In December, the B-segment car sales crown changed hands, and the ninth-generation Camry compared to the Passat, can it continue its glory?

Text/Tao Li

In the final battle of 2023, the sales champion of the mainstream joint venture B-segment car market finally changed hands. Relying on huge discounts, Magotan sold 27,826 units in December last year, becoming the sales champion of the B-class car market that month, while the Toyota Camry, which had dominated the list for six consecutive months, sold 22,688 units that month, ranking third.

However, as a strong competitor in the market segment "sales champion", this does not mean that Camry has gone downhill, there are still two good news for it, first of all, from the annual sales point of view, Camry's cumulative sales have reached 225503, more than 30,000 units ahead of the second-place Passat;

As for whether the championship glory can be continued, the author believes that this is a matter of high probability, and here is a comparison with the Passat, which ranked second in sales last year.

Prime Minister From the price point of view, the official guide price of the Passat is 181,900 yuan - 252,900 yuan, and from the quotation of the terminal, the starting price has been reduced to about 150,000 yuan. The current pre-sale price of the new Camry is 173,800 yuan-198,800 yuan, and the official price of the new car is lower than the pre-sale price, which is a common pricing strategy of car companies.

The key to really determining who consumers choose is who is more valuable in terms of product power experience.

In terms of appearance, the two cars have their own characteristics, the Passat, as an impressive business car, tends to be mature and stable in style, and has a strong business atmosphere; Camry, as a representative of family cars, is more mediocre in appearance, without outstanding features, but very attractive. However, this time, the ninth-generation Camry has made corresponding changes.

Three different shapes were taken out at one time, and the more obvious feeling on the change was that there was a bit of a younger shadow, and the front grille of one of them was a bit like the closed design of new energy vehicles, creating a strong "tram feeling", which is actually related to the changes in the current consumer car purchase preferences. The more youthful design can also allow the ninth-generation Camry to continue to attract middle-aged people to pursue profits, while entering the young consumer group faster.

This difference is also reflected in the interior of the car, under the influence of the new domestic car-making forces, consumers' requirements for the car are no longer limited to the "three major pieces", but also require high configuration, sense of science and technology, comfort, etc.

Entering the interior of the ninth-generation Camry, you can clearly feel the improvement it has made in terms of technology and configuration. The size of the central control screen has been upgraded from 10.1 inches to 12.3 inches, and it has also realized the importance of car performance, and replaced it with the mainstream 8155 chip in the market. In addition, it has upgraded the AR-style head-up display and the voice interaction system developed in depth with Huawei.

In this regard, the Passat is obviously slightly inferior, and the overall design style can feel that it still chooses a more conservative route, and there are few places that can visually give consumers a sense of science and technology, which also means that in the current era of smart cars, the Passat's attraction to consumers will become weaker.

Power performance is not a necessary reference condition for B-class cars that focus on comfort, but the comparison of strength and weakness will still affect consumers' car purchase decisions. From the perspective of power parameters, the entry-level Passat is equipped with a 1.4T engine with a power of 110kW, and the high-end configuration is a 137kW 2.0T engine, which can meet the needs of different groups of people for fuel economy and power experience.

In contrast, the biggest advantage of the ninth-generation Camry is that it can do both. In particular, the pre-sale price of the 2.0L intelligent electric hybrid dual-engine version model starts at 181,800 yuan, and the comprehensive maximum power of the system reaches 145kW, which is better than the power experience of the Passat 2.0T version, but the fuel consumption is as low as 4.2L/100km, which is much lower than the fuel consumption of the Passat 6.1L/100km equipped with a 1.4T engine.

Write at the end:

Overall, Camry is the current B-class car market in the sales champion itself has a good market foundation, and the ninth generation Camry has also been upgraded on the basis of the previous generation, compared with the same level of products, the product experience is significantly better, and there is more opportunity to compete with the increasingly popular new energy vehicles in China, if the official price is enough to surprise, then the ninth generation Camry will have a higher voice in the B old car market.