170,000 to buy Camry, the middle-aged man's belief in the magic car collapsed

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2024-05-07 10:55Posted on the official account of Beijing Daily People Society

The replacement is a big test for the model. Compared with the glory of the past, the ninth-generation Toyota Camry has not completed the turnaround.

In March, the sales of the ninth-generation Camry were 6,842 units, which was even lower than in February in the off-season. And the following April, it was still mediocre. According to Yiche statistics, as of April 28, Camry sold a total of 7,987 units that month, less than half of BYD Han in the same period.

The sales volume of the Camry is the epitome of the shrinking fuel vehicle market.

Text | Xie Yunli

Edit | Yi Fangxing

Operations | potato

deserted

Two months have passed since the ninth generation of the Toyota Camry was officially launched.

The chill that fuel vehicles can't be sold is first transmitted to the front-end salespeople. In the view of sales Li Qi, for many years, Camry has been firmly in the position of the first brother in the sales of B-class cars, but now, he rarely feels a coldness.

In April, only 3 to 4 groups of customers came to see the car every day. This past month, he sold a total of 7 cars, but he barely met the KPI. Most customers say that it is not cost-effective to buy now, and that it is only a matter of time before the price is greatly reduced. Another customer even said, "Call me if it's 20,000 cheaper."

Li Qi was very helpless.

In their free time, the sales staff in the store stand in twos and threes, wiping new cars and setting up chairs. Even the topic of the chat has changed. Li Qi's younger colleagues often mention the Xiaomi SU7 recently, "when they say this car, their eyes are shining." The Xiaomi SU7 store has not yet opened in Li Qi's city, but he thinks that many people are secretly inquiring to see if there is a chance to catch this rising fast ship.

And the market volume and sales volume of Xiaomi SU7 are indeed like the Camry of the golden age - according to the official website of Xiaomi Auto, Xiaomi SU7 has completed the delivery of 7058 units in April, and the number of locked orders has reached 88,000, and the name of the god car seems to be shifting.

▲ The all-new 9th-generation Camry. Photo / GAC Toyota's official Weibo

The data also supports this coldness.

In March, the sales of the ninth-generation Camry were 6,842 units, which was even lower than in February in the off-season. And the following April, it was still mediocre. According to Yiche statistics, as of April 28, Camry sold a total of 7,987 units that month, less than half of BYD Han in the same period.

At the same time, with the decline in both volume and sales, people's eyes on the ninth-generation Camry have become more severe.

As far as the ninth-generation experience is concerned, a car owner said that friends around him commented that the Camry was old-fashioned, and the sharper ones would be blunt - "soil". But the owner also said that buying a Camry is definitely not for the appearance, but for peace of mind and safety.

There is also a place that many people complain about, which is the problem of shading caused by the use of panoramic canopies. This is especially embarrassing in the low-latitude Liangguang and Fujian regions, where Camry has a higher degree of recognition.

The canopy for trams is used because the chassis puts batteries to raise the seats, so the canopy is used to exchange space. The ninth-generation Camry also followed suit and adopted a panoramic canopy, in order to "have a large lighting area and a bright hall", but there were no sunshades.

Some consumers who have test-driven complained: "What do you want to do with the canopy of the oil car, the sunshade is not given in summer, and you expect everyone to hold an umbrella in the car?" "Is the fisherman's hat promoted without sunshades?" "The sunscreen function of the tram is improving, and the Camry is better to return the ......"

Camry's sales are a microcosm of the shrinking market for fuel vehicles.

"Low prices have also become the selling point of the Camry"

For a long time, the B-class sedan track to which Camry belongs has a conventional guide price line of 200,000 yuan.

Compared with the guide price of previous generations, the ninth generation has improved the configuration and increased intelligence, but the increase does not increase the price, the entry version is in the range of 170,000 yuan, and the top version has dropped to 206,800 yuan, which is 60,000 yuan lower than the eighth generation top match that was launched in 2017.

