Text/Zhou Xiongfei
Edit/Midnight
The acura that has been obscure is finally "fire".
Recently, according to a number of media reports, Honda Motor's high-end brand Acura will withdraw from the Chinese market, and the relevant dealers have either stopped selling the model, or "downgraded" their models to be sold in the same store as other low-end models of Guangqi Honda in order to clear inventory, and more are waiting for the delisting notice of Guangqi Honda.
In response to these reports, although the relevant person in charge of Honda China said that there was no clear news, he also revealed to China Economic Network that "combined with the development trend of the Chinese market and the changes in consumer demand, Guangqi Honda is exploring the integration of brand resources." ”
Such an ambiguous response, in the industry's view, Acura's withdrawal from the Chinese market may be a foregone conclusion, so that this news was quickly sent to Weibo hot search by netizens, and also triggered the enthusiasm of consumers to copy the bottom of the "out-of-print car".
Acura's sudden fire this time has also become the most concerned one in the 16 years since it entered China.
According to Honda China's official website, the Acura brand was founded in the 1980s and is the first luxury car brand among Japanese car brands. In 2006, Acura was introduced to the Chinese market by Honda in the form of imported cars, but due to the low recognition of the brand, the brand has been in a dilemma of no one.'
After the first defeat, Acura began to launch a domestic version of the model in 2016, trying to compete for the market by producing models that are more in line with the preferences of domestic consumers. Although some sales were initially obtained through domestic models, in recent years, the sales of the Acura brand have continued to decline until the current embarrassing situation of losing the Chinese market.
In the domestic luxury car market, there are also Toyota and Nissan, which are also Japanese car brands.
Similar to Acura, Toyota's Lexus and Nissan's Infiniti also came to the Chinese market in the early 2000s, of which Infiniti's sales performance has been tepid after landing in the Chinese market, and even last year it was named by the "3.15" party.
Compared with Acura and Infiniti, which lost at the beginning, Lexus officially landed in the Chinese market in 2004, but it was welcomed by domestic consumers, and its sales have increased year by year. However, in terms of performance in the past two years, Lexus's sales growth in China has also begun to slow down, and luxury brands such as Hongqi and Cadillac have surpassed it in one fell swoop last year.
In this regard, whether it is Honda Acura, which will withdraw from the Chinese market, or Lexus and Infiniti, which are still surviving in the domestic market, the high-end brands under these Japanese car brands have fallen into their own predicament.
Why do Acura, Lexus and Infiniti all suffer in the Chinese market? Where will the fate of Lexus and Infiniti go after Acura quit?
1, no one cares for a long time, Acura is going to retire from China
"Overnight, the car I bought was out of print."
When asked what he thought of the news that Acura was about to withdraw from the Chinese market, Acura owner Li Ming said this feeling about wired travel. According to him, after he decided to buy a car in March last year, he went to 4S stores such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota and Honda to see the car, and finally took a fancy to the Acura CDX model.
"For the Acura brand, I have done some understanding before, knowing that the brand's popularity in China is not very high, but in terms of body quality and failure rate, Japanese cars are still guaranteed, plus the appearance is indeed very good for my taste, so I bought this car, but I really did not expect that this brand will withdraw from the Chinese market." Li Ming said.
Image source Acura - Acura official micro
According to the Car Market Story, the only GAC Acura 4S store located in Chaoyang District, Beijing, is recently cleaning up inventory at a low price, and the discount is larger, such as Acura RDX in the guidance price of 328,000-460,000 yuan on the basis of the discount of 70,000 yuan, Acura CDX on the basis of the original price of 50,000 yuan, so that there is a scene of the city.
The media quoted a staff member as revealing that after that, the 4S store will continue to sell Honda's models, but no longer labeled acura's logo, but Honda's.
According to caijing, quoting dealer news, GAC Acura's model has been discontinued in China, and now the main task of dealers is to clean up the previous backlog of inventory cars, and withdrawing from the Chinese market is only waiting for the final notice of Honda.
