At the beginning of the year, a seemingly bland news caught our attention: Chevrolet officially announced that it would stop accepting new orders for The Maribor models in 2023, and for this reason, the head of the brand, Kevin Kelly, also gave a plausible explanation: "The reason why we stopped accepting orders is because we have already scheduled a sufficient number of new cars in 2022." "If you look for Chevrolet Mariber in 2021's new car sales in the United States, you will find that this almost only mid-size sedan left in the American brand has sold a pitiful 39,376 units in the whole year, which is almost the average monthly sales figure of the Toyota Camry, the sales champion of this category. Coincidentally, just before the announcement, Volkswagen announced that the Tennessee plant would officially stop production of the Passat within the year and shift all production capacity to the pure electric model ID.4.
In fact, the Rapid Shrinking of the North American Market is far more than just a segment of mid-size cars, as early as the end of 2020, Lincoln announced the end of all sedan production in the United States, including MKZ and Continental. In the same year, with the official suspension of production of GM's five factories in the United States, six cars including cadillac CT6/XTS, Buick LaCrosse, chevrolet Impala/Cruze/Volt bid farewell to the US domestic market. Earlier, Mercedes-Benz announced that it would no longer retain the Mercedes-Benz C-Class production line at the Alabama plant, thereby providing more capacity for the EQ series of electric vehicles. All kinds of news prove that Americans seem to have lost interest in cars.
Do Americans really like cars?
The above is a list of the top 10 best-selling cars in the United States in 2021, of which SUVs and pickups account for the vast majority, while the Toyota Camry and Honda Civic on the list of cars are ranked 6th and 10th, respectively. If we expand the scope to TOP25, we will also find that the cars on the list are all Japanese models such as Corolla, Accord, Tianlai, and Auhoo without exception. Neither American nor European brands have been found in the list. If you only compare the sales figures, you will find that more and more American car consumers are indeed "abandoning" cars. Because in 2019, cars still occupy four seats and a market share of 3 million units in the top 10 best-selling car list, and after only two years, these figures have been reduced by almost half.
Even models such as the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, which were previously at the forefront of car sales, have been invaded by pickup trucks and SUVs in the past two years, and the signs of sales decline are still very obvious. Compared with 2019 before the epidemic, the sales decline rate of Honda Accord and Toyota Camry in 2020 reached 26% and 35%, respectively. As for the more price-sensitive compact sedan market, best-selling models including Nissan Sentra (the domestic counterpart is Xuanyi) and Hyundai Elantra have completely disappeared from the 2020 list.
In the face of the decline of cars, how do car companies face it?
Just when the Japanese are struggling to insist on the US car market, why do many American car companies choose to drastically cut or even cut off the car product line at the expense of "breaking the wrist"? The reasons for this are undoubtedly manifold. First of all, of course, it is due to the weakness of its own product power. In fact, for the products of American car companies, this is not the first time to face a crisis.
(The picture above is the 1961 Lincoln Continental, and the bottom picture is the 1967 Ford Mustang fastback)
The two oil crises of the 1970s brought traditional American muscle cars and full-size limousines to museums and laid the groundwork for the Detroit Big Three, once a symbol of American industrial civilization. The 1980s-1990s japanese brands' aggressive entry into the U.S. market completely destroyed the basics of American cars— those American mid-sized cars led by Crown Victoria, Chevrolet Impala, and Chrysler New Yorkers, with front-facing rear-drive chassis, large-displacement V8 engines, and 6-seaters. Before more and more pragmatic consumers began to park the fuel-efficient and reliable Toyota Camry and Honda Accord in their garages, the traditional American car was once a symbol of the American dream and the comfortable life of the middle class.
Before more and more pragmatic consumers began to park the fuel-efficient and reliable Toyota Camry and Honda Accord in their garages, the traditional American car was a symbol of the American dream and the comfort of the middle class (pictured with a 1978 Chevrolet Caprice poster).
In fact, in order to cope with the crisis, the American brand at that time can be described as "eight immortals crossing the sea, each showing its own magic". Under the leadership of business wizard Lee Iacocca, Chrysler actively seeks change and leads the development of front-drive K, E, H and other model platforms, which not only brings the technical level of each model closer to its competitors, but also greatly reduces the research and development costs, thereby improving the profit margin of bicycles.
In addition to developing new cars according to competitors, Ford also uses the group's overseas resources to localize models in the European market and introduce them to the North American market. In the first decade of the 1990s to the 21st century, European-style sedans led by the Ford Fusion (domestic counterpart is the Mondeo) and The Focus were successful in the North American market. As for the General Motors Group, it has launched a number of SUV models while upgrading the original product line, which can also be regarded as maintaining the basic market share. However, due to the excessive pursuit of sales and cost control by American brands at this stage, the original brand power has gradually decreased and lost its reputation.
