The hot market of the new energy vehicle market during the Spring Festival surprised many people. And this is undoubtedly due to the continuation of the tram market brought about by Tesla's price reduction. According to media reports a few days ago, many new energy vehicle brands are located in supermarkets in stores without rest during the Spring Festival, in BYD, Tesla, NIO, Lantu and other new energy vehicle experience stores, consumers who come to buy are endless, many manufacturers before or during the Spring Festival to launch preferential policies, sales staff need to follow the shopping mall door opening and closing time to work normally, but also need to cooperate with car users to arrange test drives, a busy scene.
From this wave of the hot car market of the Spring Festival, we see that the direction of the tide has changed. First of all, the domestic fuel vehicle camp is basically rarely seen by manufacturers with obvious upward trend, and the Japanese fuel vehicle camp is basically declining across the board.
Toyota's new cars in China declined for the first time in 10 years. Toyota's new car sales in the Chinese market in 2022 decreased by 0.2% from 2021 to 1,940,600 units, according to Nikkei.Chinese This is the first time in 10 years that Toyota's sales in China have declined.
According to data from the Passenger Association, in the past 2022, the sales of Japanese cars in China were only 4.092 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 10.3%, and the decline was second only to the Korean series (34.7%). At the same time, the market share of Japanese companies fell below 20% again, down 2.7 percentage points from the previous year.
The confrontation between oil cars and trams, this year, is ushering in an inflection point, and changes are taking place.
The price war of new energy is affecting the cost performance of Japanese cars
We see that there are many factors behind the decline of Japanese cars and the popularity of new energy. The first is the price war of new energy, which is affecting the cost performance of Japanese cars. We see that this wave of new energy vehicle market is hot, because the current electric vehicle players are still relying more on price to expand sales market share, and some models are cheaper than when the national supplement is available, which has aroused the attention of consumers.
From the current point of view, this wave of price reduction driven by Tesla is affecting more and more consumers, and some new energy vehicle manufacturers have recently chosen not to increase or reduce prices, which is also based on the needs of market competition.
Therefore, some insiders pointed out that the price of new energy vehicle battery-related resources will be gradually reduced in the future, which may hedge the cancellation of national subsidies and affect the actual pricing of new energy vehicles.
The decline of fuel vehicles is closely related to the market grabbing electric vehicles, and the reason why electric vehicles can steal the market of fuel vehicles has several reasons, first of all, from the experience level, the tram experience supported by the three electric technologies is more difficult to distinguish than the oil vehicle experience supported by the three major parts of the fuel vehicle, but from the future trend, the fuel vehicle engine technology has become stagnant, and the future innovation space has become less. Although electric vehicles still have many limitations, they are far from the ceiling, and the space for technological development and innovation imagination is greater.
A few years ago, major traditional car companies announced the suspension of internal combustion engine research and development, and even announced a timetable for canceling pure fuel vehicles. Technological developments in the global engine industry are increasingly reaching the ceiling.
Electric vehicles shift the core competitiveness of the car from mechanical quality to software such as vehicle systems and automatic driving, which is suppressing Toyota's moat, and Toyota's danger is that internal combustion engine technology no longer constitutes his core moat barrier.
Due to the size of Toyota fuel vehicles, the number of employees and the maturity of supply, it is almost impossible to abandon the fuel vehicle track, but regardless of whether the future trend of cars is electric vehicles, it is no longer possible for the era to turn back to the era of fuel vehicles.
Secondly, for many years, Japanese cars have actually had cost-effective advantages such as fuel saving, durability and reasonable price, but now, under the marketing offensive of new energy vehicles (subsidies + price reductions), the cost-effective advantages of Japanese cars are being lost. The small-displacement small-horsepower engine of the Japanese car plus the CVT gearbox, the hybrid version with a little more horsepower is often very expensive, and for the same money, there are more options in the new energy camp.
As some users pointed out, 150,000 you can only buy a Nissan without a reversing image, no 360, the interior is simple and the appearance is ordinary, but you can buy 150,000 domestic cars with automatic brakes and reversing images with 540-degree panoramas, as well as road recognition, lane keeping and many other configurations, extremely high appearance.