Sales Li Qi looked at the price and sighed deeply, times have changed, "low prices have also become the selling point of Camry." He feels that the price of new cars has been tested on the edge of the bottom line, and the future price reduction "will only be more ugly".

▲ The price of the new 9th generation Camry. Photo / GAC Toyota's official Weibo

The automotive industry usually classifies passenger cars by the letters A-D, and the further back the letter, the larger the wheelbase and displacement, and the higher the price. Most of the mainstream foreign-funded models are positioned in the B-segment car market, and the top 10 are either Japanese or German-blooded, which means that consumers here pay special attention to word-of-mouth and car quality to be tested by the market. In the list of gold content, Camry dominates the list all year round, and in 2023, Camry will sell a total of 225,200 units, ranking first in the B-class car market. In recent years, new energy has developed like a bamboo, and only Tesla Model 3 has entered the top 10 of the list, which can be called the strongest fortress of foreign brands.

But this year there was panic in the fort, and prices fell en masse.

Honda Accord will be replaced in mid-2023 not long ago, it should have grabbed the share of the opponent, and recently social media called "copy the bottom Honda Accord", and the excitement of netizens is due to the spread of "Honda Accord Smart Edition with a guide price of 196,800 yuan, and the discount is only more than 140,000 naked cars", Beijing Hyundai's 11th generation Sonata was listed in March, with a minimum sale of 140,000 yuan, and the market was shocked, enough to see the decline.

A 4S store sales person Auto said that now the Volkswagen Passat can be landed within 150,000 yuan, "discounts can be negotiated", and this year, Magotan and Passat have facelift plans, and it is rumored that "the new model will be less than 180,000 yuan." "Although the price has not yet been announced, all of the above proves that the B-segment sedan market is in a depressed mood.

In 2023, Volkswagen Passat and Magotan will sell 191,000 and 189,000, a year-on-year increase of 16.8% and 24.2%, and Honda Accord will sell 169,000 units, a year-on-year decrease of 23.4%. These old rivals have the ability to steal Camry's share of the price cuts.

▲ GAC Toyota Camry. Photo / Visual China

But "the enemy of the enemy is the friend", and now they are on the same side again. After all, the table-flipping price reduction panic comes from the external attackers - special new energy brands.

Once the price of trams remained high, most of them were priced at 300,000 yuan, perfectly avoiding the price range of 200,000 yuan, Camry's sales felt that "the income was okay", the raw materials of new energy vehicles were reduced, the manufacturing cost was diluted, and the price has been continuously reduced, Xiaopeng, Tesla, etc. have cars of more than 200,000 yuan.

The most terrifying is BYD Han, which is willing to "reduce dimensionality" - with a higher configuration, the space of a C-class car, and the price of a B-class car.

BYD Han, as a C-class car, launched the Honor version a week before the ninth-generation Camry press conference, with a price reduction of 10,000-40,000 yuan, and finally came to 179,800-249,800 yuan, which belongs to the same price range as the B-class Camry.

Han's listing poster is almost a war book, and the sales ranking is deliberately selected from the B+C sedan track. In 2023, BYD Han will sell 227,700 units, and the gap between the two is only 2,000 units.

▲ BYD Han EV Glory Edition. Photo / BYD's official Weibo

Xiaomi cars with their own splashing traffic are also roaring on the B-class sedan track. At the end of March, as soon as it was listed, Xiaomi's orders exceeded 50,000 in 27 minutes, according to the data revealed by Lei Jun at the Xiaomi investor conference, it was listed less than 1 month, and the number of locked orders of Xiaomi SU7 has exceeded 70,000. It can be said that as long as you consider the 200,000 cars, you can't avoid Xiaomi SU7.

Therefore, the launch of the ninth-generation Camry will face the background of the reshuffle of the Chinese auto market - the Japanese system is weak, the German system is relatively strong, and the independent brand is soaring.