Based on the above information, many netizens have expressed on the Internet that "after Acura withdraws from the Chinese market, the after-sales and maintenance services of the vehicle cannot be guaranteed?" "The car is out of print, and the parts will not be able to be matched in the future" and many other concerns.
In the face of the demands of these car owners, according to the car market Story, gac acura staff also said that after the store is closed, if acura owners have maintenance needs, they can go to GAC Honda's 4S store for docking, and will not be affected by delisting.
Acura's brand may withdraw from the Chinese market, which is not surprising in the industry, after all, there are omens before this.
In August 2021, according to some media reports, GAC Acura decided to suspend the sale of imported models in the domestic market, including the main models such as acura MDX, NSX and RLX. Among them, the MDX is positioned as a medium-sized luxury SUV, and the price range of the 2017 model is 698,000-848,000 yuan, which is similar to the BMW X5 model.
The NSX is a very sporty sports car model, in the industry is also known as "Dongying Ferrari", compared to MDX, NSX highlights the high-end positioning of the Acura brand, and its 2016 model is priced at up to 2.89 million yuan.
After the suspension of these imported models, GAC Acura only sold domestic models, including Acura CDX and RDX models. By consulting the official website of GAC Acura, you can also see that the models displayed are only domestic models, and imported models have been removed.
Acura domestic sales models, screenshot from the official website of Gac Acura
After these imported models were discontinued in China, there were voices from the outside world at that time that this was the foreshadowing laid by the Acura brand before exiting the Chinese market.
There will be such an understanding, it is not empty, because the performance of Acura, a Japanese luxury brand in the domestic market, can be said to have been silent.
Since Acura entered the Chinese market in 2006, it has initially introduced products as an imported luxury brand for sale, and the models launched include acura TL, which is positioned as a medium-sized car, Acura RL, a medium-sized and large-sized car, and Acura MDX, a medium-sized and large-sized SUV.
Although the models were launched numerously, they did not get much attention.
In 2011, 5 years after Acura entered China, according to public data released by Honda China, Acura's total sales in China that year were only 4104 vehicles, and the following year, this sales volume declined again, achieving annual sales of only more than 2300 vehicles.
In contrast, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi, which were also luxury brands, sold 326,400 units, 206,200 vehicles and 402,900 vehicles in China that year, respectively, taking the sales of Mercedes-Benz, which was the worst performer in the BBA, which was also 89 times that of Acura.
The annual sales of 2300 vehicles also means that the sales volume of each month is only less than 200 vehicles, and Acura has more than 40 suppliers in China that year, and each dealer can only sell 5 vehicles per month. Under the pressure of huge inventory and loss, many of Acura's dealers were forced to choose to withdraw from the network in 2012, and this news also became the news that many media competed to report that year.
In order to change this downward trend, Acura announced at the 2014 Guangzhou Auto Show that it will launch products that are more in line with the preferences of Chinese consumers, and it will officially achieve localization in 2016, and localized models will be sold in China, and also put forward the goal of "by 2020, Acura's annual sales will reach 100,000 vehicles".
In 2016, Acura began to be localized, and brought the first localization product - Acura CDX, positioned as a compact SUV. It turns out that after localization, it did bring some improvement in sales for Acura, which sold 9,062 vehicles in China that year, an increase of 121% over 2015.
In 2017, Acura's sales in China once again set a record, with annual sales reaching 16,348 vehicles, an increase of 100.8% year-on-year, which is also the best result since Acura entered China. In this good momentum, Acura subsequently launched two models, RDX and TLX-L.
However, with the blessing of the three domestic models, Acura did not continue the advantages of 2017. In 2018, Acura's domestic sales were only 7337 vehicles, down 55.11% from 2017. Although the sales volume of 2019 has increased to a certain extent to 14786 vehicles, in 2020-2021, Acura's sales in China have declined year by year, with 11193 vehicles and 6554 vehicles in turn.
2016-2021 Acura domestic sales trend, data from public data, connected travel mapping
It turns out that even in 2021, Acura has not achieved its slogan of "100,000 vehicles sold annually" in 2014. Under such a downturn, for Honda, it may have to withdraw the Acura brand from the Chinese market.
