How miserable are Korean cars in China? Data is the most intuitive embodiment, in January and February of this year, the market share of independent brand car companies was 46.6%, German and Japanese were 21.2% and 21.1%, American brands accounted for 9.5%, the market share of Korean cars was only 1.8%, only slightly higher than the French car 0.8%, such a low market share for Korean cars is not a matter of how much sales, but the entire brand has come to a moment of life and death.
There is a car that best represents the rise and fall of Korean cars, it is the Hyundai IX25, this small SUV once had a good heat when it was launched in 2014, and at the end of 2016, there was a brilliant moment of 17319 units sold in a single month, but when it came to February 2022, it only sold 93 units, the Honda XR-V and Binzhi next door were still in the top ten of the SUV list, the IX25 was almost forgotten, what happened?
First, the product force is general
Looking at the appearance of the modern IX25 alone, it is actually quite characteristic, its split light group adopts an inline style design, the shell and the body form a plane, such a design is rare, the body uses a large number of straight lines to outline, which makes it look a little more hard. The most conspicuous interior is its "horizontal" large screen, the size is 10.4 inches, the size is not large, but with the black edges on both sides, and the central control console is connected, it looks quite graded, the interior materials are also OK, the center console and the top of the door are soft wrapped.
Configuration is not its strength, the minimum configuration of 105,800 yuan is only 2 airbags, such as parking radar, reversing image, central control screen and LED headlights and other configurations can not be seen, many practical configurations can only be in the high-end models can be. Its wheelbase is only 2610mm, and its height of 1 meter 78 sits in the back row, with less than two punches of legroom, which is a decent performance.
Looking at the power side, the IX25 series is all used in a 1.5L self-priming engine, the maximum power is 84.4kW, the maximum torque is 143.8N·m, the performance of this engine is much different from the L15B5 engine on Honda Binzhi, the multi-point EFI technology is relatively backward, matching the 6-speed manual and CVT gearbox, the ride is good, the fuel consumption is not low, according to the owner's reputation, the average fuel consumption of the automatic model is around 7.5L/100km.
In terms of dynamic performance, the IX25 is also not outstanding, the 0-100km/h acceleration performance outside the 10 seconds has no highlights, the torsion beam rear scooter suspension does not have too much sense of high-grade, walking on the bumpy road is instantly exposed, tire noise and wind noise at medium and high speed are obvious, and it is not friendly to the passengers in the car.
Second, the decline in modern brand power
Even if the IX25 product strength is average, but the good villain is also a joint venture brand, the monthly sales of only 93 units can only be understood as hyundai's brand power has been seriously lagging behind, for example, when have you ever seen Honda and Toyota's Dangda models sell less than 100 units a month?
In fact, hyundai's brand weakness has long been no secret, since 2016 sales reached a peak of 1.14 million vehicles, since then sales have begun to fall sharply for several consecutive years, only 385,000 units were sold in 2021, and a total of 40,513 new cars were sold in January and February this year, compared with 59,271 units in the same period last year.
Beijing Hyundai in the country has Beijing Shunyi first, second and third factories, as well as Hebei Cangzhou plant, Chongqing plant a total of 5 major passenger car production bases, the total annual production capacity can reach 1.65 million, compared with its annual sales, Beijing Hyundai's capacity utilization rate is even less than 30%, so in 2021, the new car-making force Ideal Automobile invested 6 billion yuan to take over the factory and land resources of Beijing Hyundai No. 1 factory, invested in the construction of the ideal automobile global flagship plant, In February this year, Beijing Hyundai was exposed to the complete shutdown of the Chongqing plant with a planned production capacity of 300,000 units, and in addition, Beijing Hyundai's second beijing factory was also rumored to be listed for sale.
Third, the competitors are too strong
IX25 sales fell sharply in addition to their own reasons, competitors are too strong also have to mention, the official guidance price of IX25 is 10.58-13.68 million yuan, in the terminal market has a discount of 1.5W or so, in some areas the minimum allocation has been less than 90,000 yuan, this price range, joint venture brands have Honda Binzhi, XR-V, Volkswagen Tujiao, Exploration, Toyota Fenglanda, Ruifang, Ford Collar and Nissan Jinke and other models, there is no soft persimmon, independent brands are wolves around, Changan CS55PLUS, CS75PLUS, Geely Boyue, Binyue, Chery Tiggo 8 and other models casually pull out one of them is larger than the IX25 size and has a higher cost performance.
Finally, IX25 is actually a microcosm of Beijing Hyundai, competing upwards but first-line joint venture brands, and there are also independent brands under the siege, Hyundai really has to think about what to do.