GAC Toyota: The sales data can't go up, and the doubts can't come down

Car headlines

2024-05-15 10:48Posted on the official account of BAIC Toutiao

Now that the domestic auto market has passed the era of lying to win, Toyota, which used to hold the golden signboard, is being subjected to a new round of more stringent market and consumer testing.

As one of Toyota's important joint venture brands in China, GAC Toyota is trying to help the brand re-establish a new benchmark. However, in terms of results, whether it is the continued sluggish sales, the setback of popular models, or the slower than expected progress of electrification, there has been little effect as always.

This seems to mean that the moat built by Toyota is no longer impregnable, and when the joint venture brand is defined as a representative of "not enterprising", it is difficult for GAC Toyota's future not to make people sweat.

The sales "myth" is shattered, and Guangfeng will continue to lie flat?

"There must be a road before the car reaches the mountain, and there is a road with Toyota", which used to be a well-known slogan, made Toyota the best choice for domestic consumers, helping its sales to exceed the one million mark in 2022.

However, the achievements created in the era of fuel vehicles are still difficult to cover up the stumbling blocks in the era of new energy vehicles. According to the financial report released by GAC Group, GAC Toyota sold 48,800 vehicles in April, a year-on-year decrease of 32.24%; From January to April, a total of 204,800 vehicles were sold, a year-on-year decrease of 29.85%.

In fact, since the end of last year, GAC Toyota has shown a decline. In December, more than 76,000 vehicles were sold in a single month, a year-on-year drop of 24.0%, even lagging behind the "good brother" FAW Toyota.

The halo is gradually fading, but Toyota is still relying on three veterans Camry, Highlander and Sena to maintain it, accounting for nearly 40% of the total. On the contrary, the new cars launched by GAC Toyota in the past two years, such as Fenglanda, Weisa and Lingshang, have performed poorly. Among them, Lingshang, as an A+ class sedan that fills the gap between Lei Ling and Camry, has not gained a firm foothold in the field of 150,000-level family cars, and its monthly sales have been maintained at the "hundred" level for a long time.

With the rise of domestic independent brands and the intensification of the price war, the three "veterans" who were once in short supply have also been broken by the reality of the "myth" of price increases. The first is the Highlander, which was once the absolute sales king of the domestic seven-seat SUV market, and was described as "the iron-clad Highlander, the challenger of flowing water", winning 107,000 units at its peak in 2021.

In the blink of an eye in the second year (2022), Highlander's annual sales have shrunk significantly to 87,000 units, a year-on-year decrease of 15.66%. You must know that the Ideal ONE, a new car-making force that was discontinued in October this year, also sold nearly 80,000 units.

After experiencing a cliff-like decline in sales, Highlander had to start to attract consumers by cutting prices. Recently, 4S stores in many places have launched promotional activities for its Highlander, with a maximum discount of 50,000 yuan.

Similar to the fate of Highlander, Camry and Sena are also suffering from being stripped by the market. In March this year, the sales volume of the ninth-generation Camry was 6,842 units, and it has long lost the courage to break "20,000" in a single month two years ago; Also in March, the Sena sold 6,730 units, ranking third in the MPV list, 14 months after the last time it won the list.

On the one hand, the self-owned brand camp is operating step by step, and the moat laid by GAC Toyota in the sedan, SUV and MPV markets is gradually broken by more competitive products; On the other hand, for GAC Toyota, it still relies on fuel vehicles to support the scene, but new energy models have failed to make much splash in the domestic market.

The sluggish market sales have led to a decline in factory capacity, and as a result, employees have suffered. In July last year, a number of media outlets reported that GAC Toyota had terminated the contracts of about 1,000 employees in the company ahead of schedule in view of the recent production levels.

According to the data, as of the end of last year, GAC Toyota had a total of 19,000 employees, of which 17,200 were insured by social insurance, and more than 1,800 dispatched personnel who did not pay social insurance. In other words, more than half of the 1,000 people who were laid off at that time were dispatched workers.

At present, GAC Toyota is facing an extremely embarrassing situation, on the one hand, the fire in the back garden of the fuel vehicle market, and on the other hand, it is abandoned by the big wave of electrification in China.

Relying on "mixing" to get by, Guangfeng committed procrastination

The electrification transformation of the domestic automobile market is in full swing, and GAC Toyota has not made changes, trying to take the hybrid technology that it is better at as the entry point, so as to gradually occupy the new energy vehicle market.

Especially since the introduction of the fifth-generation intelligent electric hybrid technology in the first half of last year, GAC Toyota has successively installed this technology on the new generation of Leiling, Fenglanda, Lingshang and other models, forming the largest number of intelligent electric hybrid matrices with the best structure in China.

However, focusing on the domestic market, GAC Toyota's gasoline-electric hybrid layout seems to be difficult to fit in with the current domestic mainstream hybrid market. In contrast, BYD's DM-i plug-in hybrid model is highly sought after. In the eyes of many industry insiders, plug-in hybrid vehicles can well meet the car needs of most Chinese people, but the oil-hybrid vehicles that cannot be plugged in have been repeatedly ignored by the market.

Of course, GAC Toyota has not been without efforts and has also launched plug-in hybrid models. For example, the Veranda PHEV model, with a starting price of more than 250,000 yuan, is equipped with a ternary lithium battery pack of about 16 degrees, has a WLTC pure electric range of more than 70 kilometers, a total range of more than 1,000 kilometers, and a fuel consumption of 4.68L per 100 kilometers. However, with sales of less than 100 units in a single month, it is difficult to make waves in the market.

The hybrid market has not gained a firm foothold, and GAC Toyota has been wavering in the development of the pure electric vehicle market. Akio Toyoda, the former president of Toyota Motor Corporation, has more than once slammed the disadvantages of electric vehicles in public, believing them to be low-end products. In his opinion, there are many ways to achieve carbon neutrality, both hybrid and hydrogen.

As a result, the brand's hesitation in the planning strategy of electric vehicles not only caused GAC Toyota to miss the competitive advantage of electric vehicles, but also affected the reputation of electric vehicles.

First in overseas markets, Toyota's first pure electric SUV model, the bZ4X, was launched in the United States in April 2022, and soon after its launch, it was successively exposed to the problem of "loose wheel bolts" and was recalled several times. And the time for listing in China has been repeatedly postponed, which has also made the outside world full of unease.

Finally, a few months later, on October 10, GAC Toyota took the lead in launching its first pure electric model, the bZ4 X, with a price range of 199,800-287,800 yuan. It's a pity that GAC Toyota, which has an unfavorable career, has to recall the new car that has just been launched again.

According to a statement at the time, GAC Toyota recalled some bZ4X vehicles manufactured between November 15, 2022 and February 3, 2023, totaling 6,159 units.

The reason for the recall is that the vehicle's safety driver assistance system may be restarted unexpectedly and not work properly. More than that, a query of major domestic automobile complaint websites found that GAC Toyota bZ4X has become the hardest hit area for various complaints such as false publicity, false battery life, car machine jamming, and poor sound insulation.

The recall of new cars is undoubtedly difficult for Toyota to go down in the pure electric vehicle market. No matter how much the brand attaches importance to the product, the quality of the product itself is not up to par, and it is difficult to impress consumers.

Previously, data released by the Passenger Association showed that from April 1 to 14, 2023, the mainland new energy passenger vehicle market retailed 260,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 32%, and the retail penetration rate of new energy passenger vehicles in the first half of April was 50.39%, surpassing traditional fuel passenger vehicles for the first time.

For GAC Toyota, relying on the fuel vehicle market and price reduction measures can barely maintain sales, but once these advantages are also passing away, the future will not be easy.

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