Acura's loneliness is also a microcosm of the reshuffle of China's luxury car market.
Text | Song Beanie
A month after the rumor of "Acura exiting", GAC Acura stopped production and sales in the Chinese market to add supporting evidence.
A few days ago, GUANGC Honda released a message on its official website that in order to further promote the implementation of the electrification strategy, GAC Honda will fully integrate the ACURA brand resources of GAC and join the electrification business. From 2023 onwards, GAC Honda will no longer manufacture and sell existing products under the ACURA brand of GAC Motor.
Regarding the follow-up maintenance and repair of Acura car owners' vehicles, GUANGQI Honda said that it will continue to provide services to GAC Acura car owners through GAC Acura special stores that have joined the electrified sales service network, as well as GAC Honda's related channels.
This notice was interpreted by the outside world as "Acura is about to withdraw from the Chinese market". However, it should be noted that GUANGC Honda no longer produces and sells GAC Acura's existing products, which is not exactly equivalent to "Acura withdraws from China". There are views in the industry that Acura is more likely to sell in China as an imported car in the future.
In fact, from entering the Chinese market as an imported car in 2006 to the frequent rumors of exit in 2022, in the past 16 years, Acura, a Japanese luxury brand that has been successful in the North American market, has not been able to win the favor of Chinese consumers.
The dilemma is hard to break
A month ago, rumors of GAC Acura's withdrawal from the Chinese market began to ferment. At that time, it was reported that the only Jingang 4S store in Beijing that specialized in selling GAC Acura models was about to close. There are also media reports that it has been learned from dealers that Acura will withdraw from the Chinese market and is currently waiting for the final notice of the manufacturer.
According to the official website of GAC Acura, there are currently three models on sale of the Acura brand in China, namely the compact SUV CDX, the medium-sized SUV RDX and the CDX hybrid version.
At that time, the think tank Jun called the above 4S store, and its staff said that the store was only upgrading and transformation, and would not be sold to the McLaren brand, and it was possible to sell Guangqi Honda models in the later stage.
"GAC Acura's terminal preferential margin is larger than ever, there are currently two models on sale in the store, CDX (guide price 22.98-34.98 million yuan) discount of 40,000 yuan, RDX (guidance price of 328,460,000 yuan) discount of 60,000 yuan, many people heard that Acura is about to stop production news rushed over to 'bottom up', now there are not many stock cars."
The staff member added, "Although the GAC Acura model will no longer be sold next year, the store will continue to be responsible for after-sales and maintenance problems of vehicles." At present, the factory has not stopped production and can receive new orders. ”
In contrast, Acura is quite popular in Guangdong. According to the official website of the think tank Jun, there are as many as 25 sales outlets in Guangdong Acura, including 5 in Guangzhou and 3 in Foshan. The sales staff of a Acura 4S store in Guangdong said, "Foshan people do not buy Acura, Acura national sales will be cut off, what is said is not false, Foshan's local annual sales may account for about 30% of the country." ”
However, Foshan did not save Acura's decline.
According to public information, Acura is a high-end automobile brand owned by The Japanese Honda Motor Company, founded in the United States in 1986, and is also the first Japanese luxury car brand, which has achieved great success in the North American market once launched. Prior to localization, Acura designed, developed, and produced models in North America, and developed a rich product line including TL, RL, and MDX models.
In September 2006, Acura landed in the Chinese market as an imported car with the medium and large sedan RL and medium-sized sedan TL, but the sales performance was not good. The data shows that from 2011 to 2015, Acura's annual sales in the Chinese market have always hovered below 5,000 vehicles, and in 2012, sales were as low as 2,300 vehicles.
"Acura is designed and developed in the United States, so it pays more attention to the preferences of American customers, and they are somewhat different from the preferences of Chinese customers." Seiji Kurashi, executive director of Honda Giken Industries Co., Ltd., once said frankly, "In the future, more Chinese elements will be introduced into the development of Acura, reflecting more Chinese demand, and developing new products." ”
In 2016, Acura began production in Guangqi Honda, officially opening the journey of localization in the Chinese market. In the same year, GAC Acura's first domestic SUV CDX was launched. In 2017, the Acura brand sold 16,300 units, reaching the peak of sales after entering China, but Infiniti, which was also a Japanese luxury brand, sold about 29,100 units and Lexus sold about 132,900 units that year. According to the data, from 2016 to 2021, Acura car sales were 9062, 16348, 7337, 14786, 11193 and 6554. During the same period, Lexus's sales in China exceeded 200,000 vehicles.
