The attitude of Japanese car companies to electrification was first awakened by Honda.
In April 2021, Toshihiro Mibe, who had just become president of Honda Motor, announced that Honda would phase out the internal combustion engine models in its new cars and fully realize fuel-free vehicles by 2040. At the end of 2021, Akio Toyoda announced the start of toyota's full electrification with a large group photo of 16 pure electric new cars.
Two months later, the Nikkei Shimbun reported that Nissan would stop developing new internal combustion engines for the Japanese, Chinese and European markets and focus resources on electric vehicles.
Although it will take some time from shouting slogans to really implementing them, at least from the perspective of attitude, Japanese cars are finally serious. It's just that this seriousness seems to have come too late.
There are many reasons why Japanese car companies are "slow to respond" to pure electric vehicles.
The industrial structure and business philosophy cannot withstand drastic reforms
Living on an island nation surrounded by the sea and limited resources, because of its insecurity, Japan's national character naturally has a gene of caution. This gene is also deeply rooted in the business philosophy of Japanese companies.
Japan's auto industry remains the unshakable first pillar even in the two decades of Japan's economic loss. In 2018, the first place in the net profit of Japanese companies was Toyota Motor 17.1 billion US dollars, the second place Nissan 4.5 billion US dollars, the third place Honda 3.9 billion US dollars, the top five profits are all related to the automotive industry, there are four top ten profit car companies, and there are three auto parts companies. No industrial company in Japan, with the exception of an automobile company, has a net profit of more than $2 billion.
Hasty comprehensive transformation from fuel vehicles to pure electric vehicles, such a drastic industrial structure reform, for Japanese companies accustomed to "gentle wind and drizzle" reform, from the bones are unwilling to do.
At that time, Uncle Ghosn used "surgical" methods such as layoffs and factory closures to reform Nissan, and although he successfully brought Nissan out of the quagmire, he also suffered a lot of dissatisfaction and criticism. Because Ghosn caused a large number of industrial workers to lose their jobs, which is contrary to the traditional business philosophy of Japanese companies. To this day, Ghosn's imprisonment is still considered by some to be a conspiracy by the Japanese to retaliate against Ghosn.
Therefore, at the end of last year, when japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry planned to stop selling traditional cars powered by pure internal combustion engines from 2035, Japanese car companies led by Toyota directly expressed opposition.
Akio Toyoda even believes that if full electrification is implemented, Japan will lose 5.5 million jobs and 8 million new car production capacity by 2030. After all, no one wants to be the next "Ghosn".
Although there are basic technology reserves, the innovation vitality of Japanese companies has declined
The 30 years of Heisei are known as the 30 years of Economic Loss in Japan, and behind the stagnation of the economy is the loss of the vitality of the innovative development of Japanese companies.
Remember the childhood of our generation, Wolkman, Nintendo, PS... These electronic products, which were innovated by Japanese companies, were once popular around the world. Sony, Hitachi, Sanyo, Panasonic, Toshiba, Toyota, these Japanese corporate brands and products that have swept the world have almost become synonymous with high quality and low prices.
However, in the three decades of Heisei, except for a Switch, we have never seen a Japanese company bring innovative and breakthrough products to the world. Instead, one after another strong industries have gradually slipped from the peak.
Japan's mobile phone industry has long faded from the mainstream vision, and giant companies such as Panasonic, SoftBank, and Toshiba have been split. Even in the automotive industry, in the past decade or so, after the Takata airbag incident, various quality door and counterfeit door incidents have been common, and scandals of Mitsubishi, Denso, Shuguang and other companies have destroyed the mythical image of Reliable Japanese car quality.
Under the pressure of the economic downturn, going with the flow has become the best way to make a living. Lacking the courage to break the boat, Japanese companies have not chosen to rely on innovation to rebuild their image, but continue to maintain their own image by means of counterfeiting.
In addition, there are similar problems with the tenure of Japanese corporate executives and the lifetime system of employees. The employee life system will undoubtedly lead to a decline in the vitality of innovation within the enterprise.
Toyota Motor President Akio Toyoda is 66 years old, Honda President Toshihiro Mibe is 60 years old, and relatively young Nissan President Makoto Uchida is also 56 years old. In comparison, Musk is only 51 years old this year, and he was only about 40 years old when he founded Tesla.
These senior executives of car companies who came to the forefront in the Heisei era to take charge of Shuaiyin have difficulty ensuring that the smell and judgment of the electrification, intelligence and technology of automobiles are difficult to keep up with the times. Even if Toyotas have considerable reserves in electrification technology, they have been stubbornly believing that it is not the best time for electrification before this, and they prefer to slowly release the technical reserves little by little like the era of fuel vehicles.
Japanese society with low desires has a low acceptance of new things
As we all know, the current Japanese society is already an aging and low-desire society. This has led to a general lack of enthusiasm for the promotion and use of new technologies in the society.
When we have achieved paperless payment in most scenarios in China, most of the people in Japan are still using ATMs to extract cash; some large Japanese companies and governments still use 3.5-inch floppy disks to store data, and our post-00s may never have seen a 3.5-inch floppy disk; and Japan's 5G experience ranks last in Asia...
It is not that Japan's society is backward and technology is backward, but the Japanese people usually think that the old technology is also very good, and there is no need to replace it with a new technology. The same is true for the use of electric vehicles. There is no interest in new technology, why change the habits of the original fuel car, and spend more money to buy an electric car?
A fact that can be corroborated is that even if the Japanese government has been significantly increasing the number of charging piles through financial subsidies and other means since 2013, trying to accelerate the popularity of electric vehicles. However, according to data released by the map survey company Zenrin, the number of electric vehicle charging stations in Japan as of the end of March 2021 was 29,200, down from 30,300 in the previous year. This is enough to explain the lack of enthusiasm for electric vehicles in Japanese society.
In the face of such a domestic market, it is difficult for Japanese car companies to have the willingness to transform to electric vehicles on a large scale. Even if the demand for electric vehicles in China, Europe and the United States is increasing day by day, Japanese car companies can not always become export-oriented enterprises.
Therefore, the reasons why Japanese car companies resist electrification are complex, both because of their own development and because of domestic social and market levels. Seeing that the global trend of automobile electrification will become a reality, Japanese car companies have finally made up their minds to fully transform into electrification. It's just that such a transformation is more like a last resort. In the era of fuel vehicles, Japanese cars can win the market with low price, high quality, economic reliability, and outstanding performance; in the era of pure electricity, Japanese cars that have lost their market opportunities, lost their quality reputation, and have no advantage in price can they mark themselves with what kind of label to win back the market? (Text/UVIS Auto Old Cannon)
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