Produced 丨 Tiger Sniff Car Group
Author 丨 Li Wenbo
Edited 丨 thoughtful
Head Map 丨 《Love Deep Rain"
"Acura is not that the car can't do it, but it never knows what Chinese consumers want, and they play themselves out."
After learning that the countdown to acura, a luxury brand owned by Honda, Japan's second-largest automobile manufacturer, was only 8 months left before it withdrew from the Chinese market, owner Liu Yue expressed his chagrin for the first time: "The Japanese side will bear 80% of the responsibility for Acura's defeat in China."
On April 8, GAC Honda announced that it will no longer produce and sell GAC Acura products from 2023, and the follow-up service channel will switch to the GAC Honda system.
Although the announcement grandly attributed acura's departure from China to "further promote the implementation of the electrification strategy and join the electrification business". But in fact, it is wishful thinking: Acura's fuel vehicles are not Chinese to buy, let alone electric vehicles. The real reasons are obvious: dismal model sales, poor business management, and disconnection of products from the Chinese market.
Looking back at history, Acura is the second Japanese automobile company to voluntarily withdraw from the Chinese market in five years. In 2018, Japan's Suzuki Motor Company severed its joint venture relationship with Changan Automobile, and Changan Automobile subsequently acquired its equity, making Changan Suzuki a Chinese brand. Acura did not take this step.
In a rather absurd contrast, just a week before Acura announced its departure from China, DS, a French luxury brand that sold less than one-eighth of Acura, also released a new car with great fanfare.
Honda "luxurious", cross-service chat
Conceptually, luxury cars have never had a uniform definition worldwide. The German automotive industry's consensus statement on "luxury" is that luxury brand production, wheelbase of more than 3 meters, engine displacement of more than 3.0 liters, the price of more than 300,000.
Although this concept is very outdated today, as of now, it is still the cognitive baseline for most car companies to benchmark products, and the three major Japanese luxury brands: Lexus, Acura and Infiniti are the products of this German automobile value framework. The three Japanese luxury brothers were all born in the United States, and the original intention was very simple: to end the situation of Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi dominating the US luxury car market as soon as possible, and get a piece of it.
Here in particular, the birth of Acura is more dramatic. In 1986, three North American Honda executives gathered at a Formica table in the cafeteria of the old office building of the company's headquarters, outlining the original outline of "Honda luxury."
"Header D": Honda NSX (NA1)
At that time, Lexus had just celebrated its 3rd birthday, and Toyota was still looking for an emotional code to break through the psychological defenses of Americans. Infiniti's idea has not yet been revealed, and the urgently needed reports at Nissan's headquarters are piled up, and the secretary who runs up and down to deliver documents can't even free up time for lunch.
It is under the premise of this without any references and reference routes that Acura landed. The high-level discussions held 36 years ago in the cafeteria of Honda's headquarters in the United States became a major turning point in the modern North American automotive market.
"In the imported car market, there is a big difference between Japanese economy cars and German luxury cars," said Eric Conn, Honda's North American advertising manager, "Buyers of German luxury cars will not come to buy Japanese cars, but for first-time car buyers, Japanese cars are very cost-effective." ”
In order to impress this part of the consumers who have not bought a German luxury car, Acura deliberately positioned the slogan "exquisite craftsmanship, create a perfect car", implying that the vehicle will provide the good performance of German luxury cars and the durability of Japanese cars. Acura also made a special advertising film entitled "Crazy German" to this end, and issued an official war book to the German opponents.
Acura's performance in the United States was basically in line with Honda's initial expectations. Since 2012, Acura's average annual sales in the United States have remained stable at 150,000 units. Acura sold 157,000 new cars in the U.S. last year, up 15 percent year-over-year and ranking second only to BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and Audi. In the first three months of this year, Acura sold 5,717 units, 9,299 units and 13,220 units in the United States, respectively, a veritable "second-tier luxury".
In the matter of entering China, Acura's choice is quite cautious. In 2005, Acura's sales in the U.S. market exceeded 200,000 units for the first time; in 2006, it exceeded 200,000 units. It was only at this time that the conservative Acura had the courage to open up overseas territory and introduce TL and RL cars to China.
