Since the beginning of the year, news about Toyota Crown's re-entry into China as an importer has gradually spread on the Internet.
First, in late January, a picture of the "FAW Toyota 2022 New Car Appreciation and Dealer Conference" showed that the new crown will be introduced to the Chinese market as a CBU model.
Not long ago, a senior media person revealed that the new generation of Toyota Crown will achieve global synchronization, will be released in Japan in the second quarter, and will be introduced into the domestic market at the end of the year. The new car will be available in two versions, 2.4T and 2.5L hybrid, and will be sold through the FAW Toyota channel in the future, and the new car will be priced between 400,000 and 450,000 yuan.
Although the above information has not been officially confirmed, many convincing news show that it is a matter of time before the crown re-enters the Chinese market.
Toyota changed Crown's strategy to enter China.
For the past two years, Toyota has been adjusting and optimizing its product line in China.
On the one hand, Toyota has changed its previous "conservative" image and introduced Highlander, Harrier, Sienna, Carolla Cross, Highlander and AsiaTics/Lingshang two Carrolla Plus models to the domestic market, and the product lineup is unprecedentedly strong, while gradually making up for the shortcomings. Toyota, on the other hand, also discontinued the undersold Land Cruiser, Prado and Crown models.
In June last year, some media exposed the arrival of a new generation of Land Cruiser in Dalian Port. According to people familiar with the matter, this batch of new generation Toyota Land Cruisers is not a parallel import car, but a model officially introduced by FAW Toyota, and all meet the National VI emission standards. It is reported that this batch of cars will be used for domestic road/regulation experiments to pave the way for later listing. Introduced along with the new generation of Toyota Land Cruiser, there is also the Prado that meets the National VI emission standards.
In January this year, a set of domestic patent drawings of the new Toyota Land Cruiser were exposed on the Internet. This indicates that the new generation of Land Cruiser may be introduced by official channels, as soon as possible or by the end of 2022.
These messages clearly convey that land cruisers, prado and crowns, which were once discontinued, will once again enter the domestic market as imports. At least in the early stage, there will be no waste of production capacity, whether it is domestic, depending on market feedback.
However, import status is also a double-edged sword. Although in the cognition of many people, the import identity marks a better product texture and a higher grade. But import status also heralds higher prices, with the new generation of Land Cruiser's top-of-the-line models exceeding 1.5 million. Such high prices are destined to stay away from the mass market.
This shows that these high-end models of Toyota will target the core target population.
The domestic crown is difficult to return to its former glory.
Although it came with the name of the crown, the domestic crown did not achieve market performance consistent with its previous name. "Coming with joy and returning from defeat" has become a true portrayal of the crown for fifteen years.
The twelfth and thirteenth generation crowns in the early days of Entering China confidently chose the front "hard bar" with the BBA's medium and large cars. However, sales are only 1/3 of the BBA. The subsequent fourteenth-generation Crown pulled prices down and targeted BBA mid-size cars, but sales still didn't pick up.
The sales volume of domestic crowns shows that at similar prices, both BBA models with the same level as crowns and BBA models positioned below crowns are more popular with Chinese consumers. In front of the BBA, the honor of the crown has not aroused the interest of consumers. It vaguely shows that no matter how high-end the crown is, it is just an ordinary brand flagship car, which is not in the same grade as the luxury brand.
The Toyota Crown, which was popular among the Chinese people in the early days of entering China, is a veritable high-end product.
Before the birth of Lexus, the crown was the top product under the Toyota system. This honor invisibly endorses the crown's sense of honor. However, after the birth of the Lexus brand, the "high-end" color of the crown has gradually faded, and the product specifications and sense of honor have been different from the previous Toyota flagship.
The inability to support that sense of honor has become an important reason for the defeat of the domestic crown. Perhaps, the import of original packaging has become the only way to maintain the sense of the crown's grade.
Will the new crown be recognized?
Even targeting the core population as an importer does not mean that the new crown does not have challenges.
Combined with existing news, the new generation of Crown will be developed using the GA-K platform. This means that the new generation of Crown will abandon the front longitudinal rear drive in favor of a front front drive layout. Based on the positioning of the crown, it is speculated that the new car will be better than the Asian Dragon, and the workmanship materials and manufacturing processes will most likely be close to the Lexus ES series, and it is likely that it will be produced in line with the ES series at the Kyushu plant. In short, the new generation of crowns is more like a larger and more textured Asian dragon, and there is no crown "bloodline".
If the news of the above-mentioned senior media people is true, the price of this hardcover version of the new Asian Dragon will be as high as 400,000-450,000, which is close to the medium and large cars of luxury brands such as domestic BBA, and overlaps with the price of sister car Lexus ES.
But facts have proved that the Toyota Crown in the Lexus era has lost its former "top product" force, and then has no "luxury" capital.
Is the new generation of crowns priced at more than 400,000 yuan selling feelings?