"Ye" new bottle of "e:N" old liquor: Honda's electrification is still going the old way

For the second time, Honda unveiled its own electric brand in China, unveiling three concept cars in one go. At the same time, Honda's transition to pure electrification has been advanced by five years, which means that the market pressure on the new brand will be even greater. Today, when the structure of the world's largest automobile market is undergoing historic changes, joint venture brands should have a clear understanding of the Chinese market: whether this is the island of the world's new energy vehicles or the pioneer testing ground of the world's automobile transformation?

Text丨Zhijia.com Zhang Xin

Edit|Langlang Mountain and Mingzhi Mountain

Unexpectedly, Honda China, the representative of Japanese cars, launched its second electric car brand "Ye" before the new Chinese car-making forces Xpeng Motors and NIO, although Chinese consumers have not yet remembered the exact pronunciation of the first electric brand "e:N" released in two years.

If it weren't for actor Liu Ye, I believe that "Ye" is also a word that is difficult to pronounce at first sight for Chinese consumers, Ye means bright and shining.

Honda's journey to electrification in China is in a hurry, and you can feel its eagerness, but you can't feel the excitement.

01.

At the heart of Honda's electrification: Differentiating the Chinese market

On April 16, before the official opening of the Beijing Motor Show, Honda China unveiled a new electric brand, "Ye", which will launch three new models: Ye S7, Ye P7, and Ye GT CONCEPT.

According to Masayuki Igarashi, executive director of Honda Motor Co., Ltd. and general manager of Honda Motor Industries (China) Investment Co., Ltd., the Ye S7 and Ye P7 are the first models of the "Ye" brand and are scheduled to be launched at the end of 2024, and the Ye GT CONCEPT is the second model of the "Ye" brand, which is scheduled to be mass-produced and launched in 2025.

By 2027, the "Ye" brand will launch 6 models.

By 2035, Honda's sales of pure electric vehicles in China will reach 100%.

In other words, Honda doesn't leave room for any of the power modes that retain the internal combustion engine, such as hybrid.

Of course, this timeline refers specifically to the Chinese market.

Honda officially said that the launch of the "Ye" brand in the Chinese market is a symbol of Honda's further acceleration of electrification. The "Ye" brand was independently designed by China's young R&D team, and was the first in the world to use the new "H" logo exclusive to the new generation of pure electric vehicles.

It's worth noting that the launch of the new electric brand comes less than two years after its first launch in China.

02.

"e:N"与"烨"的渊源与分工

On October 13, 2021, Honda China, together with Guangqi Honda and Dongfeng Honda, unveiled the "e:N" pure electric vehicle brand for the first time, and officially announced that "starting from this press conference, Honda will open a new chapter in the transformation of the brand towards electrification in China, and strive to move towards a new era of electrification." ”

本田在那场发布会上也一口气亮相了3款概念车——e:N Coupe concept、e:N SUV concept、e:N GT concept,以及2款量产车(同款姊妹车)——东风本田e:NS1、广汽本田e:NP1。

Among them, two all-electric production vehicles went on sale in the second quarter of 2022.

According to the official statement at the time, the "e:N" was originally born with a focus on the Chinese market, and Honda called it "the best pure electric vehicle tailored for Chinese consumers", and the "e:N" series of models was also developed with the Chinese team as the center.

However, after two and a half years, the "e:N" brand still does not have much presence in the Chinese market.

In the last six months (October 2023 to March 2024), Guangqi Honda e:NP1 sales were only 602 units.

Dongfeng Honda e:NS1 is better, selling 7,819 units in the last six months. However, the main sales volume of this data comes from October to December at the end of 2023, which is likely to be related to the impulse promotion at the end of the year by the factory or 4S store. Entering the first quarter of 2024, its sales have fallen back to the level of three to four hundred units per month.

Now, the new electric brand "Ye" has been born, does this mean that the "e:N" brand has failed, and will the "e:N" brand continue to launch new cars in the future?