In fact, the Toyota Group behind Camry is still the world's best-selling car company. Toyota's sales in 2023 will be 10.307 million units, a year-on-year increase of 7.7%. Defending the world title for four consecutive years. Sales in the U.S., Europe, and Japan all increased, but sales in China fell 1.7% y/y to 1.908 million units.

The confidence of a brother

Camry's counterattack confidence comes from the fact that it is a real global classic IP. Since its launch in 1982, it has been replaced by a new generation in an average of four years. In 2023, the Camry will be among the "20 million sales club for a single model", and only Corolla and Camry under the Toyota Group will be in the club, while the Volkswagen Group will be the Beetle, Golf, and Passat, which are all global god cars.

Once, Camry was able to win the crown, and it was inseparable from four words - conform to the times.

In the 70s and 80s of the last century, Japan's economy took off, driving the demand for cars, and catching up with the oil crisis, Japanese automobile companies that rely heavily on imports for resources began to develop smaller and more fuel-efficient cars.

The Camry generation of compact sedans was born in the middle of the times.

▲ The first generation Camry. Photo / Toyota official

Subsequently, Toyota clarified the positioning of the Camry family car, changed it several times, lengthened the body, and became a mid-to-high-end sedan, fuel-efficient, stable and durable, which became its label. As soon as the new century passed, with the upgrading of family consumption and the concept of environmental protection, Camry reduced its business-style design, integrated lively and soft lines into the front face, updated the interior materials, and changed the mahogany trim to matte silver, embracing youthfulness.

It can be said that every step of the Camry has stepped on the needs of the times.

The same is true in China.

Chinese people's perception of Camry originated from the early days of reform and opening up in the 90s, when a group of people got rich first, and imported Camry (Camry's third generation) was sold for 35-500,000 yuan, which was equivalent to the price of a house in the central city of Beijing.

In 2006, the sixth-generation Camry was introduced into China, just three years after China's accession to the WTO, the middle class grew, and the price of the localized Camry was set at 180,000-280,000 yuan.

▲ The sixth-generation Camry. Photo / Toyota official

Because of this, GAC Toyota said that it was "happy in mass production" when reviewing the Camry's entry into China.

The Camry has indeed left many Chinese with fond memories. As early as 2010, Chen Ze sat in the sixth-generation Camry. He had just entered junior high school when his uncle, a businessman in the coastal area, returned home in a black Camry with leather seats "as comfortable as a couch."

The uncle was holding the wooden-colored steering wheel and pressing the accelerator, and he sat in the back seat, rolled down the window, and looked out. On the hometown road of the third-tier city in the southwest, "most of the driving is still motorcycles", on both sides of the street, the old shops are backwards, and the Camry is galloping, leaving all this behind and heading forward.

Four words came to his mind - "successful people".

For GAC Toyota, the Camry is also a sedan of great significance. At the time of listing, Guangfeng chartered a large Boeing 777 aircraft with the pattern of "CAMRY" spray-painted, from Guangzhou Airport "soared into the sky", the ground was also noisy on the same day, for a time, there were 106 "GAC TOYOTA" dealerships in the country opened.

In the hearts of many dealers, selling Camry is equivalent to making a steady profit. GAC Toyota also paid off, becoming the first auto company to make a profit when it started production that year.

Sales Zhang Haining recalled, Camry's golden age was around 2019, it was still the era of consumption upgrading, the price of 180,000-250,000 yuan, many families drove to exchange for additional purchases, with word of mouth, car owners are very sure, "sell cars without too much introduction", just talk about the price. But the price is often the least to talk about, "because there is no worry about selling at all". At most, some small gifts are given, and there are almost no existing cars, and the delivery of the car has to start in a month.

But the water temperature of the times also changes.

Whether it is Camry or the owner, they are waving goodbye to "mass production happiness". Zhang Haining observed that many customers of the more than 200,000 Camry choose to take out loans to buy, "which needs some future income confidence support." After the epidemic, the number of people looking at cars has decreased significantly, the probability of transactions has become lower, the transaction cycle has been lengthened, and "car owners have become sensitive and hesitant about prices".