This stems from the fact that today, due to the weak brand and market scale, the awareness of active competition is stronger, and it is often full of competition in power, interior, configuration, safety, intelligence and other aspects, and the advantages of Japanese in configuration, power, safety, fuel consumption and other aspects have been gradually weakened.
Secondly, Toyota has insufficient understanding of the demand for the young market, in the past year, whether it is a fuel car or a tram, selling better, often to the direction of youth, digitalization to do well, Toyota through fuel vehicle technology and simple structure and crazy weight reduction to create low fuel consumption, has an economic leather thinking inertia, but the cost performance has been weakened.
Another problem for Toyota is the market problem, Toyota's core market today is actually China and the United States, and China and the United States are to develop electrification, other markets in the world may also be encroached by the electric vehicle market, outside of China, Asia, overseas markets, domestic cars and Toyota will also meet again, domestic cars in South America, the Middle East, ASEAN and other developing countries have slowly opened the situation, in Southeast Asia and European markets, domestic trams have been gradually laid out.
Changes are happening, but domestic trams are not yet optimistic
Objectively, the current changes are taking place, if the current trend continues, the next decade may be a downward decade for Toyota, but overall, domestic new energy has not yet reached the optimistic moment.
First of all, Toyota has rich reserves in technology, and domestic cars compete with it, and there are still many shortcomings to make up. Toyota is a typical representative of solid car manufacturing, stable and durable, leather economy is Toyota's advantage label, high value retention, is easy to sell and repair in the second-hand market, which is also an important reason why many consumers prefer Japanese cars.
And from the perspective of the whole trend, the current Toyota is by no means the next Nokia. After all, from external combustion to internal combustion, from steel to aluminum to carbon fiber, from self-priming to turbine, from MT to AT, from mechanical buttons to touch screens, the attributes of cars have not changed, whether it is Toyota's engine gearbox and other traditional fuel vehicle technology or Japan-related parts upstream materials have a deeper accumulation.
In addition, in the field of electric vehicles, Toyota's accumulation can not be ignored, after all, the new energy track, Japan also has a huge lead, after all, Tesla uses Panasonic batteries, Toyota in the electric drive and power form reserves also have a certain accumulation advantage, Toyota in the hydrogen energy technology reserves is the world's first, hydrogen energy can continue for Toyota life can not be determined, after all, from the domestic policy support and domestic new energy seeds, hydrogen energy is already another direction being tried.
From the current domestic new energy and Tesla point of view, they are actually more relying on price war means in the market grabbing, although it is expected to popularize the experience and advantages of trams to more users, amplify the reputation and market scale of trams, but once the original price or price rises, its growth momentum may slow down, which is the reality that domestic new energy needs to face squarely.
On the other hand, Toyota fell by 0.2%, in fact, it was only a slight decline, and this slight decline, objectively, there are also factors of the epidemic in the past year, if there is no longer a problem of epidemic factors in 2023, Toyota is willing to make changes in consumer pain points and demands, and there is still the possibility of recovery.
It's just that this possibility lies in whether Toyota is willing to change, whether it dares to cater to consumers, benefit consumers, and regain the cost-effective advantage of the main position, as someone pointed out, if the Japanese system led by Toyota cancels 1.2T 1.5, 1.6 and other small displacements, all replace 1.6T, 2.0T engine plus hybrid, CVT all add steel belt, will not taste to lose to domestic new energy.
At present, Toyota has not made changes, this is also the time window for domestic cars to catch up, at present, domestic trams from the battery cost, endurance, charging efficiency, value retention, maintenance costs, long-distance energy infrastructure coverage and other aspects of many shortcomings to make up. Whether Toyota's future is up or down, the determining factor is also the speed and competitiveness of Tesla and domestic trams to the market, of which there is not much time for Toyota to change.
Author: Wang Xinxi TMT Senior Reviewer This article is not reprinted without permission