entered the public's vision.
So in the past two years, in addition to Toyota, who has the ability to reduce the price of hybrid vehicles to about 150,000? In addition to Honda, there is only BYD.
With BYD's release of the fourth generation of DM-i technology in 2020, more mature hybrid with lower costs, the brand finally launched a Qin PLUS with a super product at the watershed of 150,000. Compared with Corolla and Leiling, the design of Qin PLUS is more beautiful, the configuration is higher, and the most important thing is that it is comparable to Toyota's hybrid. The higher cost performance makes this car difficult to find to this day. The success of a car allowed BYD to take advantage of the victory, followed by the family's most famous dynasty series, almost all of which were replaced by this hybrid system.
Perhaps Toyota may not realize that BYD can come to such a "king fry" during the period of rapid development of hybrid models.
The auspiciousness of facing difficulties
In 2009, Geely began to explore the most difficult "planetary gear technology" solution in hybrid technology, but in the process of research and development, Geely was unable to bypass Toyota's patents. In order to bypass Toyota's patent barriers, Geely can only use a more complex two-row planetary gear set mechanical structure. Although Geely launched Geely Borui GE on the self-developed road, the lack of core technology has not been hyped.
In 2019, Geely waited for Toyota and got what he wanted for a dollar, and in 2021, Geely's hybrid named DHT Pro appeared on the Hoshigoku L. With the confidence of technology, Geely has also begun to vigorously market, running 1300 kilometers with a tank of oil, winning the world's top ten gearbox awards and so on.
Unexpectedly, Toyota made a "wedding dress" for others.
A blockbuster Great Wall
When everyone thinks that the Great Wall is just a "straight man" who can only build cars, it suddenly comes with its self-developed lemon hybrid platform and DHT hybrid technology. The system consists of three powertrains, 1.5L+DHT100, 1.5T+DHT130, 1.5T+DHT130+P4, as well as HEV and PHEV solutions, covering everything from compact cars to medium and large vehicles. That is to say, the hybrid of the Great Wall can cover models in the three markets of low, medium and high.
Judging from the current layout of the Great Wall, the hybrid technology was first arranged on the models of the family high-end brand WEY. It can be seen that the Great Wall is still full of confidence in this self-developed hybrid, and from the test drive of various car critics, the actual performance of WEY's Macchiato and Mocha can indeed be at the same level of excellent. If the Great Wall can lower the hybrid to a lower price in a short period of time, sales should come up.
This move of the Great Wall without warning was also something that Toyota did not expect.
generally
Toyota's choice to publish a patent at this point in 2019 is definitely a very beautiful step, but what it never expected was that its own brand can cross itself in a very short period of time to strengthen its own hybrid strength.
Of course, these independent brands can achieve today's point, not overnight, but also through a long period of technical research and development to achieve. Although independent brands have been thrown away too much on the track of fuel vehicles, in the field of hybrids, independent brands definitely have enough voice to dominate the market.