(Text/Zhang Jiadong Editor/Lou Bing) Compared with independent brands and new power car companies that have been exploring the Pure Electric Market in China for many years, joint venture brands are undoubtedly late entrants to the market.
Despite the strong brand power, in the face of the electrification industry from the bottom of the technological innovation, the late entry of joint venture brands still need to use their own understanding of the needs of Chinese consumers for many years to find differentiation in the market, in order to be expected to win the favor of the market.
For Japanese car companies, 2022 may be the first year of its comprehensive entry into China's new energy market, and Honda's electrification transformation has maintained almost the same rhythm, Toyota also pulled out its own pure electric concept car product - bZ4X at the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show.
It may be difficult for anyone to say clearly whether the Japanese "two fields" have a high degree of consensus on the promotion of pure electric products, or whether the two are secretly competing for the fat cake of China's new energy market. But from the release of the new electrification strategy at the end of last year, to the publicity rhythm in the first quarter of this year, and even the release time of the first model of both sides, the bZ4X seems to have always maintained a high degree of synchronization with the Honda e:N series.
Following the official launch of its own e:NP 1 model by GAC Honda in early April, on the 28th, GAC Toyota bZ4X officially opened pre-sale, and a total of 5 new cars were launched, with a pre-price of 22.00-30.00 million yuan after comprehensive subsidies.
GAC Toyota bZ4X is built with the e-TNGA architecture, and the new car is also the first mid-size SUV born under the e-TNGA platform.
From the perspective of product strength, the bZ4X is different from Toyota's previous fuel vehicles in terms of appearance design, but adopts a new design language exclusive to the bZ series called "Activity Hub".
The largely restored multi-angular design of the concept car and the through-type taillights provide a strong sense of visual contrast for the new car. At the same time, the flat matrix headlights and daytime running lights are connected by chrome decoration, and the shorter front and rear overhang designs with the back shape design show GAC Toyota's shaping of the sense of sport and technology of the new car.
And this kind of scientific and technological atmosphere has also become a new tone for GAC Toyota bZ4X by the watch and inside. In terms of intelligence, the new car central control system is equipped with the intelligent cockpit digital in-vehicle ecosystem, supporting speech recognition and OTA upgrade functions.
Toyota's third-generation Toyota Safety Sense provides L2-level driver assistance and multi-scenario intelligent parking with memory. At the hardware level, it is equipped with MobileyeEyeQ4 autopilot chip, front-facing monocular camera design, and 12 ultrasonic radars and millimeter-wave radars on the outside of the body.
It is worth mentioning that GAC Toyota bZ4X is equipped with a battery pack jointly developed with CATL, and the officially marked CLTC comprehensive working range can reach up to 615km. In addition, based on Toyota's second-generation solar charging system, the bZ4X's solar charging dome can generate electricity, and the system officially said that the system can generate 1750km of electricity a year.
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For GAC Toyota, despite its powerful hybrid technology and the blessing of the TNGA architecture, Toyota's adherence to the HEV field in China's strategy ultimately led to its loss of the opportunity to take the lead in China's new energy market.
From the perspective of time nodes, in the face of the outbreak of China's new energy market in 2021, GAC Toyota only relies on unsystematic C-HR EV, Leiling Dual Engine E+, iA5 and other models, and it is increasingly difficult to achieve good results in the market. In the first quarter of this year, GAC Toyota sold a total of 2375 new energy models, once again standing still.
In this situation, relying on the new pure electric products of the bZ series to break the situation has become the only way for GAC Toyota to quench its thirst in the field of new energy.
With the birth of bZ4X, it is also not difficult to see the changes made by GAC Toyota for the Chinese market, in addition to a more sporty and technological design, compared with the substantial evolution of fuel models in terms of intelligence, it clearly proves that GAC Toyota attaches great importance to China's electrification and intelligent needs. In particular, the distinctive special-shaped steering wheel and solar sunroof provide GAC Toyota with excellent differentiation.
In addition, on the marketing side, GAC Toyota has also changed its dealer model and adopted a new sales method directly ordered by gagac Toyota bZ Mini Program to achieve a more transparent, reassuring, convenient and efficient car buying experience in the era of electrification.
However, as the first product under the new round of pure electric transformation of GAC Toyota, the bZ4X will still face many challenges in the market.
Unlike Honda, Volkswagen and other car companies to create new series of products with a new pure electric platform, although there is the blessing of e-TNGA, bZ4X is not the first model under e-TNGA. Due to the tepid C-HR EV in the market, bZ4X still needs to take on the responsibility of helping e-TNGA develop the market and build a good reputation.
However, from the perspective of the competitiveness of bZ4X's products, whether it is a more complicated central control layout or a driver assistance function that stays at the standard L2 level, it is difficult for new cars to bear the pre-sale price of 220,000-300,000 yuan.
In fact, GAC Toyota, which has suffered a loss in the high pricing strategy of The Leiling Dual Engine E+, has proved that it is difficult to support an excessively high product premium in the era of electrification by relying solely on brand power.
In the first quarter of this year, GAC Toyota sold 247,000 units in the first quarter, an increase of 23.4% year-on-year, and the continuous growth of the fuel vehicle field continued to promote the rise of GAC Toyota's production and sales position in the Chinese market. However, the problem facing GAC Toyota is also proportional to its increasing sales.
According to the plan, GAC Toyota will start with bZ4X to comprehensively promote the expansion of its electrification product lineup, and it is expected that its electrified model sales will account for nearly 60% by 2025 and 100% by 2035. However, as mentioned above, the late entry time and the core competitiveness that still need to be made up in the era of intelligence are still the problems that GAC Toyota must overcome under the new round of electrification transformation.
This article is an exclusive manuscript of the Observer Network and may not be reproduced without authorization.