This summer, when the Olympic gold medal competition is in full swing, the ranking of the automobile market is also quietly changing.
On August 2nd, Fortune magazine published the list of global top 500 enterprises in 20021year. In this list, Toyota finally surpassed Volkswagen again after two years and boarded the throne of "the world's largest car company".
Just over a month ago, in the China market, Toyota, which has been suppressed by popular brands for a long time, rarely surpassed the former in monthly sales and became the highest-selling brand.
Although the direct impact of chip shortage can not be ignored behind this transcendence, the rare transcendence is also like a signal.
On the one hand, Toyota, which is striving for steady progress in recent years, and on the other hand, Volkswagen, which is seeking a breakthrough in transformation, seems to be entering a new stage. From the international market to the China market, Volkswagen VS Toyota.
1, China market is the key.
In fact, the tug-of-war between the two sides had been going on for many years before Toyota surpassed Volkswagen to become the number one automobile group.
Fortune magazine's ranking of the world's top 500 companies is based on operating income. Since the launch of 1995, it has been uninterrupted for 27 years.
Before 20 14, Toyota not only ranked ahead of Volkswagen in this list, but also the revenue scale gap between the two parties was obvious.
Until 20 14, after catching up in previous years, Volkswagen surpassed Toyota for the first time in the top 500 list released in the middle of this year and became the number one automobile group.
At the end of 20 13, Volkswagen surpassed GM for the first time in China market and became the highest-selling car company in China. It can be said that Volkswagen was able to surpass Toyota at that time, which was inseparable from its good performance in the China market.
It was also from this time that Toyota and Volkswagen launched a tug-of-war of "the world's largest car company".
From 20 14 to 20 16, Volkswagen has been suppressing Toyota in the rankings; But in 20 17, Toyota surpassed Volkswagen again. Since then, the positions of the two sides seem to have started a two-year rotation. By this year, Volkswagen, who is obsessed with electrification transformation, has been pulled down by Toyota again.
If we say that both sides are good at winning in revenue rankings in recent years, then in terms of sales volume, from the perspective of 20 16, Volkswagen is the one that obviously has the upper hand.
During the four years from 20 16 to 20 19, Volkswagen's sales volume has been higher than that of Toyota. Until 2020, thanks to the contrarian growth of the China market, Toyota once again became the world's highest-selling car company with the advantage of 220,000 vehicles.
In the sales data released in the first half of this year, Toyota's advantage continues to expand.
The data shows that from June to June this year, Volkswagen delivered 4.978 million vehicles worldwide, up 27.9% year-on-year, but it has not yet recovered to the level of 20 19. Toyota delivered 5.467 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 365,438+0.3%, which also set a new high in the first half of the year.
It can be said that in this ranking tug-of-war that lasted for many years, Toyota began to gain the upper hand in terms of revenue, sales volume, profit and market value.
Looking back on the development of the two sides in the past two years, the performance in the China market is the key.
In 2020, Volkswagen's sales in China will be 3.85 million vehicles, down 9. 1% year-on-year. This year, Toyota's sales in China increased by 654.38+00.9% year-on-year, reaching 654.38+08 million vehicles.
The same is true in the first half of this year. From June to June, 65438, although the sales volume of Volkswagen in China increased by 16.2% year-on-year, reaching1850,000 vehicles, this growth rate was not only lower than the overall growth rate of Volkswagen Group in the world, but also lower than the growth rate of 28. 1% of the entire passenger car market in China.
On the other hand, Toyota sold 970,000 vehicles in China in the first half of this year, up 28.9% year-on-year, and the growth rate continued to far exceed that of Volkswagen.
2. Toyota's "multiple choice questions" and Volkswagen's "question and answer questions"
However, although Toyota's performance has been rising in recent years, there are still some concerns about its future development.
This concern mainly stems from its choice of future technical routes.
When electrification became popular in many countries and regions, Toyota, which began to bet on the hybrid+hydrogen fuel cell technology route many years ago, did not follow up as quickly as Volkswagen and GM.
Even in recent years, Toyota seems to be less "heroic" than Volkswagen in terms of R&D investment related to future development.
Previously, the report of Korea Association of Automobile Manufacturers "Trends and Enlightenment of R&D Investment of Major Global Automobile Groups in 2020" showed that among the top automobile companies in 2020, Toyota, Volkswagen, Daimler, Ford and Honda invested 8.62 billion euros, 65.438+03.885 billion euros, 8.60./KLOC-0.40 billion euros and 6.324 billion euros respectively. Judging from the proportion of R&D investment, Toyota is obviously lower.
As for the choice of technical route, the reason why Volkswagen and Toyota parted ways is not unrelated to the energy strategy of their countries and regions.
As we all know, Japan is an extremely energy-poor country, and almost all of its oil is imported. 20 1 1 years ago, the Fukushima nuclear power plant leaked, which disrupted Japan's plan to solve the energy shortage by nuclear power. So far, Japan has put forward a plan to import hydrogen produced in Australia on a large scale and reduce its dependence on Middle East oil.
At the same time, Japan holds 85% of the patents of hydrogen fuel technology in the world. Although the scale of domestic hydrogen energy is not the largest, its use efficiency is the highest.
Regarding why pure electric vehicles are not promoted, Akio Toyoda also bluntly said in public: "If all cars in Japan are driven by electricity, there will be a power shortage in Japan in summer."
In Europe, the situation is just the opposite. Although the European Union also hopes to completely overthrow the global economic structure of fossil energy laid in the past decades through carbon neutrality, and re-formulate the energy economic structure that is beneficial to the region, for European car companies with little technical reserves on hydrogen fuel cells, pure electric technology is obviously easier and shorter than the time-consuming and laborious research and development of hydrogen fuel vehicles.
However, although European car companies represented by Volkswagen are more active in the electrification transformation, it is worth noting that according to the analysis of 6,543,800+0,550 patents surveyed in 2020 by PatentSight in Germany, Japan's patent strength still ranks first in the three major fields of electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles and all-solid-state batteries.
Moreover, according to the development of technical route, it is not technically difficult for Toyota, which has mastered hybrid technology, to leap into pure electric power.
As some critics have said, Toyota's technical route selection in the future is like doing one.