Introduction: In the Chinese market, the time left for the transformation of Dongfeng Nissan, which missed the opportunity, is already insufficient, and the late Ariya is afraid that it will be as difficult as e-POWER to become a savior.
Two years ago, as an important part of Nissan's "Nissan NEXT" corporate transformation plan, Nissan officially released its new pure electric vehicle , Ariya.
Although compared with many independent brands, Nissan's action of just carrying out pure electric transformation in 2020 is not too fast, from the perspective of joint venture brands, in addition to the Volkswagen ID. series in its infancy, Nissan is undoubtedly the forerunner of discovering the opportunity of China's pure electric market before a number of competitors.
However, just as Nissan was preparing to show its skills after unveiling itself in China in September of the same year, Nissan's electrification transformation suddenly pressed the pause button. Nissan said that due to multiple factors such as the epidemic and chips, this electrified product for the global market has to be postponed again and again.
Until April 27 this year, Nissan finally opened the "blind booking" pre-sale of Aria for the Chinese market. Although the original plan to postpone the launch time to the fourth quarter of this year has not yet been finalized, for Nissan, the lost time and sales in the Chinese market have been difficult to allow it to continue to allow competitors to divide the cake of the electrified market.
Forerunner Nissan
Unlike the Japanese"Rita, which has chosen the path of electrification, since 2010, when other competitors are based on the technology research and development of the hybrid market, Nissan has set its sights on the research and development of the pure electric field. In 2010, Nissan launched the LEAF model in the European market, completely replacing the internal combustion engine system with an electric motor system.
At that time, the 24kWh lithium-ion battery and 200km cruising range, as well as the mobile phone interconnection function that can remotely check the status of the vehicle battery and remotely control the vehicle air conditioning system, have greatly enhanced consumers' awareness and love for pure electric products.
It is also with the best-selling of THE LEAF that before 2019, this product with cumulative global sales of more than 400,000 vehicles has also become an evergreen tree in the global electric vehicle market. However, due to Nissan's delay in research and development, and the thunderstorm of the management of the Renault-Nissan alliance, Nissan's layout in the pure electric market has become a monologue on the stage, and the "track" has been slowly updated.
At this time, the main battlefield of global electrification has gradually shifted from Europe to the Chinese market, and the two-way blessing of electrification and intelligence has rapidly transformed into a must for the new electrification market.
For Nissan, which has a rich foundation in pure electric technology, the debut of the Ariya Concept comes at an opportune time. If launched according to the original plan, Ariya, which will be able to enter the Chinese market in 2021, will undoubtedly become a joint venture brand that joins the competition in China's new energy market at the same time as Volkswagen.
However, Nissan, which has taken the lead in electrification, is still one step late in the final product landing. Regardless of the independent brands and new forces that have been precipitated in the market for many years, even the Volkswagen ID. series has occupied a place in the market, and Nissan and Ariaya, which have re-entered the game at this time, even though they have no less than the strength of first-line pure electric products, have lost their right to speak in the field of pure electric.
Latecomer Nissan
In 2021, Nissan Leaf maintained a stable performance with global sales of 60,000 vehicles, compared with the time when it was stable in the cumulative sales of electric vehicles in the world three years ago, today's Leaf can only rank 15th in the global new energy sales ranking. Obviously, the changes brought by the development trend of electrification and intelligence in the industry to the market have made Nissan lose its former advantageous position.
The appearance of Ariya was once regarded by Nissan as a masterpiece to open a new chapter of electrification and enter a new era. But it was not fate that ruined Nissan's key step in the transformation of China's new energy market, and from the strategic operation level, Nissan ultimately lost to itself.
Just like the accumulation of pure electric technology, Nissan has taken the initiative in electrification technology in Japan and the European and American markets earlier. In 2016, when Toyota THS and Honda i-MMD were popular in Japan, Europe and the United States, Nissan e-POWER technology based on a tandem system was launched, and it quickly became the darling of overseas markets with extremely low fuel consumption. At that time, Toyota and Honda were still focusing on the further development of hybrid systems, and they did not focus on the promotion of pure electric technology.
