Entering the new year, each company is reporting on the performance of 2021. This year, whether it is an old joint venture or a new force, they are struggling to survive in "change and change" - Dongfeng Nissan still generously published its own report card: the annual terminal sales 1134889 vehicles, of which the Japanese product brand sold more than one million for 7 consecutive years; Dongfeng Nissan Venucia also sold 87816 vehicles last year, an increase of 11.6% year-on-year.
After 18 years of groping in the Chinese market, how does Dongfeng Nissan evaluate its "college entrance examination results"? And how do you think about your future?
01
With courage and more strategy, Dongfeng Nissan held on to millions of sales
Looking back at 2021, the global lack of core disrupted the supply rhythm of various depots, the epidemic and sudden natural disasters sometimes invaded the life and production beats of various regions in China, and the domestic and foreign economies also entered a period of adjustment and fluctuation, which is the macro environment of last year's automobile market.
According to the data recently released by the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the cumulative number of retail sales from January to December 2021 was 20.146 million units, an increase of only 4.4% year-on-year, and the weak growth has revealed the weakness of consumer demand in the automobile market. From the structural analysis, we can feel that consumer demand is experiencing unprecedented differentiation: the sales of traditional fuel vehicles will be reduced by one million units in 2021; while new energy vehicles will increase by 169% year-on-year, becoming an important driving force for the growth of the automobile market.
Both the supply and demand sides are facing changes and challenges, which is a very serious problem for any traditional OEMs - fortunately, Dongfeng Nissan has survived, and the strong system capability is like ballast stone, helping this big ship to survive the wind and waves with a calm attitude.
What is systemic capability? This is probably not very good for ordinary consumers, so let's talk about the third quarter of 2021, when car deliveries are the most difficult. When we visited the store at that time, we found that the main sales models of many joint venture brands had a supply cut due to the lack of core problems, and the car had to wait for 1-2 months, and the preferential policies were also comprehensively narrowed, resulting in a decline in sales; but the hot cars in the Dongfeng Nissan 4S store, such as Xuanyi and Tianlai, could still have rolling existing car resources, which controlled the unfavorable fluctuations in sales.
It is understood that Dongfeng Nissan put forward the four-word policy of "grabbing", "adjusting", "waiting" and "replacing" for the chip problem at that time, opening up research and development, procurement, production and sales, and linking both shareholders to mobilize the subjective initiative of the whole supply chain. According to statistics, the impact of the core shortage crisis on the industry exceeded 30%, but the impact on Dongfeng Nissan was controlled to less than 15%.
02
Empowerment + collaboration, Dongfeng Nissan also has Venucia and Infiniti
Dongfeng Nissan is not only in charge of the Japanese product brand, but also Venucia and Infiniti.
Founded in 2010, Venucia, as a joint venture independent brand under Dongfeng Nissan, was once favored by old drivers who understand cars. In 2021, venucia brand returned to the Dongfeng Nissan system, in the face of the continuous segmentation, increasingly fierce competition in the automotive market, Venucia boldly launched a new, launched a new and upgraded D60, Venucia Star and a new blockbuster new car Venucia Big V, achieving a counter-trend increase. It is worth mentioning that the cumulative sales of the three high-quality EV models of the Venucia brand doubled year-on-year last year, and the cumulative proportion of electric vehicles exceeded 15%.
In recent years, stimulated by consumption upgrades, various luxury brands have also launched fierce competitions in the Chinese market. Infiniti entered China in 2006 in the form of imports, and in 2014 Dongfeng Infiniti was established to further penetrate the Chinese market. On January 5 this year, Dongfeng Nissan officially announced that Dongfeng Infiniti would be included in the management system as an independent business unit, and the circle generally believed: "Infiniti is really going to make a force this time!" ”
How much support can the multi-brand matrix give Dongfeng Nissan to rank in the first camp of the joint venture? The author believes that Dongfeng Nissan must first draw the coordinates for Venucia and Infiniti. According to the current strategic planning of Dongfeng Nissan, venucia brand will focus on the topic of "intelligence, electrification and rejuvenation", which has achieved initial results; Infiniti will further explore opportunities in the luxury car market.
