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The model of "pre-sale" has existed for a long time, such as the pre-sale of commercial housing, which was invented Chinese. In the 1950s, a businessman surnamed Fok opened Pandora's Box for pre-sale commercial housing in Hong Kong.
Many years later, the automotive industry also introduced a new car pre-sale model, but it was only a small fight, not a routine operation. It wasn't until around 2016 that new car pre-sales began to become the norm. Fueled by the new forces of car-making, the pre-sale of new cars is becoming more and more intense, and almost all new cars will play like this.
It is really unexpected that this product sales model that appears in order to avoid risks and detect market reactions will be played by the automotive industry in a new trick, becoming an "innovative" marketing model that increases exposure and maintains product popularity, and bluntly makes new car sales into a unique "futures transaction".
Want to mention Tesla? Many users have to wait for another 90 days after waiting for 90 days; the tank 500 car, from the order to the delivery of the car needs to wait for a year; Weilai ET7 this car has been sold for a year, but the real car has not yet begun to deliver...
I also felt that this should have reached the "limit of pre-sale". But in recent days, Toyota has directly come to a "king bomb". Toyota Motor announced on its official website: "The new Land Cruiser is expected to take a lot of time to deliver, and the order will start now (January 19), and the delivery period may be about four years." ”
In other words, if you buy the new Land Cruiser now, you may not be able to pick up the car until 2026!
A stone stirred up thousands of waves, many netizens expressed dissatisfaction with this, ridiculing that "this is the longest delivery in history", after all, there has never been a car, from purchase to pick up the car will be as long as four years. And today's automotive industry can be described as rapid changes, product iteration is extremely rapid, what will be the situation in 2026, no one can say well.
So why is Toyota doing this?
To figure this out, it's time to go back to the problem itself— Land Cruiser.
▌What is Land Cruiser?
If you use a car to represent the off-road spirit of a brand, many brands have impressive models.
Jimney can represent Suzuki, its small body and strong performance combined into one, it is difficult to let go; Nissan Tourer is also impressive, the huge body brings the courage to wade through the mountains and waters, with a powerful aura.
The Land Cruiser is Toyota's off-road totem.
If you count the prototype car, the rand Cruiser has a history of more than 70 years. Its original name was toyota BJ off-road vehicle, and in 1951, a technical director in Japan said that Toyota BJ had a strong rival in Britain, Land Rover, and had to give the Toyota BJ a name that sounded like an opponent.
(Toyota BJ)
So by 1954, the Toyota BJ was renamed the Land Cruiser, which is what we're familiar with, which translates to "Land Cruiser."
"There must be a road before the car reaches the mountain, and there must be a Toyota car" The familiar advertising slogan is actually from land Cruiser.
With excellent performance, off-road enthusiasts of all ages around the world are willing to empty their wallets for this car. As the star brand of Toyota off-road vehicles, Land Cruiser has a wide audience around the world, and the Middle East, North America and other regions are its key markets. In China, it also has countless iron powders.
As early as the 1990s, some Chinese depots, such as Jiangxi Fuqi, Datong Saibeijian, Beijing Zhonglian, Guangdong Wanli, etc., had introduced or assembled Land Cruiser in a variety of ways.
In 2003, FAW Toyota began to officially produce land cruisers. However, unlike faw Toyota's other domestic models, land cruisers are produced in the form of semi-bulk assembly.
The reason for this is said to be because the Land Cruiser represents the pinnacle of Toyota's off-road vehicles, and all parts need to come from Japan. At that time, the country could not afford to produce and process the parts required by land cruiser.
It is also because of this that the price of this car is also very high, so sales are relatively not good. In 2016, FAW Toyota announced that land cruisers officially stopped production in China. In the following years, the Land Cruiser sold in China was a parallel import model.
When domestic production turned to parallel imports, the price of Land Cruiser was "more and more speculated". Especially after the arrival of the wave of electrification, large-displacement fuel vehicles are extremely precious. So, Land Cruiser has been selling at a markup at the terminal.
It was not until July 1, 2020, when the country entered the era of National VI emissions, that Land Cruiser was affected again.
In June 2021, the all-new generation land cruiser was officially released, which is based on the TNGA-F architecture and launches GX, AX, VX, ZX and GR SPORT. It can be said that the different configurations of land cruisers cover different off-road markets: there are urban off-road models, there are also outdoor off-road models, which can meet the needs of different consumer groups.
However, the new Land Cruiser has not been launched globally at the same time, and is currently only available in Japan, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand, and has not been introduced in China and North America. Therefore, this time Toyota decided to postpone the delivery of land cruiser, in fact, it will not affect the domestic market.
▌ Delivery of new cars and so on for four years Who has embarrassed Toyota?
Some may blame Toyota for playing starvation marketing with the aim of boosting the rarity of rand Cruiser.
However, according to business logic, Toyota does not seem to have a reason to hold up the sale.
First of all, the main market of Land Cruiser is not China, but Europe, Japan, North America and other places. The history of car sales in these places is as long as a hundred years, and consumers have been baptized by full competition in the market and are more concerned about the practicality of the model than the brand.