Masayuki Igarashi told the media after the press conference that the two are mainly different platforms. The "e:N" brand is based on a front-wheel drive platform, which is mainly used in small and medium-sized vehicles, and the "Ye" brand is a newly developed rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive platform for the Chinese market, which is a new platform for the next generation of electric vehicles, namely the intelligent and efficient pure electric "W" architecture.

Masayuki Igarashi emphasized that Honda will face market competition in a way that two different brands, e:N and Ye, coexist and have different platforms. "There will be 6 new models of the 'Ye' brand, which is the planning of the product camp, and then we will think specifically about the launch time to add added value to these 6 new models in line with the positioning. ”

However, having said that, no matter how you look at it, the brand Ye seems to have split the original e:N in two.

At the product level, the "Ye" brand claims to adopt a new intelligent and efficient pure electric "W" architecture (Architecture W), which was traced when the "e:N" brand was released before.

At that time, the "e:N" brand announced that it would adopt the intelligent and efficient all-electric architecture "e:N Architecture", which will be available in two different drive modes: "e:N Architecture F" and "e:N Architecture W".

The e:N Architecture F is based on the front-wheel drive FWD and will be used in small and medium-sized vehicles, while the e:N Architecture W is available in two versions, AWD (all-wheel drive) and RWD (rear-wheel drive).

Now it seems that the landing models of the "Ye" brand belong to the latter, that is, they are positioned at the level of medium and large cars. However, the "e:N" in the name has been removed.

In addition, the "Ye" brand has announced that it will be offered in two drive forms: single-motor rear-wheel drive and dual-motor four-wheel drive, which is also completely consistent with the statement of the "e:N" brand when it was launched.

It can be said that "Ye" was born from "e:N", and from the perspective of model positioning, it is higher than "e:N".

In the field of intelligent configuration, the first batch of "Ye S7" and "Ye P7" will be equipped with Honda CONNECT 4.0 intelligent digital cockpit system, which has been updated by one generation compared to the Honda CONNCET 3.0 adopted by e:NS1 and e:NP1.

Tetsuya Miyahara, Executive Vice President of Honda Motor Technology (China) Co., Ltd., emphasized, "The 'Ye' brand and 'W' architecture announced today were developed by a young local team at Honda China Research Institute, with an average age of 32 years old, making Honda the first in the world to develop electric vehicles for the Chinese market. ”

Among the suppliers of the models under the "Ye" brand, there are many local suppliers such as CATL, Hangsheng Electronics, and iFLYTEK, in addition, Huawei has also appeared again, and the models under the "Ye" brand will use Huawei XSCENE light field screen.

Honda China said that this is the first time that Huawei's light field screen has been installed in the passenger seat of a car, and it can be linked through sound, light and aroma devices.

Another noteworthy development is Honda China's plan to cooperate with Chinese automakers on autonomous driving.

Defining products for the Chinese local market, enhancing the voice of China's local R&D institutions, and adopting products from local Chinese suppliers can be said to be the three major characteristics of Honda China's "Ye" brand.

In addition, according to the competitive characteristics of the Chinese market, the determination of the price is expected to be another bright card for the "Ye" model.

03.

The road to electrification of joint venture brands: The layout of products and capital should be synchronized

Can "Ye" be launched in the Chinese market?

Objectively speaking, after the release of "e:N", "Ye" is a new wine in an old bottle.

Compared with German companies giving up on fighting price wars with Chinese local brands, Honda in Japan is on the aggressive side, and in the short term, both "e:N" and "Ye" are experimental.

However, compared with the German system, the current increase in the share of China's own brands, including new energy vehicle companies, mainly comes from the decline in the share of Japanese manufacturers.

As a result, Japanese cars have a greater sense of crisis.

