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One is "suspension and delisting from 2023", one is to reposition itself as "Nissan-Plus" since the half-level, and one is "sorry not to increase the price by 10,000 yuan for such a big discount". The three major Japanese luxury brands that began in the late 1980s have come out of the jaw-dropping gap Chinese mainland.
Gac Acura dust settled, Dongfeng Yingfei buried its head insistence, Lexus basin full of pots, the experience and situation of these three post-80s in the Chinese market, for any independent car company trying to enter the high-end market, is a valuable and indispensable living case, living sample, living lesson.
Sorry, Changan car logo does not back the pot
Unlike many people think – but like many brands with similar trends , Acura is not too late to enter China. As early as 2006, Acura landed Chinese mainland as an importer, only a year later than the official introduction of Lexus and a year earlier than Infiniti.
Prior to this, Acura had just recorded a record sales peak of nearly 210,000 units in the North American market in 2005. The word peak is understood in the opposite direction, that is, in the years that followed, even if Acura added a huge gold mine in China that has been added for more than a decade, it can no longer touch the waist of 200,000 vehicles.
Acura's first experience of China came early, but the enthusiasm never came. In 2006, the main TL and RL models were brought in, and the following year, the flagship SUV model, the MDX, was introduced. After entering China for ten years, it was piecemeal and intermittently moved to the entire product line that was not very long.
In terms of the speed of model introduction, Acura is not slower than Infiniti and Volvo, which have similar statuses, but the importance of the market is visible to the naked eye. The import of the entire car series only introduces 1 to 2 configurations, the price is higher than the already domestic BBA class of the car, the 4S store and even the entire brand image are unpredictable, which is the impression left by Acura at this stage to Chinese consumers.
Today we sigh Acura, some people will throw the "pot" to Changan, in 2010 Chang'an launched a new car logo that is just like acura car logo flipping 180 °. However, China's large, local brands, overseas luxury cars have been "crashed" more than one case of Acura. Far from the example, Infiniti, which is more "collided" with Chery's new car logo, is still working hard today.
Is it really like that? Or, is it really too similar to be irredeemable?
Instead of complaining that the Changan car logo "dragged down" Acura, it is better to recall that Acura China had any action at that time that made the market increase its attention?
In that era when there was no Little Red Book and no Fast Hand, in the face of consumers who had not yet established the cognition of luxury cars, as a brand that was still unpopular even today, Acura not only failed to eliminate the negative impact of the "crash" of the logo, nor did it "do something" during this period - whether the goal was to eliminate the negative or take the opportunity to improve its own popularity, whether positive, negative or neutral.
In this "traffic accident", the only party whose interests were damaged was Acura, but he hid itself.
It is not so much that "it will be mistaken for Chang'an" as it is that "the world does not know the praises".
For large brands that are already well known to the whole people, cold treatment may be an option. But for the acura that desperately needed to open up its popularity at the time, "doing nothing" was a worse choice than "doing it wrong". What's more, colliding with the car logo of independent brands, the result of "not doing" is bound to be a negative impact, even if "doing wrong" can be wrong again?
The cold handling or non-handling of the "crash mark" incident is only a concrete manifestation, reflecting acura China's almost "inaction" behavior in the first decade of entering China: neither actively leaving an impression on people, when the negative situation occurs, nor successfully eliminating and weakening the negative impact, or trying to use it for its own use. If "doing wrong" is a matter of ability, then "not doing" can only be regarded as a problem of thinking.
Domestic production is not a problem, nor is special supply
The Chinese market is very inclusive like the people here: as long as you are willing to work hard, even if the land is rotten, you can grow a few grasses. Even the storyteller Borgward and the tape ruler Zotye once stood here , and Chinese car consumers' ability to accept new brands from all walks of life is obvious to all. Macroscopically speaking, this feature has its two sides, but it is beneficial and harmless for car companies.
For the Chinese market for many years of "frigidity", Acura's sales by 2015 are still less than 5,000 vehicles, which is reasonable.
If the story continues like this, Acura may still stay in China as an import today, perhaps keep to itself, or wait for the opportunity. We can't predict its current situation in a parallel universe, but looking at the Jenisses next door still fighting for a similar small piece of land, too outrageous expectations aside, imported Acura is alive like a high-end version of Subaru, at least not much harder.
