Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Slow step by step

desolate.

Compared with Tesla and China's new power brands, the number of Japanese electric car stores is pitiful.

Even if some people come to the store to see the car, they basically go straight to the oil car, and the huge electric car billboard seems a little lonely and awkward.

Source: in the third quarter of this year, Japanese cars were not found in the top 30 in the list of pure electric car sales in Super Electric Lab. In order to stimulate sales, Japanese cars began to cut prices collectively.

At present, Honda's first models, the e:NS1 and e:NP1, have been reduced to varying degrees in stores. The maximum comprehensive discount is nearly 40,000. Ai Ruiya, SUV Ariya of Nissan Pure Electric, which went on sale on September 27, has been heavily discounted soon after its launch, and is now ordering cars to "buy low-equipped and high-equipped" cars.

Japanese cars, which once dominated the fuel car market, seem to have failed collectively in the era of electric cars.

01, collective price reduction "official website discount of 20, 000, if you pay by installments, it can be another 20, 000 cheaper."

A salesperson at a Dongfeng Honda 4s store is familiar with the preferential policies of e:NS1. At present, the sales of this car are not high, and the factory gives the store a quota of 5-6 cars per month.

According to the official website, if you order e:NS1 now, you can enjoy a discount of 10, 000 to 30, 000, or 20, 000.

Source Dongfeng Honda, in addition to official discounts, the store also made a lot of efforts to sell the car. For the sales of offline car booking "another 20, 000 cheaper" discount, each store currently has a different discount. "at present, most stores can further discount to 15000-25000 on the basis of the official website, and the longer the period, the greater the discount amount."

In addition to these real cash concessions, car owners can also choose free charging piles or 2500 yuan charging fee, "old car replacement can also enjoy another 5000 yuan subsidy."

The same is true of e:NS1 's sister model, the e:NP1, which says on its website "go to the store and get a deposit of 2, 000 to 22000."

The salesperson at Guangzhou Auto Honda 4S store said that all the store discount activities are from 2,000 to 22000 yuan, but the sales are not good. "the discount is similar to that of e:NS1. Only one car has been sold in the store this month, and there is no existing car in the store. Now you can pick up the car after ordering a car for about a week."

The e:NS1 is Honda's first all-electric model in China, but sales of the car are not off to a good start. Dongfeng Honda e:NS1 sold 147,537,349,878 vehicles in May-August 2022, while Guangzhou Auto Honda e:NP1 sold 110,269,273 vehicles in June-August.

The average monthly sales of these two models are less than 500.

Big brother Toyota may have learned from the experience of the two younger brothers that bZ4X cut prices before it went public, pre-selling the Elite version priced at 220000 at 199800, and the X-MODE all-wheel drive Ultre version priced at 300000 at 287800, with an overall price reduction of 20,000 yuan.

And Nissan last month listed pure electric SUV Ariya AiRuiya, can not escape the fate of price reduction.

Through the official website, we can see that AiRuiya's promotional measures include "buy low configuration, get high configuration", "2000 degree free public charging", "three power and vehicle lifetime warranty" and so on.

After the comprehensive subsidy, the price of the long-lasting top version is reduced from 2848000 to 252800, and the high-performance all-wheel drive top version is from 3428000 to 297800, with a maximum discount of 45000.

"now there is only one existing car in the store, and the pricing and discount are uniform, with a discount of more than 20,000." A salesperson at Nissan's 4S store said that many people came to see the car, but they basically looked at the oil car, and few people paid attention to the tram.

02. What is the difference between Japanese electric cars?

In the oil truck period, the advantages of fuel saving and value preservation of Japanese cars are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, but in the electric era, these two advantages are meaningless.

Why are Japanese trams unpopular now?

First of all, let's take a look at e:NP1 and e:NS1. The price is 175000-218000. After the discount, the price goes down to 150000-200000. Independent brands with the same price are Xiaopeng G3i and Song PLUS EV.

In terms of power range, the motor parameters of these three cars are basically the same, 70kWh battery capacity, except Xiaopeng G3i low-configuration model, mileage is between 500km-520km.

However, although the Honda electric car is based on the pioneer pure electric architecture ERO N Architecture, it reveals the smell of "changing from oil to electricity" everywhere.

Source: Super Power Lab e:NP1 has exactly the same size as Dongfeng Honda XR-V and Guangzhou Auto Honda Honda, with a large battery protruding under the chassis, which is obviously larger and more practical than autonomous models at the same price.

In terms of intelligent driving, Honda sister models are equipped with Honda SENSING safety supersensitive system in addition to the minimum configuration, which can achieve L2-level autopilot function on highways, urban expressways and other road sections, as well as traffic congestion assistance functions. These configurations are standard in the new energy models of independent brands at the same price.

On the Xiaopeng G3, autopilot is obviously smarter and can be directed to change lanes, and the speed will be adjusted automatically when entering corners. In addition, Xiaopeng G3 also has automatic parking spaces, mobile App parking, summoning and other advanced parking functions.