It is worth mentioning that in 2014, Acura put forward the "2020 Plan" for the Chinese market and set a target of 100,000 vehicles in sales in 2020, but Acura only achieved one-tenth of the target in 2020. In addition, since localization, GAC Acura has successively introduced three models: CDX, TXL-L and RDX. From 2019 onwards, Acura has not launched a new domestic model, and has only iteratively upgraded on the basis of existing models. The year-on-year plunge of nearly 50% in sales in 2021 may accelerate Acura's withdrawal from the Chinese market to some extent.
Some insiders said in an interview: "Acura pricing is high but the recognition is insufficient, brand power, product strength, innovation is insufficient, as a luxury brand's popularity has not started, models are less updated slowly, and lack of competitiveness, which is the reason for its poor performance in the Chinese market." ”
Make way for Honda's electrification
Acura's loneliness is also a microcosm of the internal reshuffling and reshaping of China's luxury car market. According to the data of the Association, the sales of luxury brand cars in the Chinese market reached 2.5621 million units in 2021, an increase of 4.9% year-on-year.
On the one hand, the sales of independent luxury brands such as Hongqi and American luxury brands such as Lincoln continue to rise, on the other hand, tesla, Weilai, Gaohe and other new car-making forces and the second generation of traditional brand incubation have sprung up and competed with luxury brands for the price range of 300,000-500,000 yuan. In addition, there are also the same ill-fated Infiniti as Acura, and Dongfeng Infiniti was included in Dongfeng Nissan's management system earlier this year.
Under the wave of electrification, luxury brands actively transform to intelligent electrification, and accelerate the counterattack, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi respectively launched EQ series, i series and e-tron series, second-tier luxury brands such as Cadillac, Lexus, etc. also accelerated the pace of transformation. Official data show that BMW's new energy sales in China in the first quarter reached three times that of the same period last year; Mercedes-Benz's sales of new energy vehicles in the first quarter also achieved a substantial year-on-year increase, and sales of Mercedes-Electrified models (pure electric vehicles + plug-in hybrids) currently account for 15% of total sales.
Japanese car companies are also working hard to "power up". According to honda china's electrification strategy, 10 new electric models will be launched in China within five years, and 30 pure electric vehicles will be launched in the global market in 2030, with an annual production volume of more than 2 million; Toyota announced that the Lexus brand will sell all electric vehicles in China, Europe and North America by 2030 and achieve full electrification worldwide by 2035; Infiniti plans to electrify most of its models in 2030.
It is worth mentioning that although Acura has not performed well in the Chinese market, it has flourished in the US market. According to the data, Acura sold 1.5574 million new cars in the United States in 2021, an increase of 14.9% year-on-year, and occupied the top 5 in the US luxury car market.
Acura has also accelerated its electrification layout in the U.S. market. Emile Korkor, Vice President of Sales for Acura North America, said: "For Acura, we are electrifying much faster than the Honda brand. At the same time, Acura plans to have more than half of Acura's sales coming from electric vehicles by 2030.
On April 12, Honda announced that it will launch two medium- and large-sized electric vehicles developed in cooperation with GM in the North American market in 2024, one of which is the Acura brand SUV.
In the era of fuel vehicles, Acura has become a masterpiece in the Chinese market, and perhaps switching to electrification is a new way out of its transformation, but Acura cannot have its own name. From 2023 onwards, GUANGC Honda will no longer produce and sell existing products under the GAC Acura brand, but its brand resources will be fully integrated into the electrification business. At the end of March, Guangqi Honda released a new electric brand e:NP, and starting this year, Guangqi Honda will continue to launch the e:NP brand series of electric models at the pace of one new car per year.