However, in 2016, we ushered in GAC Acura, which chose to be domestic in the case of four figures in annual sales, which was a radical move that gave conservatives a thumbs up. What is even more desperate is that the first domestic model is neither a TL/TLX with at least a little mass base, nor a mid-size SUV RDX that is more popular in the class, but a compact car CDX specially supplied in China. Later, GAC Acura directly launched a long wheelbase version of the TLX-L without leaving any impression on the mainstream population.
Leaving aside for the moment the awkward name of "a 'bar' in the four letters, pronounced out a full 8 syllables", Volvo, Infiniti, Cadillac and other similar cases, either in the overseas reputation (G35), or in the import period more existential (G35/Q50, old S60), or the brand awareness is very high (Cadillac), and the brand itself is unknown, the import accumulation is almost zero, overseas is not a deep image, there is only Acura TLX and its predecessor TL.
Originally, domestic production was not a problem, lengthening was not a problem, and special supply was not a problem, but gao leng had been covered with a layer of yarn for many years and suddenly rushed to split the legs, which caused a problem.
Looking back at the various operations of GAC Acura, in fact, none of them are hopelessly incurable. If the full range of horizontal engines is a constraint, then how do Volvo and Lincoln get ahead? If the platform with Honda is the fate of the door, then how does Lexus become more and more courageous? If the low-end special car destroys everything, then how can BMW and Audi head iron?
The auto market in the past decade has long been less arrogant than the first decade of this century, and Chinese consumers regard the actual needs as more important than anything else, but if they do not even show their identity and endowment skills, they have exhausted the bottom card that can be used to please the people at once, so it is no wonder that they are despised, ignored, and ignored.
Doing branding is like playing cards, just like stock trading, just like cooking, a single thing itself is not right or wrong and it does not matter, what is important is what environment and what background to do, what is important is the understanding of rhythm and the control of the fire.
Late wakefulness, missed set tone
At the moment, the more pressing task for the entire Honda family is clearly the electrification transformation. Relatively speaking, Honda is one of the few major brands that is slightly behind the progress of pure electricity, and even recently announced that it will join forces with GM to launch a new platform electric vehicle in 2027.
Acura doesn't seem to be in this huge plan, perhaps because the focus is only left in North America, at least it does not incarnate as a group of pure electric pioneers like Jaguar and Volvo. Talking about a similar topic the year before, Acura executives said that the core task now is to focus on the brand's athletic performance (performance) setting tone.
This is completely absent in GAC Acura's models, from CDX to TLX-L to RDX, and it is difficult to see any other "characteristics" except for the "more expensive Honda".
The new generation of product lines in North America has been reflected. Although the new generation of TLX is still a transverse engine platform, the front suspension and front tower roof have adopted new structures that are more costly and performant; the Return of the Type-S model coincides with the appearance of Acura's exclusive 3.0T V6 engine in the cabin. Everything seems to be shouting: I am different from Honda.
Acura is "doing its best" to avoid sharing too many parts with Honda models. This is an inevitable need to improve athletic performance relative to affordable brand models, and it is also a necessary path for high-end brands to create a sense of exclusivity and enhance premium capabilities.
After wandering in the Chinese mainland for many years, Acura finally found its own direction, which is also the direction of popularity - sports. However, at this time, Acura has no time to tap this person in the Chinese market: the emission regulations here do not allow it, and the wave of intelligent electrification can easily cover up Acura's movement transformation. Instead of continuing to waste production lines, it is better to use the time waiting for brand transformation to temporarily withdraw from this market.
Maybe in a few years, when Acura's new generation of models focused on sporty performance has become successful (of course, if it can be successful), we can still see Acura return to Chinese mainland, perhaps as an importer. But this also needs to take into account the process of history, if the domestic new energy trend continues to accelerate, the window left for Acura fuel vehicles may be narrowed, then Acura may need to catch up on the new track.
If Acura had set the tone five years ago or even before it was domestically produced, instead of scurrying through a cloud of ambiguous people, would the results be different today?