The stinky problem of the Japanese car price increase was cured by BYD

Produced by Tiger Sniff Car Group

Author|Li Wenbo

Edit|thoughtful

Head picture|Japanese drama "Hansawa Naoki"

Once, there was a Japanese car with a price reduction of 30,000 in front of me, I did not cherish it, and I waited for a week.

How, robbed?

I am thankful that there is nothing happier on earth.

Are you all right?

The same car, dropped by 60 thousand, I bought. If God could give me another chance, I would say three words to myself: Wait a minute.

Because 60,000 has fallen, will 240,000 be far away? Stay up to the end, maybe buy this Japanese car, and you can see the return money subsidized by the car company.

You think this is a joke just made up? No, this is a Japanese car, to be more precise, it is a Japanese pure electric car, the story of what is happening in China.

This February, three Japanese brand pure electric SUVs opened an unprecedented price war. Judging from the timeline, it was Toyota who first began to "go crazy".

On February 9, GAC Toyota announced that the price of the bZ4X in the price range of 19.98-287,800 yuan will be reduced by 30,000 yuan. You know, bZ4X is a new car that has just been launched on October 10, 2022, and in less than 4 months, the entry price has been pulled down to 169,800, which is cheaper than Chinese brand pure electric vehicles such as Leap C11 and BYD Song PLUS EV.

Throughout history, this should be the largest price reduction of the Toyota brand in the Chinese market. But no one expected that this dishonorable record would last less than a week.

6 days later, FAW Toyota gave bZ4X a fracture-level discount of 60,000 yuan, and the entry price fell to 139,800 yuan, not to mention the same GAC brother, but also made Aion AION Y, BYD Yuan PLUS and other Chinese brand pure electric vehicles break out in a cold sweat: This Toyota is old, it won't be to clear the warehouse and run, right?

60,000 yuan, which is three times the per capita disposable income of Beijing residents (20,630 yuan) and four times the per capita wage income (13,308 yuan) in the first quarter of 2022.

If GAC Toyota's price reduction is a knife cutting a little blood, the main lesson is a lesson. That FAW Toyota closed its eyes and slashed arteries with a knife, highlighting a violent death.

Seeing that the leading big brother has sacrificed himself, famous for manufacturing "highway lightning" Xuanyi, Japan's third largest automobile company, Nissan hurriedly "stepped into the game": using "government and enterprise subsidies" to give its pure electric SUV Aria an epic discount of 60,000 yuan, finding a relatively decent reason.

You know, the last Dongfeng Nissan model with a discount of 60,000 yuan is still the ancient fuel SUV Loulan that the "Z generation" crowd may not have heard of.

Before the price cut, Dongfeng Nissan Aria also had a wave of outrageous operations of price increases: in January this year, the price of the two-wheel drive version of Aria was raised by 12,600 yuan, raising the entry price of the entire model to 285,400, which is more expensive than Tesla Model Y, and Musk shook his head when he listened.

So the question is: the price fortress in the era of fuel vehicles is extremely strong, and the Japanese car that is successfully picked up without raising the price at the end of the car picks up, why in the era of electric vehicles, it takes the initiative to reduce its price and sell the ancient work of craftsmen at a low price?

Next, we will explore two issues along the two cracks in the price defense line of Japanese cars:

First, how crotch is the product power of Japanese electric vehicles?

Second, after the price collapses, how will Japanese cars live?

Magic changes sell sky-high prices, zero technology addition

You are the only winner of the "Tiger Sniff Car 2022 Most Stupid Car" selection, the product power of Toyota bZ4X, I will not repeat it here, just summarize it in one sentence: what is this broken thing!

This time, the focus is on Dongfeng Nissan Aria. It is the highest-priced product in the "three fools of electric vehicles", starting at 280,000 before the price reduction, and the most expensive goes to 340,000. But it is neither the largest in size, with a wheelbase of 2775 mm far behind the 2850 mm of the Toyota bZ4X; It is not the most powerful, 280,000 can only buy a front-wheel drive single-motor version with a maximum power of 178 kW and a maximum torque of 300 Nm, and buy a BYD Tang EV at the same price, and the book data is bursting.