In the Chinese auto market, the Japanese luxury brands that have encountered bad luck are not only Acura.
2. Infiniti was "relegated" and Lexus growth slowed
Compared with Honda, Toyota has long been eyeing the "cake" of China's luxury car market.
In 1983, at a board meeting inside Toyota Motor, "Can we create a top-of-the-line luxury car that stands out?" This issue became a key topic of discussion among the participants at that time. Six years later, Toyota's luxury car brand Lexus was officially launched, and its products were first sold in the European and American markets.
Many people will think that the time of Lexus's entry into China is in 2004, but as early as 1993, the Lexus brand entered the Chinese market through the translation of "Lexus", and it was officially renamed Lexus in June 2004.
Image source LEXUS Lexus China official micro
After entering China, Lexus implemented a set of marketing logic, that is, manufacturers win, general agents win, dealers win, customers win, coupled with the launch of RX, GX and SC and other models, Lexus quickly won the reputation and recognition of domestic consumers. By November 2009, Lexus' cumulative sales in China had exceeded the 100,000-vehicle mark.
At the same time as Lexus is developing rapidly in China, Infiniti, a luxury brand under Nissan, has also come to the Chinese market to try to get a piece of the pie.
But it turned out that the latter did not have the same good luck as Lexus.
In the second year after Infiniti entered China, the total sales volume in China was only 4,000 vehicles, and the following year this decline did not change much, and its annual sales were also only about 4,000 vehicles. In contrast, Lexus sold nearly 30,000 vehicles in China in 2008.
After a bad start, although Infiniti launched more models in exchange for sales, including the QX of large SUVs, the M series models of medium and large cars and the QX56, its sales in 2011-2013 only remained at about 10,000 units, and there was no significant increase.
In order to change this decline, Infiniti carried out the landing of domestic models in 2014. In that year, Nissan Motor and Dongfeng Motor jointly established Dongfeng Infiniti with a 50:50 share ratio to pave the way for Infiniti's localization.
Also at the 2014 Chengdu Auto Show, Infiniti announced the official localization, but also launched the localized models Q50L and QX50.
Similar to Acura, Infiniti has also put forward its own plan after launching localization - it is expected that by 2028, Infiniti will reach a target of 100,000 vehicles in China, with more than half of its Chinese models.
After infiniti's localization, compared with before 2014, there has indeed been a big increase in sales. According to public data, Infiniti's domestic sales reached 30,046 vehicles in 2014, an increase of 76% over 2013.
As domestic models are more understood in the domestic market, Infiniti's development in China has also embarked on a fast track. From 2015 to 2017, its sales in China were 40,200, 41,600 and 48,400 units, respectively, making 2017 the best year since Infiniti entered China.
But this good times did not last long.
Since 2018, Infiniti's sales in China have begun to decline, with sales falling to 47,200 units that year, down 2.4% from 2017. Since then, Infiniti's decline has begun to expand year by year, with sales of 35,000 units and 25,000 units in China in 2019-2020, respectively.
The roof leaks in the rain. At the "3.15" party in 2021, Infiniti became a "shot" car company, and the gearbox failure of its model QX60 became the focus of rights protection at that time. Due to this negative event, Infiniti's sales continued to decline that year, reaching only 13,500 units, down 46.04% year-on-year.
2014-2021 Infiniti domestic sales trend, data from public data, connected travel mapping
This also means that after 7 years of localization, Infiniti not only failed to achieve the goal it set in 2014, but also returned to the level before localization in China, which can be described as "overnight back to before liberation".
In the face of the same decline as Acura, compared with Honda's move to withdraw it from the domestic market, Nissan chose to "downgrade" Infiniti in order to stop the loss.
At the beginning of January this year, Dongfeng Motor announced that dongfeng Infiniti would be included in Dongfeng Nissan's management system as an independent business headquarters. In other words, Infiniti in China will internally "downgrade" the independently operated brand to a sub-brand of Dongfeng Nissan, alongside the Nissan and Venucia sub-brands.