Masayuki Igarashi told the media: "From the perspective of management, Honda has two strategies, one is that it must quickly respond to the current situation of expanding the market share of new energy vehicles, and the other is that the sales of fuel vehicles are declining significantly, and it will consider whether to make adjustments in terms of productivity." ”

Looking back at Honda's performance in the Chinese market in the first quarter of 2024, its cumulative sales of new vehicles were 206,900 units, a year-on-year decrease of 6.11%. Among them, Guangqi Honda decreased by 8.11% year-on-year, and Dongfeng Honda decreased by 3.8% year-on-year.

It can be said that since the beginning of 2024, Honda's market pressure has further increased.

Judging from the development trend in recent years, although Honda's electrification pace is a pioneer in the Japanese camp, it is still relatively slow overall. In particular, compared with new power brands with a high degree of electrification and intelligent connectivity, Honda's market presence has always been low.

Nowadays, a large number of new power brands have become "princes of one party" whose strength cannot be underestimated, and even began to "feed" foreign brands, such as the cooperation between Volkswagen and Xpeng, Stellantis and Leap. This means that in the era of electric mobility and intelligent connectivity, it may be a more efficient way to cooperate with new local forces that know the Chinese market best.

German and French cars have already taken the lead, and American cars are difficult to take this step due to geopolitics, but Japanese capital should be a little bolder.

Honda's first full-scale electrification strategy at the end of 2021 was a step too late.

Now in 2024, Honda will release its pure electric brand in China for the second time, starting a "second venture" in China's pure electric market, and the pressure may be greater than in 2021.

The "Ye" brand has not announced a specific sales target, and the first two models will be half a year away from the actual landing, and the market variables during this period are still very large.

Today's Chinese new energy vehicle market has been bloody, excellent products emerge in an endless stream, Ye S7 and Ye P7 can carry the sales of Honda's new energy models, will not only be the price can bear.

"Ye" is the first step to gain a firm foothold, otherwise it will fall into the same situation as "e:N" again, which cannot be solved by changing clothes and setting up a new brand.

"Ye" will achieve 6 models by 2027, for the "Ye" expectations, Honda's first step is to keep up with the rhythm of the Chinese market, if so, everything is possible.

It is worth mentioning that Honda announced the "ban on ignition" in the Chinese market at the "e:N" brand press conference: after 2030, all new models launched in China will be electrified models such as pure electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles, and no new fuel vehicles will be introduced.

At that time, Honda also set a plan to achieve a sales ratio of 40% in 2030, 80% in 2035, and 100% in 2040.

Compared with Honda's announcement at the "Ye" brand press conference that "100% of sales will be pure electric in 2035", it means that Honda will end the supply side of hybrid models equipped with internal combustion engines in the five years from 2030 to 2035, and the time point for pure electrification on the sales side has also been changed from 2040 to 2035, five years earlier.

Japanese attitudes towards electric vehicles can sometimes be positive or wavering from different perspectives.

A rather interesting phenomenon is that at present, Honda and Toyota are actively developing solid-state batteries, and gave a very positive mass production schedule, after the "Ye" brand press conference, Honda told the media that it is fully developing all-solid-state batteries, which will be equipped with new models during the 2025-2030 period, and its officials said that Honda has fully realized that solid-state batteries are very important technologies for the next generation of electric vehicles.

Can the mass production of solid-state batteries realize the strangulation of Japanese electric vehicles against global electric vehicles?

In fact, it is not necessarily, one is that its cost is higher, mass production may not be able to reduce the user's cost, and second, in the context of the increasingly mature development of electric vehicles, it is difficult to rely on the same trick to reverse the general trend like the narrative of martial arts novels.

Compared with Toyota, Honda's attitude towards new energy or pure electric vehicles is much more positive, and today, when the structure of the world's largest automobile market is undergoing historic changes, the joint venture brand should have a clear understanding of the Chinese market: is this the island of global new energy vehicles or the first experimental field of the world's automobile transformation?

The answer to this question determines their future.