There is no rumored strategy to abandon the Chinese market, and Honda has recently started a new electrification sequence in China.
At the Beijing Auto Show, Honda took out three models in one fell swoop: Ye P7, Ye S7, and Ye GT CONCEPT, although it is much simpler than before, but it is still tongue-twisting, and it is really difficult to understand the logic of the Japanese. In terms of popularity, although 70% of the models at Honda's booth have been green-plated, it still seems that the attraction is still not very high.
Previously, Honda announced that it was going to make an electrification transformation, and it chose to "sacrifice" Acura for the first time, so that the president, the owner of Acura, suddenly became rootless. After watching a series of electrified products launched by Honda in the past two days, the biggest feeling is that Acura died too "unjustly".
(1) Abandon Acura to make way for electrification?
When it was first reported that Honda was going to abandon Acura, the reason given by Honda was to make way for electrification. First, Honda took a fancy to Acura's channel and felt that it was appropriate to let this tepid brand "move its position" to electric vehicles, and secondly, in this critical period of transformation, Honda really did not have the energy to continue to deliver bullets to Acura.
The outcome of Acura is actually predictable, after all, this Japanese luxury brand has been in a marginal state since it entered China, and there is basically no brand buoyancy. Although it is booming in the North American market, not many people in China recognize this brand.
Initially, many people attributed the reason to the fact that Acura was not made in China. Even in 2012, nearly a quarter of Acura dealers "jointly forced the palace", saying that Acura was no longer domestic, and they would collectively withdraw from the network. This led to the 2013 Shanghai Auto Show, where Honda announced that it would localize the Acura brand and lower the purchase threshold.
Everyone knows what happened after that, at the 2016 Beijing Auto Show, the first domestic Acura CDX was unveiled, and the price of 250,000-300,000 yuan was not exaggerated at the time, but unfortunately, it was still not recognized. After that, Acura fell into a kind of curse, and the new models continued to be cold until they withdrew from the domestic market.
But to say that Acura's failure has nothing to do with Honda? Isn't it that it has not introduced a few blockbuster models from beginning to end, and the price is completely inflexible, and it does not take consumers seriously at all, and these factors account for a greater proportion?
In fact, Honda's electrification operation ideas are also very similar, the year before last came out with an e:NP1 pole 1, who sees this name must not be stunned, in addition to buying train tickets and entering the verification code, who will put the uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and special symbols so completely? A small SUV that has been converted from Binzhi oil to electric dares to sell from 175,000, good guys, you really just look up at the sky, no matter how you look down at the road.
This time, the Ye brand is much stronger, the appearance has improved, a new design language has been used, and there is a new pure electric platform. But what about intelligence? What kind of car machine chip is used? What kind of intelligent driving chip is used?
Huawei, Xiaomi, Wei brand, and Extreme Krypton are going to fight, and your old man doesn't look at it at all.
(2) Localization is a killer move, but Acura is not used?
The president is the owner of the Acura car and can be said to love and hate this brand. Love its good handling, as well as solid quality, even if it withdraws from the domestic market, the biggest impact is just the previous five-star maintenance environment, which immediately became three-star, and the quality of the car itself is still worthy of recognition.
What I hate is that Honda is too "tough", and it has not made effective changes to Acura from beginning to end, and has played itself to death.
Why did Honda sell well in China before? In addition to its own good foundation, it was also because there was indeed a group of people who were doing practical things in the past, and they were really thinking about the market.
In that era when joint venture car companies had to report to the "headquarters" when they changed their screws, Honda launched a "special" model like Jed. It is built on the Fit chassis, but it is made into a 6-seater, equipped with a 1.5L naturally aspirated Earth Dream engine, and the main focus is practicality. As a result, Jed became popular in China, and was even "reversely" introduced by Japan.
Another example is Guandao, in fact, many people don't know that this is also a "special car". Because the introduction of the aviator was too difficult, the 3.0T V6 was really not suitable for the domestic environment, so Honda created the crown road for the domestic market, and once launched, it became the benchmark for large five-seat SUVs.
And when a god car like CR-V encountered the "throttle", Honda did not complain at all that it was caused by domestic oil products, but quickly came up with an adaptive solution to quickly calm the crisis. The American version of the Civic focuses on 2.0L self-priming, but the domestic insists on using 1.5T+CVT, the main thing is that it can not only exercise, but also be fuel-efficient enough, which are the manifestations of Honda's "flexibility".
Today's Ye brand, in addition to the appearance of the elements that are really liked in China, is still a very typical Honda tram style. Take a look at the efforts of Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and other car companies, their electrification cannot be said to be very successful, at least they are really rushing to sell cars. And Honda still seems to be enjoying the years.
Acura used to be the same, except for the rise and fall of prices, it has not changed for the domestic market at all. Just like many people cry out for the CDX, they feel that compared with the BBA SUV of the same level, its price is not expensive at all, but the quality is exceeded. The question is where is BBA's brand influence, which is not comparable to a small transparent Japanese luxury brand. If you want to forage for food in the domestic market, the least is to give up those unrealistic benchmarks.
Honda's electrification continues to adhere to this set, which is nothing more than the next Acura.
(3) Asking for rice with a golden rice bowl?
In the past few years, the president has always felt that Honda is the most suitable model for playing electrification, but the execution it has shown is really disappointing.
First of all, what is the biggest change that electrification has brought us? Personally, I think it should be more space, better handling, and more energy-efficient performance. And these points are almost all Honda's strengths.
In 1983, Honda proposed the MM concept with the aim of maximizing occupant space and minimizing mechanical space. Whether it's a sedan, SUV, hatchback, or station wagon, Honda always surprises in space, and is also known as the "space magician".
From this point of view, Honda's foundation is actually good.
As for handling and energy saving, it can also be regarded as Honda's housekeeping skills. After all, Honda's "EARTH DREAMS TECHNOLOGY" family's biggest goal is to achieve a high degree of integration of driving pleasure and fuel economy. Stuffing the 2.0T K20C red-headed machine of Earth Dream technology into the Civic, such a thing can be done by Honda among all the international giants. This also shows that the former Honda definitely had a pursuit.
What new energy vehicles want to do today, Honda has been doing for decades. Even Honda is still the pioneer of "electric hybrid", and today's car companies that do hybrid are counted as one, and most of them use series-parallel hybrids similar to Honda's i-MMD. But unfortunately, Honda itself is not very good, Accord PHEV such a car, the price directly starts at 225,800, who does Honda plan to sell to, the battery of Ningde that you buy is particularly expensive?
After playing with electric drive for more than ten years, it stands to reason that you should know the characteristics of the motor well. After so many years of space optimization and control tuning, it stands to reason that it should be easy to master. As a result, a series of electronic industrial waste has been produced, which is indeed regrettable.
When he saw that the "verification code" continued to be launched at the Beijing Auto Show, the president really felt mixed feelings in his heart.
Write at the end
Forgive the president for his selfishness, although he hates Honda's electrification. But it is also somewhat because of his identity as the owner of the Acura car, and he is indignant about the downgrading of his maintenance treatment. Let's also put a sentence here, unless Honda returns the Acura five-star maintenance environment, otherwise we will continue to stink it with this.
If Honda wants to make a difference in the new era, it will try to bring something new out as much as possible. The time when a few cannons could be used to conquer a country is over.