Text/Jincuodao Channel
Recently, many netizens have been driven crazy by Tesla!
Tesla sent out a wave of big red envelopes for the New Year. At the lowest price in history, it successfully made old car owners crazy and new car owners crazy.
Netizen comments
Behind Musk’s resignation, Tesla was not doing well. Last year, there were frequent negative news, sales plummeted, and the market value evaporated by 3 trillion.
However, it is not just Tesla that suffers the most. The three Japanese automobile giants, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, who were once the most popular, have also become brothers and sisters.
Just in the past year of 2022, the three Japanese automobile giants suffered a collective collapse!
Honda’s sales fell by 12% in the past year, falling for two consecutive years. Nissan’s sales fell the worst in November by as much as 52%. Toyota, the only one with a better performance among the three, failed to hold on. Dropped 18.
In November last year, the three giants together sold only 260,000 vehicles, barely exceeding BYD's 230,000 vehicles. Even Honda's luxury car brand Acura also withdrew from the Chinese market.
How powerful were Japanese cars in the past?
With its excellent engine and engine performance, it is difficult to buy it in China even if the price is increased. Many people born in the 70s and 80s do not want to buy Japanese cars because "one car is passed down to three generations, and people take the car." Still there”.
Camry, Corolla, Sylphy and other models were also fighting among gods at that time, taking turns to win the best sales.
It’s hard to believe that Japanese cars, which have always been strong in China, can no longer be sold.
The most "god-making" car:
Sell one hot and one hot, and add 50,000 to pick up the car
Ten years ago, the Chinese were very interested in Japan How crazy is the car's popularity?
If you want to buy a Honda Civic, you not only have to pay a price increase of 3,000 yuan, but also have to wait in line for 2 months. The dealer of the Accord even said that you need to pay an additional 50,000 yuan to take delivery of the car. Some people can't buy it even if they increase the price. arrive.
In 2007, Toyota's Highlander had just entered China, and it was hard to find one.
At its peak, Highlander single-handedly accounted for half of China's SUV market. Many people lamented, "Only Highlander can surpass Highlander!"
Others Japanese cars, such as Camry, Corolla, Sylphy, etc., are all models that are lined up to compete for. Each one is popular and the price increase is also taken away by people.
Not only do Japanese cars sell well, they also unexpectedly support many Chinese car companies.
Shuanghuan Motors copied the CR-V and created the S-RV, with only one letter missing from the name. At its peak, 12,000 units were sold in 2004.
Zotyy, the originator of the copycat industry, also imitated the Toyota Daihatsu Terua and had a good start with sales of 11,000 units. Zotye also tasted the sweetness and could not stop on the road of copycats.
Not only Zotye and Shuanghuan, but also most domestically produced cars at that time, all learned from Japanese cars as their idols.
Japanese cars launch a new model at the front, while domestic cars launch models with similar appearance, configuration, displacement, etc. at the back.
Even Geely founder Li Shufu once publicly admitted, "Auto companies around the world are learning from Toyota, and Geely is no exception."
It can convince Chinese apprentices to admit defeat. Orally, the answer is that Japanese cars are too easy to use.
Japanese cars can be seen everywhere in the streets and alleys of China. Compliments such as "Buy an engine and get a car for free" and "Japanese cars last ten years without breaking down" are not bragging.
The Japanese’s abnormal design of engines, gearboxes and chassis, as well as their constant emphasis on fuel consumption, have created three major characteristics of Japanese cars:
Low price and low fuel consumption. , low fault.
However, no matter how abnormal the development of a car, it is impossible to predict the situation 10 years later. At that time, Japanese car companies saw this and launched a considerate service: issuing IC cards to car owners.
With IC cards, old car owners could regularly feed back vehicle repair information outside the warranty period to the car manufacturer. This was unique in the world at the time.
Abnormal research and development and continuous improvement have created a good reputation for Japanese cars.
Compared with the sharpness of Japanese cars, the domestic cars at that time can be said to be as humble as dust.