Using a Chinese brand pure electric car in the lead to "bully" Nissan Aria, which has not yet found the starting line, is somewhat invincible. We might as well invite the Volkswagen ID.4, which is also from a traditional automobile company and is known as the "global pure electric vehicle passing line", to compete with Arija.

In the car manufacturing industry, there is such a saying, a car's "low configuration is conscience, high configuration is the original intention". Nissan Aria has a low configuration of 284,800, which is 90,000 more expensive than the 193,900 of the Volkswagen ID.4, but in addition to a slightly larger size, a slightly longer wheelbase of 10 mm, and several functions such as automatic lane change assist, single-pedal mode, and energy recovery, the whole car does not have an overwhelming advantage at the configuration level.

But at the mechanical level, the Volkswagen ID.4 is rear-drive, Nissan Aria is front-drive, and the advantages and disadvantages of the two drive forms have been explained in detail in the article "Chinese, don't buy this electric car". Even if Nissan Arrow sold to 224,800 after dropping 60,000, the cost performance was still pressed by the Volkswagen ID.4.

It can be seen that Nissan's conscience of building cars should have been eaten up by a small animal in the 21st district of Yokohama Future Port.

After talking about conscience, let's look at the original intention. For Nissan, this original intention should be "technology". But Nissan Arrow top equipped with 342,800, 50,000 more expensive than the Volkswagen ID.4's 293,900, in addition to crushing the Volkswagen ID.4 in the maximum power and torque, other whether it is comfort, intelligent configuration, or advanced technology, the gap between the two is minimal.

You know, Volkswagen even generously equipped the ID.4 with soft and hard adjustable suspension to match its "high-performance version" status, but Nissan only increased the output data of the front and rear motors, and did not improve at the chassis hardware level. Spending 50,000 more for 90 kilowatts and 140 Nm of reinforcement, even people who understand cars and have extremely high driving requirements will make a mistake before paying for it: Is this really necessary?

Heap power and torque, in the era of pure electric vehicle "performance equality", are not considered technology, only work, and "original intention" is not at all.

In this way, the Volkswagen ID.4 of the whole series of rear-drive has become cute.

On Zhihu, an old owner of Dongfeng Nissan who has bought Xuanyi, Qashqai and Qi Jun in ten years gave five reasons why he chose Aria: first, feelings; Second, appearance; Third, configuration; Fourth, the background; Fifth, rights. None of these five reasons have anything to do with "technology", and the last car brand Jeep, which impressed car owners with "feelings", withdrew from China last year.

Another owner said Aria is a "car that wants love but not money." It was clear that he was in love with the brain. I don't know if he will mistake leeks for true love after seeing the 60,000 real money minus in the price of Aria cars.

In fact, whether it is the previous 280,000 to 340,000, or the 220,000 to 280,000 after the price cut, Nissan Arrow is not the first choice for most Chinese users in these two price ranges.

Listed casually, if you want to be cost-effective, buy BYD Tang EV, Skyfan R7, Aion LX, Volkswagen ID4.; if you want to taste the fashionable, choose Avita 11, Lantu FREE; If you want a foreign big name, look at Tesla Model Y, Ford Electric Horse; Especially patriotic, with Huawei mobile phones, ask the M5 EV.

Is it Nissan that can't make pure electric cars that meet the needs of Chinese users? No, it was Nissan who forgot that self who has been holding Chinese by the word "affordable" for 17 years.

On the low-end model, Aria did not polish the cost performance to the extreme, trying to use the Nissan brand, which was already a "cheap and big bowl", to support a 280,000 pure electric car. This price point is close to the entry of mainstream luxury cars, even if the Nissan fuel vehicle at its peak wants to hold up, it is trembling.

