On April 16, Honda, a global automotive giant, held the "Honda China New Pure Electric Brand Launch Conference" in Beijing, bringing the new brand "Ye". At the grand press conference, Honda not only unveiled the Ye GT model, but also showed two new models for the first time: Ye P7 and Ye S7. "Ye S7", "Ye P7" and "Ye GT CONCEPT" made their world premieres, among which, "Ye S7" and "Ye P7" are the first models of the "Ye " brand, and "Ye GT CONCEPT" is the second model of the "Ye " brand.
The word has the meaning of "bright" and "shining", and the word is taken as the brand name, hoping to inspire the true nature of every user, so that every user can show a shining personality.
Chinese consumers have also made multiple interpretations of this name, and the most heard is "compare electric vehicles with 'yes'", which is not only Honda's yearning for electric vehicles, but also a comprehensive embrace of the market. In the face of China's huge and dramatically changing market, the new energy transformation is an inevitable move for Honda.
A new car is coming
Against the backdrop of pressure on the share of joint venture brands, this is one of the latest responses from Japanese joint ventures: with the help of Chinese supply chains and Chinese design teams, to launch more targeted products for the Chinese market.
Masayuki Igarashi, Executive Director of Honda Motor Co., Ltd. and General Manager of China Headquarters, said at the press conference that Honda will continue to adhere to its strategic goal of fully electrifying by 2035. According to the plan, the P7 and S7 pure electric SUV models of the Ye brand will be launched by the end of 2024, and the GT Concept coupe model will be mass-produced in 2025. The Ye brand will launch six models in China by 2027.
The Ye brand will launch 6 new cars by 2027, with an average of two cars launched per year. Considering that they are all pure electric, and there are products on the market this year and next year, it can be seen that the model planning and product release speed of the Ye brand are not slow.
Although each company is promoting electrification, its products have been lacking a sense of presence. Honda currently has two BEVs in China, the e:NS 1 and the e:NP 1, with Dongfeng Honda and Guangqi Honda producing Guangqi Honda. According to the data, in 2023, the sales of e:NS 1 will be 10,562 units, and the sales of e:NP 1 will be 4,502 units. When sales don't occupy much of a market role, change may be the best solution at the moment.
Changes in the platform
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. Therefore, although they are both products of Honda, the products produced under the two different platforms are bound to be different.
Judging from the current information, the GT concept car, P7, and S7 cars that have been announced by the Ye brand have a great sense of science and technology in appearance, and in terms of configuration, the hardware and design are not inferior to the domestic mainstream high-end pure electric vehicles, but the final product also needs to be reasonably priced in order to be paid for by the market. Therefore, how to design products for young people is particularly important.
Urgent sales volume
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.
Declining sales are a reality, but if left unchecked, Honda's future in China may be as bad as Suzuki's. At the beginning of 2024, a new round of "price war" has been launched, and independent brands have achieved the product release strategy of "oil and electricity at the same price" or even "electricity is lower than oil" by controlling costs, while joint venture brands have been subject to many restrictions, and it is difficult to break through in the "price war", and they can only find other opportunities and other tracks to complete the increase in sales.
Therefore, in order to express trust in the Chinese market, the "Ye" brand will be the first in the world to use the "H" logo belonging to the new generation of pure electric vehicles. Before the press conference, Honda China had announced that after 2027, Honda will not launch new fuel models in China, and it is expected that by 2035, all models sold by Honda in China will be fully electrified. In other words, both Dongfeng Honda and Guangqi Honda will only sell hybrid and pure electric products in 3 years, and some products with only fuel vehicle versions will disappear, which is a strong signal of Honda's force to the market and a new way to accelerate its strategy.
Tetsuya Miyahara, Executive Vice President of Honda Motor Industry (China) Investment Co., Ltd. and Executive Deputy General Manager 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. ”
At this press conference, the price of the first batch of models of the "Ye" brand has not yet been announced, but if the price of the new brand is appropriate, it is also expected to become an important growth point for Honda in the automotive industry.