For this action, although Dongfeng said that the brand will continue to further explore development opportunities in the domestic luxury car market, it seems to the industry that infiniti will further contract after it is merged into Dongfeng Nissan.
Compared with Acura and Infiniti, lexus went relatively smoothly after entering China.
Taking 2016 as an example, Acura and Infiniti are in a good stage of development after entering localization, and their sales have reached their respective satisfactory levels, 9,062 and 41,600 vehicles respectively, but Lexus' domestic sales in that year exceeded the 100,000 mark.
In 2019, Lexus' advantage in the country still exists. In that year, it achieved sales of 200,500 units, an increase of 25% year-on-year. In the domestic luxury brand sales list that year, Lexus ranked fifth, preceded by BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Cadillac.
It should be noted that in such an advantage, Lexus's own risks have also begun to appear.
In 2020, although Lexus surpassed cadillac in sales of 235,000 units, its year-on-year sales growth began to slow down, falling out of the 20% mark and reaching only 17.5%.
This slowdown in sales was even more pronounced last year. Lexus sales in China last year reached 219,100 units, down 6.9% year-on-year compared to 2020. Due to the decline in sales, Lexus also fell to seventh place in the sales ranking of domestic luxury brands, surpassed by brands such as Tesla, Hongqi and Cadillac.
Lexus domestic sales and year-on-year changes in 2019-2021, data from public data, connected travel mapping
Now, whether it is Acura and Infiniti, which have been repeatedly unhappy in the domestic luxury market, or Lexus, whose sales growth has slowed down in the past two years, these Japanese high-end car brands are in their own predicament in the domestic market.
3. Why is it difficult for Japanese luxury brands to take the "Chinese road"?
To answer this question, we must also look at why these three luxury brands were created.
Due to the outbreak of World War II, the automobile industry took the lead in the development of Europe and the United States and other countries, and the products of Ford, Chrysler and other car companies came to Japan across the ocean and were welcomed by the Japanese people. However, with the outbreak of the global oil crisis in the 1970s, Japanese models with the characteristics of cheap and low fuel consumption represented by the Toyota "Crown" became a popular product in Europe and the United States.
Toyota "Crown", image source Toyota China official micro
In order to make more profits, Toyota, Honda and Nissan, which have already established factories in Europe and the United States, began to plan to launch luxury models, which led to the emergence of Toyota's Lexus, Honda's Acura and Nissan's Infiniti.
The three brands have achieved some success after several years of development by launching their own models designed for the European and American markets. Lexus has also been rated by Reuters as one of the most profitable car companies in the U.S. automotive industry; Acura has also become one of the most popular car companies in the United States with models such as the NSX; Infiniti has also maintained a steady growth momentum in the European and American markets for many years.
After these achievements, Toyota, Honda and Nissan may not be satisfied, so that after 2000, they began to deploy to the rapidly growing Chinese auto market.
However, as mentioned above, the development of Acura and Infiniti after entering China has not been very smooth, mainly because of the model. "After Acura and Infiniti entered the Chinese market, many of the products launched were directly used by models in the European and American markets, resulting in excessive fuel consumption and excessive models of some models, exceeding the acceptance of many domestic consumers, so it is reasonable that these models are not popular." Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, explained to wired travel.
Acura and Infiniti probably saw this problem as well, so they embarked on the path of localization in 2014 and 2016 respectively. Although both brands achieved some sales growth at the beginning, from 2017 onwards, both entered a downward trend again.
The reason behind this is related to the rhythm of product launch and the product itself.
Taking Acura as an example, after it opened localization in 2016, as of now, the domestic models on sale are only CDX and RDX models, which is equivalent to saying that only two models have been on sale in the previous 6 years, plus the model positioning is basically focused on SUV models, and its product system is obviously too single.
Similar to Acura, after Infiniti's localization in 2014, as of December last year, only two domestic models, Q50L and QX50, were on sale, and its third domestic model, the medium and large SUV QX60, was officially launched in February this year.