Of Dongfeng Nissan's total sales of 800,000 units in 2022, more than 420,000 units were contributed by Xuanyi, which has a starting price of less than 100,000 units.

As Oliver Wyman's deputy managing partner said, Nissan alone cannot support the current high pricing of its electric vehicles based on the brand premium ability established by Nissan in the Chinese market in the past few decades, and price reductions are inevitable in order to seek sales breakthroughs.

On the top-equipped model, Aria clicked the wrong "technology tree" and instilled nutrient solution into the branch of the "performance", resulting in severe malnutrition of the "intelligent" trunk. As a result, the intelligent cockpit + intelligent driving involution wave set off by China's electric vehicles has not yet arrived, and the small tree of Dongfeng Nissan pure electric vehicles has fallen.

In 2022, Nissan Aria sold 1205 units in 3 months, which cannot be said to be completely cool, but it can also be regarded as dying, focusing on a "miserable". But what is even more bleak is that Nissan Aria is just a microcosm of the cliff-jumping performance of Japanese pure electric vehicles in the Chinese market, and the pure trams now delivered by Toyota and Honda go to the street one after another, not to mention those who can fight, and those who dare to stand up and be punched by BYD head-on.

It stands to reason that the eldest brother Toyota should act as a human shield, regardless of whether he can resist the fist or not, at least take the initiative to take a step forward, set an example for the two little brothers, and boost morale. But in fact, Toyota has no intention of fighting.

First of all, the company was picked up by the emperor in the winter test of the bZ4X product shortcomings, and then it was troubled by frequent quality defects. Just on March 1, according to the website of the State Administration for Market Regulation, Toyota implemented a recall of bZ4X in the Chinese market, of which FAW Toyota recalled 6,213 units and GAC Toyota recalled 6,159 units, for a total of 12,372 units.

Good guys, if it weren't for the recall, I really didn't expect that bZ4X could sell more than 10,000 units in China. However, thinking about it, I can't sleep in the middle of the night, and I always feel that something is wrong, so after reviewing the data, the author found that it was indeed a little strange.

The data shows that FAW Toyota bZ4X has a total sales time of 3 months in 2022, with a cumulative sales of 2,881 units (197 units in October, 1,735 units in November, and 949 units in December); GAC Toyota bZ4X sold a total of 4,408 units in two months (1,014 units in November and 3,394 units in December), and the two joint ventures together sold 7,289 bZ4X units.

This means that counting the show cars and test drives, at least 5,000 bZ4Xs are pressed into the hands of Toyota dealers across the country. Based on the obviously overestimated monthly sales of 1500 units per month, the bZ4X's inventory depth (inventory depth = ending inventory quantity / current sales quantity) is 3.3, which is much higher than the automotive industry's 2.5 high-risk line, and it takes at least 3 months to digest these inventory vehicles, which is longer than the shelf life of 84 disinfectant.

Toyota bZ4X can be sold short in China in just 3 months, the author has to say, BYD, you are too "not trying". According to the product power of bZ4X, if Toyota stops the production capacity of this car and clears the inventory, you have to lose.

It is a way to live and a dead end

In the current Chinese new energy vehicle market, livestock are better off than Japanese pure electric vehicles. Therefore, if you want to climb the standard of living of cattle, giving up self-esteem and lowering the price, the only way out. The vast majority of the 199,800 Toyota bZ4X will refuse, but if you only sell 139,800 and get a batch of cars to run special cars, you can also make a good profit.

After all, as long as the price is cheap enough, who cares if it is "beyond zero" or "depreciate four times faster".

However, "price for volume" is the way to live for short-termism and the dead end of long-termism. It does have an immediate impact on sales, but it continues to release toxins into the brand for a long time after. Especially for Japanese brands that have been selling at a premium for a long time in the Chinese market, the damage is doubly amazing.

