How did the Japanese department of electric power become a backwardness?

The motorized road of Japanese cars has finally been speeded up.

The pre-sale information of its new electric model e:NS1 was officially announced at the launching ceremony of Dongfeng Honda's 7 million vehicles on March 18, giving Dongfeng Honda the hope of opening the "post-7 million era" of the new car. On March 29th, Guangzhou Auto Honda also officially announced its new electric brand, e:NP, and launched its first pure electric vehicle, e:NP1.

The successive arrival of e:NS1 and e:NP1 has not only opened a new chapter for Honda, but also a signal for the entire Japanese car to kick off a new round of electrification. It is clear that even Japanese carmakers, previously known as conservatives under the electric tide, have a clearer understanding of the consensus that electric represents the future.

Japanese cars are already in collective transformation.

In the field of electrification, Japanese automobile brand as a whole is a relatively special existence.

If you only look at recent years, the "electric shock" action of Japanese cars is undoubtedly lagging behind. At a time when a large number of car brands at home and abroad have fully embraced electrification, the transformation of Japanese car brands towards electrification has been criticized as too conservative.

But if we pull the timeline a little longer, we will find that the situation will be reversed directly, and Japanese brands are the early leaders in the global electric vehicle field. Honda launched its electric concept car EVX in the early 1990s and mass-produced its first electric car, the EV Plus, in 1997. A few years later, Nissan also brought an electric car, which opened the beginning of the commercialization of the global electric car market. The Nissan leaf, which was mass-produced in 2010, was once the top seller in the global electric car market for many years. By March 2021, the cumulative global sales of the leaf has exceeded 500000.

Therefore, it is obviously not appropriate to simply use the word "conservative" to describe the attitude of Japanese cars towards electrification, not to mention that in the past two years, Japanese cars have been actively embarking on a new motorized journey.

In 2021, the three mainstream Japanese car companies, Nissan, Toyota and Honda, have successively announced their future development plans in electrification. Nissan plans to electrify 100 per cent of new models in core markets (Japan, China, the US and Europe) by the early 2030s; Toyota has brought the electric car brand bZ and announced the global launch of 30 electric vehicles by 2030; Honda is also making big moves and has closer ties with the Chinese market. In October 2021, Honda China jointly held a conference on Honda's China electrification strategy with joint ventures Dongfeng Honda and Guangzhou Automobile Honda in China, which not only launched the new pure electric car brand, eRV N, but also brought five new electric models.

On March 18, the e:NS1, the first heavyweight model in the electrification tide of Japanese brands, officially opened for pre-sale. E:NS1 is a small electric SUV, a total of two versions, e-version (battery life 420km) and e-dynamic version (battery life 510km), the pre-price is 18-210000 yuan, is expected to go on sale in April. On the 29th, Honda's consistent two-car strategy in China officially spread to the field of electric vehicles, and e:NS1 's "brother" model e:NP1 was also officially released in Guangzhou Auto Honda.

In addition to the Chinese market, Honda's pace of electrification in the European market will also accelerate. According to overseas media, Honda will launch a small all-electric SUV, a hybrid compact SUV and a plug-in hybrid version of the CR-V on the European market in 2023. Currently, the Honda e is the only all-electric model Honda sells in Europe, but because of its high positioning (and high price), sales of the Honda e in Europe are relatively limited, with only 3436 vehicles sold in 2021.

Why is the transformation of the Japanese system more difficult?

According to sales data compiled by Galaxy, more than 6.495 million electric vehicles were sold worldwide in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 108 per cent and the highest annual growth rate since 2012. Of these, Tesla alone accounted for 14.4 per cent of the market, followed by two Chinese brands, BYD and Wuling, with 9.1 per cent and 7 per cent respectively.

In sharp contrast to these magnificent market achievements, Japanese brands have lagged behind in the field of electric cars. There is not a single Japanese car company among the top 10 best-selling electric car brands in 2021. Toyota, as the world leader in car sales, ranks 16th in the field of electric vehicles. In the 2021 list of the world's best-selling electric vehicles, the Top 20, only Nissan Leaf and Toyota RAV4 PHEV are on the list.