In 2013, CCTV’s March 15 Gala criticized the JAC Tongyue sedan for being rusty, revealing that it used ordinary steel plates instead of galvanized steel plates. This also added to the Chinese people’s distrust of domestically produced cars. .
When a representative from Toyota visited the Shanghai Car Factory, he mercilessly sarcastically said in front of the reception staff:
“This is the production method of my grandfather’s generation. . ”
Japanese car collapse:
Being beaten by BYD, it can’t be sold as a tram
It’s such an arrogant Japanese car that no one can beat. I thought that after 10 years, I would fall off the altar!
The market share can’t stop falling, and the market share of the three Fengtian companies fell from 34 in the past to 15.9.
What is even more troublesome for Japanese car companies is that the models that were once popular can no longer be sold.
Toyota’s legendary Highlander fell below 4,700 units in a certain month last year. Sales have been sluggish for the past ten years, even worse than when it first entered China in 2009.
Corolla, known as the car that all ordinary people cannot avoid in their lifetime, can still sell more than 300,000 units in 2021, but it was directly reduced to just over 200,000 units last year.
Not to mention Mitsubishi, which has completely gone bankrupt in terms of reputation, and Subaru, which is still alive. It is a miracle that they are still alive.
Why can’t Japanese cars, which have always been praised by the Chinese people, not be sold?
1. Taking advantage of the "magic car" capital, but becoming useless
Japanese cars have always been proud of their economy and durability, but this advantage is becoming less and less obvious.
Domestic cars such as BYD and Geely, most of which are gasoline-powered cars, are in the price range of 100,000-200,000 yuan, directly piercing the price bottom line of Japanese cars. BYD is even known as the "King of Cost-Effectiveness."
In terms of quality performance, domestically produced cars have made rapid progress.
A report released by J.D. Power in 2019 shows that the average quality gap between domestic cars and foreign brands has narrowed to 9 PP100. To put it bluntly, it is almost the same.
After quality catches up, many domestically produced cars are also going crazy in terms of performance and configuration!
Geely's Xingyue L boldly adopts Bose audio, three Dalian screens, top-level gearbox, and engine. The car costs more than RMB 500,000 and has a sense of luxury of RMB 500,000.
While Chinese cars are constantly struggling, many Japanese cars are still immersed in the glory of the past. The years are quiet: a set of powertrains lasts for ten or eight years, and the interiors are as frigid as ever.
In order to save costs, some even reduce the number of plastic tailgates, chassis parts and even screws.
If you say it is good, it has no bright spots, if you say it is not good, it will not bring it down. Over time, Japanese cars have become useless to many car buyers, and their sense of existence is getting weaker and weaker.
2. Lowering prices to save the market, but losing face
Sales have declined, and Japanese car companies that do not care about face are not thinking about improving quality, but cutting prices for promotions.
Nowadays, Honda Civic can not only jump in line for free and sell it as soon as it comes, but the official also gives a cash discount of 10,000 yuan, and Ralink's discount is as high as more than 30,000 yuan.
Some car owners said that the price of the Ralink they bought last year dropped by RMB 10,000 in less than a year.
This price cut did not increase sales first, but it directly hurt the most proud advantage of Japanese cars: value retention.
According to the value preservation list released by the Chejia Research Institute, the value preservation rates of Toyota and Honda in 2022 are not as good as before. The once legendary Honda Fit has a value preservation rate plummeting to 4.54.
This also caused people’s belief in Japanese cars to gradually collapse.
3. Using electric cars to save themselves, but exposing their weaknesses
If Japanese cars can temporarily save their face in terms of cost performance, then the confidence built by Japanese cars in the era of gas cars will be even more important in the era of electric cars. It was a complete collapse.
Japan’s big brother was not optimistic about new energy, until BYD Tang, Ideal L8, Weilai ES7 and other younger brothers emerged in the new energy field.
In the face of more environmentally friendly electric trains, Japanese cars are gradually losing the important advantage of fuel efficiency.
Seeing that electric cars have become mainstream, Japanese car companies have belatedly begun the electric transformation. Toyota, Honda, Nissan, etc. have announced that they will spend hundreds of billions. Toyota even announced that it will sell electric cars in 2023. Cars priced at 75 are all new energy vehicles.