From the perspective of time nodes, Nissan, which should have hit the global market with e-POWER, lost power in the Chinese market because of the loss of momentum in the Chinese market, only the competitive e-POWER technology in the Chinese market became a "myth" that could not be reached.
On the contrary, competitor Honda has smelled the hybrid business opportunities in the Chinese market, and introduced i-MMD hybrid technology in 2018, which is on a par with Toyota's dual-engine models, although the sales of hybrid products of "Liangtian" are far from fuel products, but the earlier entry into the market has finally won a rich reputation for the hybrid technology of "Liangtian".
Nissan's neglect of the Chinese market has continued until 2021, when Aria is subject to external factors, Honda i-MMD technology has been precipitated in China for 3 years, and even derived PHEV models according to changes in the Chinese market. At this time, Nissan's attempt to use e-POWER to recover the lost Chinese market is obviously too late.
Not to mention that the advantages of e-POWER in energy saving are not as obvious as in that year, in the face of "two fields" or even the PHEV products that have been developed by independent brands, nissan e-POWER in 2021 is difficult to shake the pattern of China's hybrid market no matter how to use overseas market sales to create momentum. In the first quarter of this year, the total sales of Xuanyi e-POWER, which took the lead in entering China, was only 7997 vehicles, which also meant that Dongfeng Nissan had never been able to fire the first shot in the domestic electrification transformation.
Nissan, who had woken up, had to "drive" Ariya to the front of the stage again. But compared to the surprise of the debut, today's Ariaya is very likely to follow in the footsteps of e-POWER if she does not change her playing style.
According to Ariya's promised 5 million yen pre-sale price at the time of its debut, its starting price in the Chinese market is expected to be around 250,000 yuan. This also means that Ariya will join the competition in China's new energy market with the image of high-end products in the future.
Different from when the new car debuted two years ago, at the same price, in addition to the competitor Japanese "Ryota", the Volkswagen ID. series and many independent brands and new forces that are in the rising period of the brand will become direct competitors of Aria in the same price segment.
In contrast, Honda and Toyota have been laying out China's new energy market for many years, whether it is the Honda e:N series or the Toyota bZ series, both of which have created a new pure electric system model under the accumulation of years of pure electric cooperation with Chinese car companies. At this time, Ariya, which was jointly released with the two, although it has a good comprehensive strength, the "late" Dongfeng Nissan still needs to find a unique means to break the game in the relatively mature Chinese new energy market, and even re-walk the old road of "two fields" to explore the market.
Obviously, the synchronous release of pure electric products only means that Dongfeng Nissan has obtained the "admission ticket" of China's new energy market, and at the strategic level of China's electrification transformation, Nissan, which debuted in Ariya early, compared with joint venture competitors such as "Two Fields" and Volkswagen, is actually a follower of the "early rise and late collection".
It is worth mentioning that according to the new electrification strategy released by the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance in February this year, Ariya based on CMF-EV may no longer be Nissan's only bet to promote electrification in the Chinese market. In the face of the alliance's plan to produce 90% of the models under the five shared electric vehicle platforms, Nissan has undoubtedly chosen to submit to the large-scale cost reduction plan brought about by the alliance system in the era of electrification.
However, from the perspective of product planning, Renault Megane E-Tech, a product with the same platform that is highly similar to Ariya's product strength, is ready to go, at that time, in the face of a highly homogeneous battery and platform architecture with Renault, Nissan's product differentiation in the market will only be more severe.
Perhaps, under the alliance system, Nissan's electrification pace has more fault tolerance and choice routes, but in the Chinese market, there is not much time left for Dongfeng Nissan to miss the opportunity.
This article is an exclusive manuscript of the Observer Network and may not be reproduced without authorization.