▲ The seventh-generation Camry. Photo / Toyota official

A GAC Toyota salesperson told everyone that her store has recruited employees who are specifically responsible for pulling test drives, and the KPI is to make more than 100 test drive calls a day, of which only about 40 can be connected, and the last single digit is for test drives, "The idea of quitting every day under high pressure is intensifying."

Car owners in the Chinese market are also becoming younger. According to the survey data of authoritative organizations such as China Automobile Dealers Association and Roland Berger, the proportion of "post-90s" car buyers has increased from 17% to 45% between 2015 and 2022. This group of consumers is young, has a certain economic strength, is willing to try new things, and emphasizes personalization, for them, Camry is no longer "new".

Zhang Haining also felt the same way. Last year, the dealer store where he worked sold Camry, and the most powerful month dropped by 30,000 yuan, and the frustration was that this price did not last long, and continued to reduce the price slightly.

In the end, "it costs one or two hundred thousand yuan to sell one", and he is no longer profitable by selling Camry.

The elephant is a little slow to turn around

After the launch of the ninth-generation Camry, Li Qi received up to 7 waves of customers a day, and for the newly launched models, this passenger flow was only enough to reach the level of "barely", and the customers turned around and left when they heard that there was no test drive in the store and that they would not be able to test drive until the end of the month.

Li Qi has the impression that the eighth-generation Camry was released in 2017, and the test drive also waited for a month. However, in the current fierce market competition, car companies are racking their brains to send consumers into the new car as quickly as possible, grab a deep first impression, and identify the "dream car" to place an order. The ideal new car MEGA, which was almost listed with Camry, prepared 1,000 test drives in advance, followed by the press conference in showrooms across the country, and the delivery began on the 11th day.

Li Qi didn't insist too much on leaving the customer's phone number, "There's no need for that", the customer's expression when he looked at the car was faint, and it was difficult to come back. "The ninth-generation Camry is now just an option in the market, and it doesn't have to be."

▲ GAC Toyota offline stores. Photo / Visual China

The highlight of the ninth-generation Camry is focused on intelligence, and the signal is to cater to young consumers. Li Qi said that Camry's customers are mostly around 30 or 40 years old, compared with new car companies, Toyota has a customer pool of word-of-mouth accumulation, and many customers will recommend Camry when their children buy a car - "worry-free and durable", which is a unique opportunity for traditional car companies to compete for young people.

However, whether the young man cares about these things, he also beats the drum in his heart. The evaluation of Camry on social media is old-fashioned: "The post-90s generation has entered their 30s, and the Camry's interior configuration and exterior design have been the same for decades, and the aesthetics are catering to 50-year-old people."

▲ The all-new 9th-generation Camry. Photo / Visual China

The transformation of joint ventures, like the turning of an elephant, does involve too many factors.

In the past, due to policy restrictions, the joint venture had a 50:50 shareholding ratio, and an employee of the joint venture told everyone that Chinese and foreign investors had to be tied up in order to make money, and the internal decision-making process of the Chinese and foreign parties had to go through again, "sometimes months have passed".

But in terms of core interests, it can be seen that there are two families. The foreign side has mastered the technology, and is wary of China's participation in research and development, coupled with the fact that the car used to be very easy to sell, the foreign party has a strong desire to control, "feel that only they know the car", and some model changes for the Chinese market, it is unlikely that the Chinese side hopes to coexist.

According to the "Financial Auto" report, the head of Toyota China admitted that China's opponents are "very good", in research and development, industrial chain, consumer understanding "far surpass Toyota", he believes that the most difficult change in the joint venture is technology, factories and logistics, these can be truly localized, there will be good products.

However, the low price of the car will also discourage sales, and Li Qi is not willing to sell the ninth-generation Camry, "at this price, the commission is not too much."

Toyota's counterattack

Compared with sales, the future direction of Toyota Group, the world's largest car company, is more worth analyzing.