Happily, Chinese consumers finally have the opportunity to buy a second Japanese luxury car after Lexus. Unfortunately, most consumers turned away after seeing Acura's high pricing. From 2006 to 2016, Acura did two things wrong, and wasted a 10-year golden period to establish and consolidate the image of a luxury brand.
First, it is not well priced. Among the six cars introduced in China in 2006, the smallest sedan TL sold for 430,000, the slightly larger sedan RL sold for 680,000, and the medium and large SUV MDX sold for 720,000. One fact for comparison is that the 2005 BMW 3 Series E90 325i sold for 450,000 at the time, which was only 20,000 more expensive than the Acura TL.
Second, do not seriously do the interior. In an era when luxury cars are still used by chinese people to show off their identity, Acura's approach to the interior is to copy Honda as a whole, with slight changes in details, and no trimming in workmanship and materials.
On the other hand, Lexus, which also conquered China as a pure importer, has long since got rid of the stereotype of "shell toyota" and jumped to be synonymous with the Japanese luxury car.
The acura that crossed the American costume to chat did not fit into the Chinese realm, what to do? Honda thought of a trick: domestic.
In 2016, Acura settled in Guangqi Honda, opened a localization strategy, and took the lead in launching a local special model - CDX, with a flat response. Then he imitated BBA and built a long wheelbase sedan TLC-L, which still could not poke the pain point. In the end, I wanted to take advantage of Jiang Wen's endorsement to let RDX play the savior, but the Chinese consumers who had been deeply brainwashed by the concept of "hardcover Honda" let Acura's last hope be disappointed. Acura only retained cdx and RDX in the Chinese market, and the rest of the models left the market. In 2021, Acura sold 6,554 units for the whole year, including 5,300 units used to clear inventory in December.
Acura's defeat in the Chinese market has two core reasons: first, the resource tilt is limited; second, the target is misplaced.
A source close to Honda North America revealed that the North American Research Institute has long stopped tilting its resources to China's Acura. "The Honda headquarters in Japan does not allocate funds, and only a very small number of people are willing to pay for two jobs for existing personnel. This is not a model that was tailored to the market from the beginning, and it was not competitive no matter how hard it was later." The lack of R&D investment in the headquarters has left the GAC Acura singers with no cards to play, and can only sell one through the existing channels of Guangben.
In China, there are many people who own two BMWs, and there are many people who own two Rolls-Royces, but there are not many people who own two Acuras and are two domestic Acuras, and Liu Yue is one of them. Having purchased CDX and RDX successively, he admitted that he did not have much Honda feelings and was willing to pay for two reasons: first, to meet the needs of the family; second, the discount was in place, RDX 20% off, CDX 25% off.
"I think this discount should be the real market price," Liu Yue said, "Acura should convert more Honda fans, Volkswagen owners have money to change a lot of Audi, H(onda)2 A(cura) strategy is definitely more effective than staring at BBA." ”
The hymns that are anxious to be domestically produced cannot wait for spring, and the imported Lexus is in China, but every day is spring.
In 2021, Lexus will sell 227,000 units in the Chinese market. 225,000 units in 2020, 202,000 units in 2019, 160,000 units in 2018, 133,000 units in 2017, and 109,000 units in 2016. When Acura first started domestically, Lexus had already passed the 100,000-unit life-and-death mark by pure imports, and the advantage was so obvious.
The reason for Lexus' success in the Chinese market is twofold: first, resolute importation; second, free maintenance.
First of all, Lexus adheres to the "Japanese import", accurately grasping the psychology of two types of people: the first type, obsessed with Made in Japan, has a good feeling for The Original Japanese. The group has no requirements for power, control and intelligence, open quietly, sit comfortably, turn over, brakes can stop, speakers can sound, and do not enter the repair shop for 10 years. In their eyes, only Lexus could do it. The second category, want to look low-key, but not willing to be classified as ordinary people. They have the ability to buy BBA, but this is equivalent to sticking the word "rich" on the brain door, which is too tacky. You can buy a Toyota Camry and are not willing. Lexus is just right, the brand is strong, the power is weak, and it just so happens that they never step on the depth of the throttle more than one-third, and match each other to achieve low-key connotations.