How does Dongfeng Nissan empower two major brands? It is inseparable from the two cards of system power and digitalization.
The first part talks about the lack of core coping mechanism is only the epitome of Dongfeng Nissan's system strength; the work idea of efficient collaboration and efficient operation has actually become a corporate culture gene, running through all aspects of research and development, manufacturing, marketing, channels, and services, whether it is crisis response, or R & D innovation, this long-tempered system ability is the endogenous power of Dongfeng Nissan to ride the wind and waves.
Systematic force requires conscious recognition, but also requires advanced technical means. Dongfeng Nissan is one of the first car companies to start digital transformation, and the corresponding work includes three aspects: product digitalization, operation digitalization and marketing digitalization. In terms of products, Dongfeng Nissan's dual-brand vehicle networking capacity has exceeded 3 million vehicles, and the activity is industry-leading; in terms of operation, digitalization has helped Dongfeng Nissan shorten the research and development cycle, and through the comprehensive visualization of production process data to achieve cost reduction and efficiency; in marketing, 265 stores have carried out the smart 4S store model, so that the exhibition hall and after-sales workshop have entered the era of intelligence.
If the above experience and concept can be further penetrated into the two major brands of Venucia and Infiniti, it will surely bring new vitality.
03
In the face of electrification, "Technology Nissan" has prepared more than one way
After talking about efficiency, let's talk about technology. Because the sales volume remained good, in the eyes of many people, Dongfeng Nissan is a marketing player, but when the first model of e-POWER was listed, people found that Dongfeng Nissan was not a lot of cruel people in the process of electric drive transformation!
Different from the Toyota THS system and the Honda i-MMD route, the e-POWER adopts the technical logic of "full-time electric drive", so that the model has both the driving texture of electric vehicles and the experience of using fuel vehicles. Take Xuanyi e-POWER, for example, its maximum power is 100kW, peak torque is 300N·m, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that the fuel consumption of the car is only 4.1L per 100 kilometers.
According to the plan, by 2025, Dongfeng Nissan plans to launch seven e-POWER models in China. In addition to e-POWER, does Dongfeng Nissan have any other ideas? Must have. At the beginning, we mentioned that the substitution effect of new energy vehicles is increasing, but another indisputable fact is that there is still no conclusion on which technology is the ultimate optimal solution.
At present, the four models of oil-electric hybrid, plug-in hybrid and pure electricity and extended range power are active in the market, and from the experience point of view, each has some bottleneck problems. Faced with an unstoppable wave of electrification, Dongfeng Nissan never intended to put its eggs in one basket.
In the short term, fuel vehicles cannot be eliminated, but the engine will continue to develop in the direction of small displacement, high efficiency and lightweight, and the VC-Turbo super variable engine that took 20 years to develop is a representative of technological progress and the world's first mass-produced variable compression ratio turbocharged engine. In addition to continuing to optimize fuel technology and launch e-POWER, it has long been ready for its own pure electric technology architecture , Zero Emission.
Zero Emission literally translates to "zero emissions". You know, from the launch of the first pure electric model TAMA in 1947, Nissan has never interrupted the research and development of pure electric technology, has accumulated more than 70 years of experience, The Leaf model is known worldwide for its excellent safety performance, equipped with e-4ORCE dual-motor all-wheel control technology Ariya model has always attracted much attention, just in 2022, it will be officially introduced to the Chinese market. It is reported that by 2025, Zero Emission will be installed in 3 models.
Therefore, the Dongfeng Nissan you see may only be a marketing master, but in fact, the accumulation of Dongfeng Nissan in the research and development end is far more than you see, and "technology Nissan" is the real face of its response to electrification transformation.
Written at the end: "The only constant in the world is change", we can clearly perceive that under the double carbon target, the car market is in a chaotic state of new exploration. The old supply chain system is being broken, and car companies must grasp the existing market more tightly to win the future. How to grasp the present and lay out the future? This is a complex subject - "multi-brand, multi-track" is the strategic direction of Dongfeng Nissan, after 2021, the more mature Dongfeng Nissan has clarified its coordinates and path, and will not be afraid of future challenges.