As for the GM Group in the 1990s, it launched a number of SUV models while upgrading the original product line, which also retained the basic market share. (Pictured with 1992 Chevrolet Tahoe)
Coupled with the fact that since 2017, the sales of SUV models in the United States have surpassed the sedan for the first time and have increased year by year, and the brands have invested more energy and research and development efforts into the SUV models, resulting in the embarrassing situation of today's American cars: the price is inferior to that of the Korean series, and the product strength and reputation have opened up the gap with the Japanese system.
In addition, with the rapid arrival of the era of electrification, American car companies must invest a lot of research and development expenses and energy into the development of electric platforms and related technologies, so optimizing product layout and cutting out car products with poor market performance and low profit margins has become a smooth chapter.
Since in the "volume" compact and medium-sized car market, The American car companies have collectively lost, what is it in the luxury car field? The situation also does not seem to be very optimistic. The shock from Tesla has affected almost all luxury car brands sold in the United States. According to the 2021 U.S. luxury car market sales data, Tesla surpassed Lexus and Mercedes-Benz with a total sales volume of 313,400, ranking second, only behind the BMW Group. Not only that, in the segment of the model market, Tesla Model 3 has become the most popular luxury model in the US market with annual sales of 122,000 units. Today, the young group that grew up with the Internet is becoming the main force of luxury car consumption, and their definition of luxury is very different from their parents. Compared with the quality and performance of luxury brands accumulated over the past century of the automobile industry, the innate Internet temperament of electric vehicle companies led by Tesla seems to be more attractive.
As for niche products like Volkswagen Passat, which are mainly differentiated in the US market and hover between affordable brands and luxury brands, in the face of the great changes in the current market environment, they have long lost their own living space, and it is also a reasonable choice to stop production and delist.
Although the collective action of American brands to "cut" the product line of the car is an effective measure to maximize the profit margin of the company in the short term, in the long run, it has once again buried hidden dangers. In this regard, a market survey conducted by Honda for first-time car buyers also presented quite interesting results. Among all first-time car buyers, 55% said they would not consider SUVs and pickup models, and if the scope is further narrowed to Generation Z (post-95s), the proportion of people who do not choose SUVs and pickups will increase to 70%. In addition, as many as 78% of non-car owners said that they will choose a car when changing cars in the future. It is not difficult to infer that once the car market picks up as the survey shows, the American car companies that lack corresponding products and "lame walk" at that time are afraid that they will fall into crisis again.
Is there a future for the U.S. car market?
According to the speculation of many foreign media, in addition to sports models and luxury models, it is difficult for the US car market to recover to the previous level in a short period of time. However, as the global shortage of automotive chips continues, some simple configurations and affordable starter cars may become the right choice for many American car companies to cope with the crisis and boost sales. Recently, GM Group Finance Director Paul Jacobson said in an interview with the media: "GM Plans to increase global sales to 25%-30% in 2022, and the main growth points will be those entry-level SUVs and cars that are simple in configuration, cheap and not affected by 'lack of cores'. ”
According to the executive, in order to cope with the chip shortage in 2020, GM has spent almost all of its resources in the United States on the production of pickup truck models, and the future plan to mass-produce cheap cars will not only help the Detroit giant win back the crown of the global production and sales champion car company from Toyota, but also curb the soaring price of new cars. Previously, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo had estimated: "Among the factors that the price of new cars has soared, the shortage of chips accounts for more than 30% of the price increase." ”
summary
Although the sedan has been "thin" in North America due to various reasons, as far as the mainland market is concerned, it is estimated that the future influencing factors are minimal. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, of the 26.082 million passenger cars sold by the mainland in 2021, 9.908 million are cars, 10.03 million SUVs, and 1.47 million AREVs and crossovers; among them, cars and SUVs are not only the absolute mainstream, but also have an equal market share of the two.
Different from the rapid development of the "SUV boom" in previous years, more and more consumers have begun to choose cars under rational thinking, which is very obvious in the field of exchange and upgrading. In the top 10 list of best-selling cars, in addition to the "winning generals" such as Langyi, Xuanyi and Corolla, there are also representatives of luxury cars such as BMW 5 Series and 3 Series. Coincidentally, in the field of new energy vehicles, cars are also seen as the next growth point, Weilai's cars ET7, ET5 will be delivered within the year, and the just exposed BYD SEAL will not only become the first car of the brand's rear-drive platform, but also its intention to target luxury medium-sized cars represented by Tesla Model 3 is also quite obvious.
As for the American sedan mentioned above, it will also find its living space in the huge Chinese market. At present, Lincoln Continental, Cadillac CT6 and other models have become the regional "exclusive" models in the Chinese market. With the Regal and Mai Ruibao XL of the Opel model platform gradually moving towards the end of the product cycle, it is not a fantasy to carry out localization research and development according to domestic demand in the future, and then reproduce the success of SAIC-GM GL8.