"Because the product line is too single, the choice of models given to consumers will be much reduced, and the market familiarity of acura and Infiniti brands will be worse than that of brands such as BMW, Audi and Cadillac, so that it is normal to decline at the sales level." Sun Hao, head of research and development of a domestic head car company, told Wired Travel.
As for Lexus, since entering China, it has been selling imported cars as the main product, and many models sold to China have also been equipped with engines of more than 3.5 liters, resulting in high prices. For example, the price range of the 2021 Lexus LS is 878,000-118 million yuan.
In contrast, Lexus LS is the lowest price in the price range of the BMW 7 Series of 828,000 yuan, and the Lexus brand power is lower than that of the BBA, which is why, although Lexus is better than Acura and Infiniti in terms of sales performance, it seems in the industry that consumers will be more inclined to choose BBA models if they choose the same level of luxury models.
If acura, Lexus and Infiniti's biggest rivals before 2021 are the BBA, then by 2021 they will have a new rival in front of them - Tesla.
In last year's ranking of domestic luxury brands, Tesla ranked fourth in the list with 322,300 vehicles, which is also the first time it has come to the top five of this list, and tesla has entered the top ten of this list in 2020.
In contrast, Lexus, the best performing of the three Japanese luxury brands, had a gap of 103,000 vehicles with Tesla last year, while Acura and Infiniti did not even enter the top fifteen of the list.
In 2021, the top ten domestic luxury brands ranked in terms of insurance volume, and the data came from the association of passengers, and the mapping of online travel was obtained
In the industry's view, with the further growth of Tesla's domestic sales, it may threaten the BBA that resides in the top three of this list in the future, not to mention the greater distance in sales with Lexus, Acura and Infiniti.
In the face of this new threat, these Japanese luxury brands have begun to lay out in the field of new energy in the past two years.
In early December, Infiniti unveiled its Vision 2030 Plan in the United States, which will electrify most models by 2030. It is worth noting that Infiniti has not made a one-size-fits-all full-scale transition to electrification, but will continue to retain some internal combustion engine systems to develop plug-in hybrid models. According to Wired Travel, its first new energy model is a hybrid model developed based on Nissan's e-Power technology.
Also in December last year, Lexus announced its layout plan in the new energy field, announcing that it will achieve 100% sales of electric vehicles in China, Europe and North America by 2030, and fully electrify sales models by 2035.
To achieve this goal, Lexus has released four new electric models, including a production model that will be officially released this year, the RZ. In June last year, Lexus took the lead in releasing a model called NX New Energy, which was launched in China at the end of last year, and the power model is also plug-in hybrid.
For Acura, in terms of domestic electrification, Honda's new e:N pure electric family model will replace it; in the US market, Acura will build the first cross-border pure electric SUV based on the Ultium platform.
Although these brands have been highly positioned in the field of new energy and regard China as a major market, it is not easy for them to go smoothly.
"For Japanese luxury brands such as Lexus and Infiniti, the layout in the field of new energy is relatively conservative and hesitant, which can be seen from the fact that it is still using the old platform to develop models and launch hybrid models, compared with Tesla, Weilai and other new energy vehicle companies are developing new platforms and new technologies, so it is difficult for Lexus to compete with Tesla." Zhang Xiang said so.
Zhang Xiang also believes that the reason why these Japanese luxury brands are so slow to electrify is inseparable from the same conservative attitude of their parent companies (Toyota, Honda and Nissan) in the field of new energy. Wired Travel has been in the "New Energy Vehicle Era, Why Did Japanese Cars Lose Their Names?" This has been elaborated in the article.
Nowadays, in the face of the dilemma of not being able to go through in the Chinese market, it seems that Acura will exit the Chinese market with a high probability in the industry, and for Lexus and Infiniti, in the face of the increasingly important Chinese market in the global automotive field, they need to spend more energy to make their strength stronger.
After all, no one wants to become the next "Acura" to lose on the battlefield of China's new energy luxury cars in the future.
(At the request of the interviewee, Li Ming and Sun Hao are pseudonyms.) ）