In the Chinese market, the performance of Japanese cars in the field of pure electricity is the existence of the last seat in the mainstream car brands. Previously, Japanese cars in the domestic focus on fuel vehicles and hybrid vehicles, the pure electric market models are relatively limited, and most of them are oil-to-electricity products. At present, there is only one pure electric model on sale at Dongfeng Nissan, Xuanyi's pure electric version; Toyota has relatively more pure electric models, the Carola Lailin "two brothers" have plug-in hybrid models, RAV4 and Weilanda also have plug-in hybrid models, Yize and C-HR have introduced pure electric version, but the market contribution of several models is relatively limited. Of all the electric models sold in Toyota in the first two months of this year, the only electric models sold in total were RAV4 and Velanda, of which 3667 and 1045 were sold in the first two months of this year.

Honda's situation is even more special. Officially, the newly released e:NS1\ e:NP1 is Honda's first all-electric model in China. But in fact, Honda did not have no electric cars in China a few years ago. Dongfeng Honda has launched the Siming brand electric SUV X-NV (which was launched in 2019 and has been discontinued) and the M-NV. GAC Honda also has an electric SUV VE-1 that is on sale. However, from the attitude of the official definition of the first electric car, we can see that the previous sales of several electric SUV are not satisfactory.

Japanese brands used to be the global leader in the field of electric vehicles, but why are they now "backward" elements?

I have to say, it is the past achievements that affect the judgment.

Take Honda as an example. Honda has a large and loyal following in the field of traditional power, and Honda's engine technology has been at the leading level in the industry, from VTEC to i-VTEC to Earth Dream. Especially in the Chinese market, Honda's engine is detached. Many people in China make fun of Honda as an engine company, and there has been a joke that "Honda buys an engine to send a car". Although there are many reasons to complain about Honda's interior and configuration, it also fully reflects users' recognition of Honda engines.

Obvious advantages have been established in the traditional power field, and there is no shortage of customers in the terminal market. simply from the perspective of supply and demand, the mainstream Japanese car companies do not have a particularly urgent demand for transformation. Even in the face of increasingly stringent environmental regulations, the enthusiasm of Japanese car companies to electrify was not fully mobilized at first, because they also had a trump card-hybrid technology.

Mixing is good, but electric power is a rigid demand.

With the continued hot sales of models such as the Prius in the hybrid field, Toyota has naturally become a business card in the global hybrid market, achieving the feat of selling more than 15 million hybrid vehicles as early as 2020. In order to promote hybrid technology, Toyota previously announced the free opening of hybrid patents. In 2021, Guangzhou Automobile, Toyota's domestic partner, has already received this dividend. The second generation Chuanqi GS8 is loaded with a giant wave hybrid system based on Toyota THS system.

In addition to Toyota, Honda has also made great achievements in the hybrid field. In the Chinese market in 2021, more than 200000 (233801) models equipped with the SPORT HYBRID hybrid system were sold, an increase of 16.0% over the same period last year, setting a record for domestic hybrid models. Nissan is also accelerating the layout of hybrid models. Xuanyi e-POWER was officially put on the market in 2021. According to related reports, the new Xiaoke and new Juke with e-Power hybrid system have been released, and the new Qijun with e-Power has been exposed overseas a few days ago.

In fact, it is not only Japanese brands, in the past two years, many independent car companies have also begun to strengthen their exploration in the field of hybrid, and have launched a number of hybrid products, all of which have gained quite good market attention. Gaishi Automotive Research Institute believes that in addition to the high fuel-saving efficiency, the wide applicability of hybrid technology also makes its future application prospect bright. Hybrid technology can not only be used in hybrid cars, but also can be extended to pure electricity, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell vehicles. Market and technical characteristics determine that the hybrid system will have great potential in the future. It is based on this that most of the initial electrification strategies of Japanese brands are not fully motivated.

In fact, a year ago, Toyota's head, Akio Toyoda, was "shelling" electric cars, believing that the concept of electric cars had been over-hyped and that the Japanese government's ban on the sale of gasoline models from 2035 would allow electric cars to kill the entire industry. In the face of the measures of all countries to impose a ban on the sale of fuel vehicles and the exaggerated market value of many new forces of electric vehicles, many traditional car giants may have their own different views, but such a clear-cut statement, Toyota can be called the only one.

But the problem is that the times have given the electric car the mission of leading the future, and since it is irreversible, it can only be obeyed.

In recent years, under the pressure of increasingly stringent emissions and environmental regulations, almost all mainstream car companies have announced their own electrification strategies, even in the market for supercars and hard-line SUVs, which previously seemed to have nothing to do with electricity. has put up the banner of electrification. From this point of view, the Japanese system began to embrace the electric era, just to comply with the trend.