Text/Yang Zheng
Suddenly, like a spring breeze overnight, there are suddenly more pure electric vehicles of Japanese joint venture brands on the market.
On April 26, Dongfeng Honda's e:NS1 was listed; on the 27th, Dongfeng Nissan Aria began to accept "blind booking"; if you add the GAC Toyota bz4X, which began to be pre-sold on the evening of April 28, within three days, the three major Japanese brands have come up with their own pure electric vehicle products, as if they have entered the era of pure electric vehicles overnight.
Dongfeng Honda's e:NS1 was already on the market on the 26th
The world is changing so fast that it's a little uncomfortable.
The three major Japanese brands have not been very interested in pure electric vehicles before, and Toyota's family has questioned that electric vehicles are not actually environmentally friendly. In contrast, hybrid and hydrogen fuel are the new energy vehicle technology routes favored by Japanese car companies, especially Japanese gasoline-electric hybrid technology, which has a good reputation among consumers.
But the market doesn't think so. In the new car insurance data of car companies in the first half of April that was transmitted on the Internet a few days ago, the only one that achieved sales growth was BYD, which has been fully new energy. In 2021, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in mainland China will exceed the mark of 3.5 million units, of which pure electric vehicles will contribute more than 3.2 million units. With expectations of up to 6 million units in 2022, the pure electric vehicle market will be a bigger pie.
Not just in China. Nihon Keizai News Network recently reported that global sales of pure electric vehicles will reach 4.6 million in 2021, far exceeding the 3.1 million hybrid models (gasoline-electric hybrid and plug-in hybrid models, excluding light hybrid models).
The three major Japanese car companies that aspire to have a global layout obviously cannot ignore this trend.
The first to change attitudes was Nissan. At the end of November last year, Nissan Motor released its 2030 strategic plan, saying that it will increase its efforts to promote electric drive and intelligent travel in this decade, and plans to launch 23 electric drives in fiscal 2030, of which two-thirds are pure electric models (15 models). In the Chinese market, Nissan will increase the proportion of electric vehicle sales to 40% within five years.
A month later, Toyota also released its latest electrification strategy, planning to launch a total of 30 pure electric vehicles worldwide by 2030, including passenger cars, commercial vehicles and other fields. By then, its annual sales of pure electric vehicles will reach 3.5 million.
Honda's statement is this month: the time point is also 2030, the number of pure electric models is also 30, and the sales target is set at 2 million vehicles.
To be honest, it's a bit late.
Not to mention the tesla that is calling the wind and rain and a number of new forces blooming everywhere, even Mercedes-Benz and BMW, which have been criticized for their slow movements, have laid out a number of pure electric vehicle models in the Chinese market, of which BMW's iX3 sold nearly 23,000 units in 2021.
In fact, the pure electric vehicles of Japanese car companies have long appeared in the domestic market. The most aggressive Nissan introduced its first all-electric Leaf to the Chinese market in 2011 and made it domestically three years later. However, Nissan chose to bring it to consumers in the name of Venucia Morrowind, and considering the gap in the brand and the performance that was not outstanding at the time, Venucia Morrowind quickly disappeared.
The same goes for Honda. Although Guangqi Honda had a Regal and VE-1 before, the former is essentially a trumpchi with a change of standard, and the latter has restarted the previous "concept" brand LOGO, in short, it has no chance with the Honda LOGO, and can only be regarded as a test of the water of GAC Honda. The sales of the two cars in 2021 are only two or three thousand, which has not set off much waves in the market. Similarly, Dongfeng Honda's use of the X-NV and M-NV electric vehicles launched by the Siming brand in 2018 was only "exploring the way".
Toyota's previous choice was the plug-in hybrid model "E into the engine" series, but the reputation cultivated by itself in hybrid technology seems to apply only to the oil-electric hybrid model, and the influence of the "E-entry" series of models is also limited.
This time, the three major Japanese brands have successively launched pure electric vehicle models through joint venture car companies, whether it is product planning or the support of the brand side, they have shown more sincerity and determination. The attitude of "seriously" doing pure electric vehicles is also in line with the latest strategic direction. It can be expected that consumers will have more choices when choosing pure electric vehicles in the future.
The word of mouth that has been formed for a long time will be one of the advantages of pure electric vehicles of Japanese brands
It is worth mentioning that at the time of the influx of Pure Electric Vehicles in Japan, many independent brands have turned their spearheads to the hybrid vehicle market. Beiqing Automobile has just reported that the new generation of products of six independent brands has entered the hybrid vehicle market, and has eroded the traditional sphere of influence of fuel vehicles through new products with dedicated hybrid technology DHT as the core, of which the Japanese joint venture brand is the first target. As you come and go, Japanese car companies will face a situation of "two-front combat".
In the electric vehicle market, are Japanese cars late? It's not too early indeed. But there is a saying that "good food is not afraid of late", if the product is powerful enough, it is okay to arrive late. Now that Dongfeng Honda's e:NS1 and GAC Toyota's bZ4X have been listed, people have a first glimpse of the strength of Japanese pure electric vehicles and have a preliminary judgment. Of course, in order to regain the reputation of consumers in the electric vehicle market, Japanese car companies need more efforts.