Secondly, Lexus models are maintained free of charge for a certain period of time and mileage. According to the official website information, the hybrid model is 6 years / 150,000 kilometers, and the fuel version is 4 years / 100,000 kilometers, covering basic maintenance projects. Lexus will not do loss-making business, "free" has long been spread into the car price, users will not go deep into the doorway, they only care about driving the car to the 4S store, do not spend a dime on the line.
Lexus's car owner portraits support these two views: mostly male, older, more educated, labeled "middle-level foreign enterprises", caring for families, customers are mainly distributed in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai three first-tier cities, summed up as "conservative middle-aged rich people".
Middle-aged rich people (except in Foshan) don't like to buy Acura songs, probably because it is too sporty to drive.
There is not much time left for "Toyomoto Day"
In addition to Acura, Infiniti, a luxury brand owned by Nissan Motor, has not lived a good life in China.
On January 5 this year, Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. announced that Dongfeng Infiniti will be included in the Dongfeng Nissan management system as an independent business headquarters, and together with the Nissan and Venucia brands, it will become the third brand of Dongfeng Nissan. Dongfeng Infiniti is a joint venture brand established by Infiniti and Dongfeng Motor in 2014 on a 50:50 share ratio, with sales of 41,600 units in 2016, 48,400 units, 47,200 units and 42,300 units in 2017-2019, before falling to 25,700 units in 2020. Last year, that number fell to 13,500 units. The explanation given by Infiniti is that the chinese market is not large, and if it continues to operate as an independent joint venture, the cost is too large.
Acura's departure from China and Infiniti's return to Dongfeng are the epitome of the decline of Japanese luxury in China, and the true portrayal of Japanese car brands gradually losing their charm in China. In an era when the number of car brands was limited and products were scarce, Japanese cars were economical and durable. Nowadays, new cars are in full bloom, services and products have crossed the level, and it is difficult for Japanese cars to rely on brands alone to make Chinese money, and they have to rely on real skills.
Traditionally, luxury cars are defined by brand and price. The current and future luxury cars, defined by multiple dimensions such as service, intelligence, technology, and responsibility, will also be given expectations and imaginations higher than that of transportation.
In the "2021 China Luxury Car Market Research Report", Judian Arithmetic divides luxury brands into three categories: traditional luxury brands, independent luxury brands and high-end new power brands. Traditional luxury brands include BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Lexus, Porsche, Lincoln, Volvo, Cadillac, Jaguar, Land Rover and more. Independent luxury brands include Hongqi, WEY, Lynk & Co and so on. High-end new power brands include Tesla, Weilai and Gaohe.
The impact of high-end new power brands on traditional luxury brands is reflected in two directions: The first is product innovation, such as power exchange, automatic driving, lidar, solid-state batteries, etc., which are the first to be carried by new forces. The second is user relationship innovation, such as direct operation, all-weather service, community operation, etc., which are all practiced by new forces. This is all part of the new era where consumers are willing to pay a premium.
From a market perspective, acceptance is increasing, and the diversified open competitive atmosphere gives new brands a foothold. Tolerance is decreasing, the user selection criteria are becoming more and more stringent, once BMW 7 series customers can only enjoy the door-to-door pick-up car service, now 300,000 krypton must also be standard, "pampered" users are accustomed to difficult to accept the reduction of service levels.
However, the existing Japanese brands, whether they are home brands or luxury brands, are too conservative, and they are disconnected from the rhythm of the era of intelligent electric vehicles in the two dimensions of product innovation and household relationship innovation. New car-making forces are trying to figure out how to make lidar mass-produced as soon as possible and make the algorithm more reasonable, but Japanese car companies are still considering whether reversing images should be standard.
The iteration of the automobile industry skips the "reconstruction of old soil" and directly "re-engineering of new land". The use of Internet thinking to produce cars, more efficient, and a high degree of interaction with consumers directly reconstructs the basic logic of car building. The vigorous development of the new brand has formed a new competitive situation in the entire automotive industry, and in this new car-making movement, the heroes of the old era, if they do not find the crux of the problem in the shortest possible time in the simplest way, will soon be eliminated, just like Acura.
Some people asked whether Acura would sell electric vehicles instead and be able to match China's water and soil. This is a question that Acura cannot answer, because even Honda has not found the answer to this day.