Consumers who have witnessed the "famous scene" of Japanese cars breaking the price of pure electric cars by themselves often have two perceptions:

First, the factory price is so high and the profit margin is so large, it seems that it has to be reduced;

Second, the car is so crotch-pulling, and it really has no conscience to cut leeks.

In the long run, Japanese brands will lose "one power and one force" in the pure electric car market, that is, pricing power and credibility, let's explain them one by one.

The first is "pricing power". Here, please recall that in the era of fuel vehicles, what are the typical Japanese brand models that firmly implement the evil road of "no price increase, don't mention the car" in the Chinese market. In the author's impression, the "most powerful price increase" includes the Honda CR-V, Civic, Toyota Highlander, Senna, Elfa, Lexus ES, LM and so on.

Why can these models be marked? The reason is simple: there is no second product on the market that can match it. For example, if you want to spend 150,000 yuan to buy a relatively sporty sedan that can also take care of the family, China in 2016, except for the tenth generation of the Civic, there are no alternative models.

This makes the tenth generation Civic "go on the market and raise the price", adding five thousand is the hard road, adding eight thousand is the norm, and even after selling for two years, it is still necessary to add three thousand. How much an A-Class sedan should sell for in the Chinese market was decided by the dominant Honda Civic of the year. When formulating price strategies for other car companies in the same class, they must show sincerity a little after accurately referring to the Civic.

However, when the Chinese market changed lanes and entered the era of new energy vehicles, the dominant players became Tesla and BYD, and the Japanese became "marginal people" who were abandoned by the times and did not even say hello.

The data proves this, in the sales ranking of new energy models in January this year, whether it is a sedan or an SUV, none of the Japanese cars entered the top 20, and Chinese brands continued to instill the view of "China's new energy, the world's first" in the minds of Chinese consumers while continuing the brutal performance of last year's "slaughter list".

In the luxury pure electric market, Chinese now does not look at how much BMW and Mercedes-Benz's trams sell, but only cares about NIO and the ideal price system. In the household pure electric market, Chinese now does not look at the value of Volkswagen, Toyota, and Honda's trams, but only cares about what new trends BYD and Geely have.

When the price of China's new energy vehicles is jointly determined by Tesla and Chinese brands, there is nothing wrong with Japanese brands that are on the road of "price for quantity".

You may ask: It is always said that China's new energy vehicles are strong, but the "big devil" BYD has also reduced prices, will this not damage BYD's brand image?

This brings us to the second issue, credibility.

In fact, the question itself is the answer. BYD's image as the "big devil" in the new energy era has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and there is a huge existing volume and potential volume behind it to achieve scale effects and continuous cost reduction. BYD has reduced prices, neither afraid of losing shares nor losing money, and can also change the good name of "national conscience".

Conscience is reflected in two aspects: first, the decrease is small, and most of it is aimed at the old model. In Beijing, Shanghai and other places, the discount range of BYD dynasty series old models is more than 10,000 yuan, and some current models are discounted by 6,000 to 8,000 yuan. There is no price reduction for marine series models such as dolphins and seals. Secondly, the price is low and the configuration is high, such as the Qin PLUS DM-i with less than 100,000 high-end intelligent functions such as 10.1-inch rotating large screen, remote start, OTA upgrade, and remote control of mobile APP.

However, Japanese pure electric cars are different. If you want to maintain the original price, no one will care, and the three-digit sales every month look really bad. The price reduction is small, and it cannot stir up any waves; If the amplitude is large, there is a high probability of breaking through the break-even point, falling into the abyss of loss, and entering the vicious circle of "selling one and losing one". This feeling is like walking on a thin steel wire full of Dao Mountain and a sea of fire under your feet, and you are in a dilemma.

You may also ask, the little money lost by pure electric vehicles, using the profits of fuel vehicles to fill the pit, is not finished.

