Low-carbon, intelligent, and electrified are the century-old changes facing the automotive industry, but we have heard many times that some people will evaluate the "late" when evaluating the electrification strategy of traditional automobile brands for decades or even nearly a hundred years, and they are more optimistic about the new power brands.
Our view is that the automobile is a "good meal is not afraid of late" industry, because the development cycle of a model is usually 4 years or even longer, involving new design, technical and economic feasibility assessment, parts design and integration, production line adjustment, trial production, vehicle testing... These are only related to the vehicle, in addition to the development of marketing strategies, business analysis, supply chain selection and so on.
And for traditional car brands that have been born for decades, they will be more rigorous about electric vehicles to ensure that their entry into this market can be foolproof.
Because excellent products are the core of the survival of traditional car brands, for the new forces of car manufacturing, financing is the capital to survive, so the new forces of car manufacturing will put products on the market faster in order to finance, even if they are immature products. In order to sell these immature products, the new car-making forces often give them trendy concepts in marketing, which make some consumers have a misunderstanding that the new forces products are better.
Therefore, when traditional car brands start the road of electrification, they must be fully prepared, and the new car-making forces will feel no less pressure than financing.
For example, in the past, Li Bin, the founder of Weilai Automobile, said that he did not build a car without 20 billion; and He Xiaopeng, the founder of Xiaopeng Automobile, said, "I jumped in to know that 20 billion is not enough to spend." But in order to transform electrification, Honda announced that it will invest $64 billion in the next decade, which is about 400 billion yuan. Honda, which has no financial pressure, began to press the acceleration button of electrification transformation.
Recently, Honda e:N brand night was held, which is Honda China's new brand facing the electrification market, the first model Dongfeng Honda e: NS1 after the brand night went on sale, and its sister model GAC Honda e: NP1 will start pre-sale in May, and it is clear that in 2027, 10 electrification products will be introduced in the Chinese market, which is very fast.
So how will Honda, which presses the acceleration button, open up the gap with other brands in the Chinese electric vehicle market, we think it is "young". This point of view comes from the fact that in the live broadcast event of the brand night, Honda let the young engineers take the stage to explain the advantages from development, product planning, and product control.
This means that young people have a voice in the development and production of e:N brand models, and Honda also respects these young people for implementation. So respect young people, embrace the young Honda e:N brand model advantage will be young.
And through the Dongfeng Honda e:NS1 and GAC Honda e:NP1, there are three major advantages that can be seen in the young attributes of the e:N brand.
The first is "moving"
Sport is the core spirit of the Honda brand, in the era of electrification e:N how will the brand continue? What these young engineers think of is to use algorithms to solve, their electronic control program integration is more than 40 times that of other trams, and there are more than 2,000 control scenario algorithms to cope with different driving environments, making the property of motion more intelligent and making it easier for drivers to feel the fun of control.
And they have also developed and adjusted the throttle, adjusting the pedal response and power output through motor control, making the throttle pedal more delicate and reducing the vertigo of some consumers riding on electric vehicles. In addition, in the sport mode, there will be simulated acceleration sound waves, although not simulating the roar of the fuel engine, but the sound wave of the electric F1 is also enough to bring sports passion, and it will not appear too abrupt.
The second is "wisdom"
As a new energy brand, the e:N brand makes up for the shortcomings of Honda's fuel vehicles in the field of intelligence. The digital display configuration of the central control large screen, LCD instrument, and streaming media rearview mirror does not fall.
For these digital display screens, it also gives a more reasonable human-computer interaction logic, in addition to traditional finger control, modern voice interaction, and a futuristic perception system. The driver's status is identified by the camera in the car, and even the driver's mood changes can be detected for active service.
We can see that in the field of digitalization, the e:N brand has more traditional car companies' ideas, they are not limited to looking cool, but will think about the intelligent core interaction logic, so that the occupants in the car are more portable to carry out related operations.
The third is "beauty"
The two models first issued by the e:N brand still continue the Honda design concept in terms of appearance design, but they can see at a glance the difference between it and honda fuel vehicles, which belongs to the inheritance of innovation, and the point of innovation is that the luminous car logo is increased and a set of lights interact, visually futuristic, and the use of charging information will also be feedback, taking into account the design and practicality.
In terms of interior design, the two models currently unveiled by the e:N brand are full of Japanese style, if you don't know what the Japanese style is, you can go to the nearby MUJI products for a stroll. The Japanese style is not too fancy, nor does it have those complicated functions, but it is logical to use, visually full of warmth, and the embodiment in the two models of the e:N brand is that in addition to the vertical design of the central control screen, the rest of the lines are horizontal layout.
Therefore, for the two models first launched by the e:N brand, we believe that it can be described by beauty, because it realizes the innovation in the inheritance, and the practicality in innovation, which is also the car manufacturing advantage accumulated by traditional car companies for decades, which can perfectly integrate a variety of style concepts.
Honda's road to electrification is a little late compared to the new forces, but the late arrival of the product is more mature, not simply stacking parameters, but with the concept of "technology for people" production, coupled with the e:N brand young ideas, we think it can give Honda's electrification career a good start.