It would be okay not to change, but the transformation will make the failure of Japanese cars clear at a glance.
Several pure electric products tried by fellow sufferers, such as Toyota bZ4X, Honda e:N and Nissan Ariea, have not made a splash in the domestic market.
Compared with the high-profile publicity campaigns of new domestic forces, many people don’t even know that they have launched electric vehicles.
The three characteristics of Japanese cars that once attracted Chinese people are now:
They are not high-end, they do not save money, and they are not easy to sell.
Japanese cars abandoned by the times,
lost more than just face!
Domestic cars, which have been "oppressed" by Japan for 20 years, finally fought back!
Today's BYD not only beat its Japanese predecessors in sales, but also successfully sold its products to its opponents' main positions in July last year, grabbing the cake right under their noses.
Liu Xueliang, president of BYD Japan, even announced in a high-profile manner that 100 electric vehicle stores will be opened in Japan by 2025!
For the Japanese automobile giant, what is more terrible than losing face is losing face.
In 2018, Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn was arrested by the Japanese government for underreporting income and abusing company property.
Afterwards, Nissan was exposed to "emissions and fuel consumption fraud" scandals one after another, making the myth of automobile manufacturing claiming "craftsmanship" once again a laughing stock.
A series of quality fraud scandals exposed the chaotic management of the Japanese automobile industry and completely shook the foundation of trust in Japanese automobiles among car owners around the world.
In the past few decades, Japanese cars have built a seemingly unbreakable moat with their accumulated advantages in engine, gearbox and other technologies.
However, reality has proven to be very fragile.
People who bought Japanese cars in the past were just trying to save money, save fuel, and save face. Nowadays, domestically produced cars can do the same.
In order to regain their dignity, Japanese car companies are also trying to blame the epidemic, declining consumer demand and shortage of upstream parts supply.
However, the root cause of the collapse of Japanese cars is still arrogance.
Many people don’t know that Japan is actually the leader in the field of new energy.
As early as decades ago, Japanese car companies produced micro electric vehicles. The Leaf launched by Nissan in 2010 was also the best-selling electric vehicle at the time.
To this day, Toyota still owns the most electric vehicle patents in the world, more than Tesla.
However, contrary to technological leadership, Japanese car companies have a very arrogant attitude towards new energy. Toyota President Akio has even publicly criticized electric vehicles many times.
Another path favored by Japanese giants is to bet heavily on hydrogen energy.
However, reality proves that Japan is still overconfident. Japan is short of resources and hydrogen energy technology is still immature. It has been developed lonely for decades.
Seeing that many electric vehicles around the world are about to change, the giants have hurriedly transformed. However, in the past 10 years, the industry has undergone earth-shaking changes, which is no longer something that Japanese car companies can easily recover.
Toyota President Akio once said, "If it goes downhill for two consecutive years, it means failure. I hate being defeated."
I didn't expect that his words came true. Honda and Nissan can also fall from the altar overnight!
Conclusion:
BYD founder Wang Chuanfu once said at a forum:
“I think the old habit of Chinese people looking down on independent brands needs to be changed. "
When I said this, I was criticized by netizens, but now it has become "really delicious".
In fact, when Japanese cars started, they relied on copycats.
At the beginning of their birth, Chrysler and Volvo were imitators of Toyota and Honda.
But they did not limit themselves to imitation, but quickly established their own style and became the object of learning for the Chinese.
But what about now?
Japanese car companies have reversed course. Not only have they not innovated, but in order to pursue profits, they have spared no expense when they can, and even resorted to all kinds of fraud.
After Mitsubishi apologized, Nissan's car fraud started again. The quality myth of Japanese manufacturing collapsed, vicious fraud scandals occurred frequently, and craftsmen became "master craftsmen."
It has taken Japanese car companies nearly a hundred years to win the respect of the world, but if they don’t make progress, the goodwill will disappear one day.
There is no eternal myth of Made in Japan, nor is there any unchanging glory.
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The author of this article | Jiang Yuan