This approach works, but not lasts. Look at two data: Last year, according to the retail sales statistics of the Passenger Association of China, the passenger car market retailed 20.543 million units in 2022, of which 14.869 million fuel vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 13%. In January this year, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers released data that the domestic sales of traditional fuel passenger vehicles were 904,000 units, down 732,000 units from the same period last year, down 31% month-on-month, and down 44.8% year-on-year, close to the waist. According to this trend, the sales of traditional fuel vehicles are likely to be less than 10 million units this year.

What is even more painful for the Japanese is that in January, the A00-class, A0-class, A-class and B-class traditional fuel vehicles in the Chinese car market broke the defense, and the A-class and B-class fuel vehicles fell by more than 40% year-on-year. You know, these two market segments are the cornerstone of Japanese cars. Imagine if Chinese no longer buy Nissan Xuanyi, Toyota Corolla, Honda Fit, Honda Civic, Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, in the long run, no matter how thick the surplus food at home of "Two Fields and One Day" is, it will not be able to hold up.

If you look further, the continuous price reduction of the "oil and electricity dual line" will make the overall reputation of Japanese cars fall into the "Tacitus trap", making it lose the credibility of the benchmark in the hearts of Chinese. No matter how high-sounding excuses are used, including but not limited to limited-time concessions, provincial subsidies, etc., it is difficult to get Chinese to vote a vote of confidence for it.

When watching Chinese brands take rations from their pockets without speaking of martial virtue, the stress response of Japanese cars, in addition to staging "Crazy Thursday" over and over again, turned out to be "music and dance".

Guangqi Honda is a typical case. On February 10 this year, BYD launched the new model of Qin PLUS DM-i, with a starting price of 99,800, directly hitting the doorstep of the Japanese family, and Guangqi Honda's response strategy is to launch a hybrid version of the 169,900 sedan HATCHBACK. The wheelbase of the two cars is very close (2735 mm VS 2718 mm), the size of the BYD Qin is a circle, and the most expensive 145,800 model configuration is almost full, making the Honda style have nowhere to go.

The same "confusing operation" also occurred on the 228,900 Guangqi Honda e:HEV, and in the case of size, configuration, and intelligence level lagging behind the Yadi Song Pro DM-i, the entry price was set higher than the Song Pro top price.

It seems that BYD took the "fuel and electricity at the same price" public notes to kill pure fuel vehicles, and Honda did not copy it at all. No, Honda's results came down: in February this year, Honda's overall sales in China were 74,142 units, down 30.1% year-on-year; Terminal vehicle sales in China in the first two months were 138,332 units, down 45.2% year-on-year.

Write at the end

A founder of a new force in China's car manufacturing said in a recent public speech that in the more than 20 years of rapid development of Chinese automobiles, mature enterprises, such as Toyota and Honda, are in the period of rapid expansion of their own enterprise development, and if they are in accordance with the stage of enterprise operation, they are basically from 10 to 100. But new energy vehicles, or more specifically, smart electric vehicles, are the second curve in the development process of these mature car companies, which is a process of building from 0 to 1 and then from 1 to 10.

German Volkswagen is the first car company among all traditional car companies to realize the leap from 0 to 1 electric vehicles. It was a hard-fought battle, ridiculed and white-eyed, and the masses survived. But the "three fools of Japan" - Toyota, Honda, Nissan - either fantasize about the glory of the imperial fuel car, which can shine into the next century; Either in the era of smart electric vehicles, reuse the most easy, labor-saving, brainless oil truck playing method, and want to rely on the LOGO to cut a few more leeks; Or on the wrong hydrogen energy route, relying on unexplained self-confidence, adhere to the incredible "axis".

Facts have proved that none of these three paths can go through China today. In the author's opinion, the "Japanese three fools" are not really turning a blind eye to the trend of China's smart electric vehicles, turning a deaf ear, but it is always more comfortable to lie in bed and pretend to sleep than getting up and pulling out your legs and running.

exhausted Outdoor 已火光冲天,但真烧到枕头,不还得要一会儿嘛,桥豆麻袋(wait a minute)。