Japanese cars used to be synonymous with high value retention and high cost performance. However, in the current highly competitive new energy market, the voice and share of Japanese brands are constantly being impacted. In the face of China's huge and dramatically changing market, new energy transformation is an inevitable move for Japanese brands.
On April 16, Honda China officially unveiled the all-new electric brand "Ye", and three models made their world premieres. Among them, the Ye S7 and Ye P7 will be produced by Honda's joint ventures in China, Guangqi Honda and Dongfeng Honda, respectively, and will be launched at the end of 2024, and the Ye GT CONCEPT will be mass-produced in 2025.
(烨P7）
（烨S7)
（烨GT CONCEPT）
In Chinese, Ye means brilliant. Honda released the Ye brand, which means "bright and shining".
This is not the first time Honda has entered the electric market.
As early as 2021, Honda launched the e:N pure electric vehicle brand in China, and plans to launch 10 e:N brand pure electric models in a row within five years. During the 2023 Shanghai Motor Show, the e:NP2, e:NS2, and e:N SUV sequential concept cars were unveiled, and all of them are scheduled to be mass-produced and launched in 2024.
The difference between the "e:N" brand and the "Ye" brand is mainly the platform.
The "e:N" brand is based on the front-wheel drive platform, which is mainly used in small and medium-sized vehicles to achieve "human-vehicle-integrated" agile and agile driving performance, and the "Ye" brand is a newly developed rear-wheel drive and four-wheel drive platform for the Chinese market, which is a new platform for the new generation of electric vehicles: intelligent and efficient pure electric "W" architecture.
Among them, single-motor rear-wheel drive relies on high-power rear-wheel drive motors to achieve 50:50 weight distribution between the front and rear, while dual-motor four-wheel drive relies on two sets of high-power drive motors at the front and rear, with electronic suspension, and accurately distributes the power of the front and rear wheels according to different road conditions and driving needs.
The chassis adopts the suspension form of double wishbones in the front and 5-link suspension in the rear with a high degree of freedom of setting, and through Honda's sport-level tuning technology, it can better filter out bumps in the road, while reducing roll when cornering, and greatly improving the vehicle's pitch suppression ability.
In addition, the "W" architecture is equipped with a large-capacity, high-density battery with an integrated die-cast all-aluminum shell, and a specially designed split isolated battery cooling system to protect the battery from the inside out.
During CES 2024 (Consumer Electronics Show) earlier this year, Honda unveiled the "Honda 0".
The "Ye" brand is different from the "Honda 0".
First of all, the "Ye" brand is a new electric brand developed specifically for China, which is built by integrating Chinese resources and technology, inheriting Honda's consistent car manufacturing concepts such as "MM concept" and "fun of handling", and implementing the brand accumulation of high quality, safety and peace of mind, and the "Honda 0" is a series with a global premise and will be launched in North America in 2026, and before that, the "Ye" brand will be the first to be developed in China.
China's consumer environment has changed, and the main group of car buyers is gradually getting younger. Therefore, how to design products for young people is particularly important.
At the press conference, Honda said that the "Ye" brand was designed by Honda's China R&D team, and the average age of the team members is 32 years old.
This localization is also reflected in Honda's partnership with China's supply chain.
According to Leifeng.com, Honda is now cooperating with local Chinese companies such as CATL, Huawei, and iFLYTEK. For example, the production version of the "Ye GT CONCEPT" model, which will be launched next year, will be equipped with Huawei's light field screen for the first time in the passenger seat.
On April 3, Honda China announced its sales volume for the first quarter of 2024. According to the data, Honda's terminal vehicle sales in China in the first quarter of 2024 will be 206907 units, a year-on-year decrease of 93.9% (that is, a year-on-year decrease of 6.11%). Among them, Guangqi Honda's cumulative sales were 108361 units, down 8.11% year-on-year, and Dongfeng Honda's cumulative sales were 98,546 units, down 3.80% year-on-year.
In response to the shrinking market share of gasoline vehicles in China and the expansion of the market share of new energy vehicles, Honda will take rapid measures to respond to changes in the environment.
Honda China previously announced a longer-term plan for the transition to new energy. After 2027, Honda will not introduce new ICE models in China, and it is expected that all models sold by Honda in China will be fully electrified by 2035.
Masayuki Igarashi, executive director of Honda Motor Co., Ltd. and head of the China headquarters, said that from the perspective of management, Honda has two strategies: the first is that it must quickly respond to the current situation of expanding the market share of new energy vehicles, and the second is that the sales of gasoline vehicles are declining significantly, and we will consider whether to adjust in terms of productivity. These are the two problems that we are facing now, and they are also two problems that need to be solved.
Tetsuya Miyahara, Executive Vice President of Honda Motor Industries (China) Investment Co., Ltd. and Executive Vice President of Honda Motor Technology (China) Co., Ltd., said, "The competition for electric vehicles in the Chinese auto market is very fierce, especially for fast charging and batteries. But in doing so, we took into account that Honda's principles are to uphold safety and quality, which is our unwavering philosophy. On this basis, we will accelerate it in a planned way. ”
In 2022, Honda announced the content of solid-state batteries. Tetsuya Miyahara said that Honda is working hard to develop all-solid-state batteries and will install them in new models in the 2025-2030 period. Leifeng.com