Therefore, Toyota relies more on product quality in these markets than on the illusion of scarcity by restricting quotas, such as the illusion of "Alpha Shortage Markup" created by Toyota in China.
Secondly, the foreign market and the Chinese market that Land cruisers face are very different.
In foreign countries, emission standards are not as strict as in China, and many large-displacement models can also be sold normally. Therefore, their off-road vehicle market has entered a white-hot competition stage. Even in North America, the Land Cruiser will compete directly with pickup trucks such as the Ford F150; in addition, there is a series of opponents such as Land Rover, and the competitive pressure is self-evident. Playing hunger marketing in this situation is tantamount to lifting a stone and dropping it on your own feet.
Back to the topic of four years of waiting for the delivery of land cruiser. For this matter, Toyota did not disclose the specific reasons, but combined with the shortage of automotive chips at home and abroad and the lack of supply of parts in recent years, Land Cruiser is likely to have encountered a bottleneck in production capacity.
Previously, a month after the launch of the new Land cruiser, Toyota officially announced that the delivery time would wait more than a year due to the impact of parts supply and chip shortages. In July 2021, Toyota announced that it would suspend production at two plants in Japan in August due to the rising infection rate of the epidemic in Southeast Asia, disrupting parts production, and the shutdown would last for several days.
The two affected plants are responsible for producing Lexus and Land Cruiser models. According to some data, the suspension of production has led to a reduction in Toyota's production by about 5,000 vehicles.
Not only terminal shutdowns, but also in the parts supply chain, Toyota has also been hit by the epidemic. Previously, Toyota had suspended production at three Thai factories after a supplier that manufactured wire harnesses in Thailand was hit by the pandemic. Due to insufficient chip supply, Toyota also stopped production at a plant in Aichi Prefecture, reducing production by another 9,000 units.
On the one hand, the supply of spare parts is weak, and on the other hand, land cruisers continue to sell hot.
As early as 2019, Toyota officials were proud to announce that the cumulative sales of land cruisers in the world have exceeded 10 million vehicles. Even in China, land cruiser also has a good sales volume, in 2020, land cruiser cumulative sales reached 23906 vehicles, ranking first in the domestic large SUV market.
Toyota should also be helpless. Production plummeted, and sales continued to burn. Under the contradiction between supply and demand, waiting for four years may be more of a "last resort".
▌ Under the wave of transformation, Toyota hides electric ambitions
However, with the advent of electrification, land cruiser, a large-displacement fuel vehicle that focuses on hardcore off-road, will eventually become yesterday's yellow flower. At Toyota, there's clearly something more important than the production of the Land cruiser – that is, to accelerate the electrification across the board.
At the end of 2021, Toyota unveiled 15 new electric vehicles, including the Toyota brand and the Lexus brand, at its latest electrification strategy conference.
The 15 models cover a wide range of types, including cars, SUVs, sports cars, pickups, and off-road vehicles, and are expected to be on the market soon. At the same time, Toyota will also invest $35 billion in electric vehicle development, and it is expected to launch 30 electrified models in 2030.
If it doesn't sound, it will be a blockbuster, which is a "concentrated outbreak" of Toyota in the field of electrification. Previously, Toyota's electrification transformation was considered to be slow. And this time, Toyota has taught the outside world a lesson.
Facing the future, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda has said that by 2030, the global sales target for Toyota's brand pure electric vehicles is 3.5 million, including pure electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles. By 2035, the Lexus brand will be completely transformed into a pure electric brand, with a sales target of 1 million vehicles.
At present, Toyota's total global production capacity is about 9 million units. If we want to achieve the goal of 3.5 million pure electric vehicles worldwide, it is bound to reduce the production capacity of fuel vehicles. In July 2021, Toyota said it was considering retrofitting its existing U.S. plants to produce electric vehicles.
Off-road models like the Land Cruiser may become pure electric off-road vehicles similar to the "electric version of the Hummer" in the future. Obviously, this will make many users dissatisfied, thinking that this electric off-road vehicle is simply "losing feelings". In desperation, Toyota chose to delay the delivery of the Land Cruiser, perhaps paving the way for the electrification transformation.
(Hummer pure electric pickup)
Looking at the future, the electrification of hardcore off-road vehicles will be inevitable. Ford first launched a pure electric version of the F150, and then Tesla's electric pickup truck also became a hit, making people feel that electric vehicles can also have strong off-road capabilities. In addition, Rivian, a new car-making force in the United States, is also famous for its electric off-road pickup trucks. Even land rover, the SUV brand, has a precise timetable for electrification.
Obviously, there is not much time left for hardcore off-road vehicles.
(Rivian brand pickup)
In the near future, we may only be able to feel the hardcore off-road of the fuel version of Land Cruiser in historical video materials, and feel the roar of large displacements from the sound.
The wheels of the times are rolling forward, and the fuel version of land cruiser is destined to become a masterpiece.
Four years later and four years later, if it were you, would you wait?
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