As Toyota's flagship sedan, the Camry is the ninth generation of the hybrid version. According to the order announced by GAC Toyota, the proportion of gasoline-electric hybrid is as high as 80%, even though Toyota's THS hybrid system has been developed to the fifth generation, which is more fuel-efficient and smoother, but now the Chinese market prefers pure electric and plug-in hybrid models, which means that Toyota is not actively embracing electrification.

This is also related to the Toyota Group's own strategy. Compared with new energy companies desperately betting on electric routes to start a business and win the world, large enterprises are born to "keep business", and it is not easy to reform their own lives.

Under his leadership, Toyota has always insisted that hydrogen energy, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and pure electric go hand in hand, especially hydrogen energy and hybrid. He believes that 1 billion people around the world live without electricity, and Toyota wants to provide a variety of options. It is estimated that the global market share of electric vehicles will be only 30% at most, and the rest will belong to other forms of power.

In April last year, Akio Toyoda took the initiative to change his chairmanship, and Tsuneji Sato, the head of the group's Lexus, took over as president, realizing the transfer of supreme power.

▲ Akio Toyoda speaks to the media at the Toyota Technical Center. Photo / Visual China

The 53-year-old successor, Tsuneji Sato, has a positive attitude towards electrification, and he established the electrification schedule during his tenure at Lexus. After taking the helm of Toyota, Tsuneji Sato has set a goal of launching 10 new pure electric models by 2026 and achieving annual sales of 1.5 million electric vehicles, and this year Toyota will launch two pure electric vehicles in China.

▲ Tsuneji Sato. Photo / Visual China

However, it is widely believed that Toyota's energy route has not changed drastically.

A consensus is that the first half of the transformation of the automotive industry is new energy, and the second half is intelligence. The Toyota Group, which is retaining its focus on electrification, obviously favors intelligent transformation.

From Akio Toyoda's plan for his son, you can get a glimpse of the future direction. He put his son, Daisuke Toyoda, to work at the Toyota software company Woven. When Tsuneji Sato came to power, he made Woven one of its three priorities, reorganizing Toyota's autonomous driving and artificial intelligence subsidiaries to "involve the department more in the production of next-generation vehicles."

The Chinese market is an intelligent highland, and the ninth-generation Camry Chinese version of intelligence is also the highlight of the car, such as the joint development of AI voice with Huawei, China's intelligent cockpit uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 chip, this chip is rarely seen in joint venture brands, and is mostly used by new forces, such as Zeekrypton X, Xiaopeng G6, Weilai ET5 hunting version, etc.

At the same time, in July last year, Toyota Motor R&D Center (China) Co., Ltd. changed its name to join "smart electric vehicles". In August, Toyota and Pony.ai, an autonomous driving company, formed a joint venture to jointly unveil the first all-electric robotaxi concept.

▲ Toyota and Pony.ai established a joint venture. Photo / Pony.ai official

The most suspenseful news is that the "Daily Economic News" reported that Toyota's global model intelligent driving solution will adopt the "Toyota + Huawei + Momenta" tripartite joint solution model, and the Chinese autonomous driving company Momenta and Huawei will provide software and hardware solutions respectively, and the three parties will cooperate and integrate in depth.

At present, the parties involved are in a state of silence, and the signals released have whetted their appetites.

However, what is certain is that when Toyota's sales decline, Akio Toyoda's conservative line will definitely be questioned. The fourth-generation family heir, who has been at the helm of Toyota for more than 13 years, said that in an era where there are no standard answers, the only way to deal with a crisis is to stay enthusiastic, work hard and find a way to survive in the face of failure.

The implication is obvious - times have changed again, can Toyota catch up?

(Names have been changed)

Resources:

[1] Financial Automobile: The pressure has intensified, and GAC Toyota's anxiety is written all over the Camry

[2] Caixin: Akio Toyoda retired

[3] Car Totem: From A-class car to B-class car king!Toyota Camry's 40-year evolutionary history

The article is original by each Auto, and infringement must be investigated.

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