In March, Honda's two joint ventures in the Chinese market each ushered in an important moment.
On the 18th, Dongfeng Honda's new pure electric sequence e:N's first model e:N1 officially ushered in the off-line, and Dongfeng Honda also gave this new pure electric vehicle the honor of its own 7 million vehicles off the production line milestone;
On March 22, Guangqi Honda announced that it will release its new electric brand on March 29, when it will announce its brand strategy.
It can be seen that both car companies have aimed at the promotion of electrification strategy and tried to continue to maintain competitiveness in the era of new four modernizations.
However, combing through the electrification process of the two, in fact, you can also find their differences, compared to the steady progress of Guangqi Honda, Dongfeng Honda is a bit of a "giant of words, a dwarf of action", and the reason for this impression is that Pan Jianxin, deputy general manager of Dongfeng Honda.
From 2020 onwards, in the face of the electrification of the market and the approaching "carbon neutrality" period, Pan Jianxin has repeatedly said in public as the official spokesperson of Dongfeng Honda: "It is another extraordinary year, Dongfeng Honda must pfddn reserves for the new energy market and begin to accelerate the transformation." ”
Year after year, however, Dongfeng Honda is still falling behind in the era of electrification.
In fact, it is not too late for dongfeng Honda to electrify its layout. As early as the 2018 Guangzhou Auto Show, Dongfeng Honda released the new energy brand strategy of "looking to the future". The X-NV and M-NV launched by Dongfeng Honda were also planned in accordance with this long-term new energy strategy, but the two cars have failed in the market. The data shows that the average monthly sales of X-NV are only a few dozen units, M-NV is better, the average monthly sales are only about 500 units, and the total sales in 2021 are less than 6,000 units.
It is worth mentioning that the X-NV and M-NV are both small SUVs, and the sales of these two pure electric vehicles together are less than 1% of Dongfeng Honda's total sales, which is almost negligible. Such achievements, more or less let the frequent platform for their Pan Jianxin on the face of the light, as dongfeng Honda's marketing main clean, Pan Jianxin is really hard to blame.
However, it is also feeling the pressure that Dongfeng Honda and Pan Jianxin have high hopes for e:NS1.
According to the deployment of Dongfeng Honda, the e:N1 built based on the e:N pure electricity concept platform will be a key step for Dongfeng Honda to transform the pure electricity market. But the question is, can e:NS1 make consumers willing to pay?
It can be said that in the body and endurance, there is a significant gap between the two, the price is similar, I believe that from the above two pure electric vehicle core parameters comparison, people with independent thinking ability, will choose ID.4 bar.
How can a product like NS1 make Pan Jianxin sell electric cars well?
Of course, Pan Jianxin can continue to tout Honda's technical research and development level, but the fact is that according to Honda's description at the press conference, the new intelligent and efficient pure electric architecture of e:NS1 integrates high-efficiency and high-power drive motors, large-capacity and high-density batteries, exclusive frames for pure electric vehicles and chassis platforms.
Such words, which sound particularly like the marketing rhetoric of new forces, may not be able to impress Chinese consumers with their perception of automotive products anymore.
Perhaps, this is the embarrassment of Dongfeng Honda and Pan Jianxin now, the technology does not dominate, the price does not dominate, just leave a joint venture brand, even if the appeal of the electric era has not been as good as before, Pan Jianxin still has to go.
"The market is still the same, will retain the traditional advantages, but also accept the emerging intelligence, technology, sports, personalization, fashion that represents the future direction, can bring something different from the previous driving experience, is the future of the car market rejuvenation." Dongfeng Honda's product layout and marketing ideas are also developing in this direction, and the product layout should gain insight into the current needs of customers and maintain the definition of young models. ”
Looking back at Pan Jianxin's speech at last year's Guangzhou Auto Show, it seems that I can hear a little helplessness. The "elephant turn" of traditional car companies often involves the transformation of brand image and many problems such as channel transformation and production line adjustment, and for Dongfeng Honda, it will not be easier to create high-quality pure electric products from scratch than the new forces starting from scratch.
Perhaps in the view of Dongfeng Honda, the rise in the Chinese market in recent years, the growing market increment, enough to provide it with sufficient electrification transformation time and capital, but in the face of more and more competitors to launch strong competitive products, dongfeng Honda and e:NS1 may not be easy to enter the era of electrification.
Electrification will still become Pan Jianxin's heart disease for a long time.
Write | Water miao
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