Source Xiaopeng Toyota bZ4X is the same problem, equipped with L2 autopilot, the function is still in the single lane L2. In contrast, the Xiaopeng P5 of the same level has the function of dialing the pole to change lanes, and it has been able to achieve urban navigation assistance in some areas.

Although the price of bZ4X is between 200000 and 300000, the intelligent degree of the vehicle cockpit is not high, and the functionality of the car-machine system is still ten years ago. The car-machine system can only support basic functions such as intelligent voice, car-home interconnection, intelligent navigation and remote control. Compared with the current independent brand products, there is a big gap.

Moreover, compared with the current independent brands, car and machine applications are not rich enough. And Xiaopeng G3i, BYD Song and other 200000 models have Android.

Although the price falls before it is issued, its low-configuration model still has the problem of high price and low configuration. The entry-level elite has a mileage of only 400km under CLTC conditions, and the configuration does not even support Bluetooth keys.

Nissan's Ariya appears to be more competitive, with the Ariya priced at 27.28-342800 and the mileage of the two-wheel drive version reaching the 623km, higher than the Model Y rear wheel drive version of the 545km.

Source: the ProPILOT Pro equipped with Ariya in the Superelectric Lab uses a single current looking camera + 4 look-around cameras, a long-range sensing millimeter wave radar + 4 medium-and short-range sensing millimeter wave radars, and 12 ultrasonic radars as sensors to achieve full-speed domain follow and stop at any time, S-ALC intelligent assistant channel change.

Source: Super Electric Lab ProPILOT Super Intelligent Autopilot system is very strong in the Japanese product brand, but it is only L2 level autopilot technology.

Among independent brands, many models have better autopilot assistance systems, such as Xiaopeng's NGP autopilot, which averaged 0.71 takeovers in the previous 3000 km expedition challenge.

At present, the disadvantage of Japanese system's weak auxiliary driving ability and intelligent behind the times is the direct reason for its poor sales at the present stage.

Of course, Japanese car owners never hit intelligence, but leapfrog space and pragmatism. However, in the new energy era, vehicle-engine interconnection system and auxiliary driving system are of paramount importance.

03. Slow step by step in the field of electrification, Japanese brands are notoriously slow to turn around.

In fact, it is not too late for Japanese car companies to start in the field of electric vehicles. Nissan, which launched the Leaf in 2010, continued its 160km and sold 577000 vehicles worldwide by 2022. Toyota began to build RAV4 EV and Prius electric cars as early as 1997, of which the first generation of RAV4 EV produced 1484 vehicles with a 150km mileage.

Japan, which originated from Nissan in 2000, holds two technical cards of hydrogen energy and lithium battery. Due to the shortage of minerals in Japan, the lithium ore needed for lithium batteries themselves needs to be imported in large quantities and depends on other countries, while hydrogen cars emit only water, which is also known as the cleanest energy.

So Japanese cars began to focus on hydrogen-powered cars. Akio Toyoda has said many times in public that electric cars are not environmentally friendly. "the world is not ready for the era of all-electric cars, and hydrogen energy is the best energy for the future."

Source Akio Toyoda invested a lot of time and cost on the hydrogen road and finally launched the Mirai in 2014. However, at this time, the new energy market has changed. Tesla rose rapidly in the field of new energy vehicles, while Ningde era broke through the siege and became the leader of lithium batteries.

Led by the European and American markets and the Chinese market, the world has entered the tram era. At this time, hydrogen energy is still unable to break through the bottleneck of high cost and low sales volume.

It was only in hindsight that Japanese companies developed lithium battery cars. According to the Japan Association of Automobile Manufacturers, automobiles are the number one pillar industry in Japan. In 2017, Japanese auto exports totaled 16 trillion yen, accounting for 19% of all manufacturing shipments in Japan. It is also the industry in which Japan invests the most money in research and development.

Now that the tide of electric cars is irreversible, Japanese car brands naturally do not want to decline.

Honda is scheduled to invest nearly 5 trillion yen in the research and development of electric vehicles and software technology over the next 10 years, launching 30 electric vehicles by 2030 and planning to produce more than 2 million vehicles a year. Toyota plans to sell more than 5.5 million electric vehicles a year by 2030.

Akio Toyoda's current Japanese car companies are targeting the next generation of batteries-solid-state batteries. Solid-state battery is a kind of battery that uses solid level and solid electrolyte. compared with the current lithium battery using liquid electrolyte, solid-state battery has higher energy density, longer cycle life, faster charging rate and much higher safety than liquid lithium battery.

As the big brother of Japanese cars, Toyota said it would spend 2 trillion yuan on battery research and production by 2030 and achieve vehicle preloading by 2025. Nissan plans to launch electric models with all-solid-state batteries in 2028. Honda said it would put all-solid-state batteries into use around 2030.

However, the market for new energy vehicles is rapidly changing, and it is by no means easy for Japanese cars to catch up in a short time.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Superelectricity Lab (ID:SuperEV-Lab), author: Cao Zichang, Editor: Zizhou

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