AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)04/07 Report--

On April 6, Honda China announced its terminal market sales in China in March. According to the data, Honda sold 101,061 terminal vehicles in China in March 2022, down 33.2% year-on-year. Among them, the sales volume of GAC Honda terminal vehicles was 53,700 units, down 29.5% year-on-year; the sales volume of Dongfeng Honda terminal vehicles was 47,361 units, down 36.9% year-on-year; Honda China said that it was "affected by the Xinguan epidemic and the tight supply of parts" for the reason of the sharp drop in sales volume.

Honda's sales in China were overtaken by BYD due to the impact of Xinguan epidemic and parts supply. According to the data, BYD's sales volume in March 2022 was 104,878 vehicles, up 156.9% year-on-year, all from new energy vehicles, including 104,338 new energy passenger vehicles, up 346.2% year-on-year, including 53,664 pure electric vehicles and 50,674 plug-in hybrids. It is not difficult to see from the data that BYD has surpassed Honda's two joint ventures in sales by relying solely on new energy vehicles. Of course, what is more worth looking forward to is whether BYD can become the sales champion of passenger car market in March 2022 by relying on new energy vehicles. Before that, BYD led SAIC Volkswagen's 80158 vehicles in retail sales volume of 89102 vehicles in February, becoming the second-place in passenger car market sales volume. In the past month, FAW-Volkswagen was hindered in production and operation due to the impact of epidemic situation. Will this impact lead to FAW-Volkswagen losing the title? And will BYD become the number one passenger car market again?

On the same day as the sales flash, BYD directly announced that it would stop the production of fuel vehicles and focus on EV pure electric and DM plug-in hybrid vehicles. Perhaps many people will ask questions, BYD fuel car has no sense of existence, stop fuel car production means natural things? Perhaps BYD, whose new energy vehicles are hot and whose core technology has been recognized by the market, is expected to stop production of fuel vehicles, but for other automobile enterprises, it is something that dare to say but dare not do temporarily.

At Honda China's electric strategy conference in October 2021, Honda China launched a brand-new pure electric brand "e:N", bringing five new cars, including e:NS1 and e:NP1 based on e:N Architecture F precursor architecture. Honda China announced at the launch conference that it will launch 10 pure electric vehicles in the Chinese market in the next five years, and will sell only pure electric and hybrid models in China from 2030, and will no longer launch new fuel vehicles.

On March 18, Dongfeng Honda's first pure electric vehicle e: NS1 officially opened pre-sale, among which the price of e-type version (CLTC battery life 420km) is 180,000 - 190,000 yuan, and the price of e-mobile version (CLTC battery life 510km) is 200,000 - 210,000 yuan. The new car will be officially launched on April 26. On March 28, GAC Honda officially released a brand-new electric brand e:NP, and announced its Chinese name as "Ji Pai." At the same time, the first model e: NP1 of the brand was unveiled simultaneously. The new car is positioned as a compact pure electric SUV, which is sister to Dongfeng Honda e: NS1. The new car will be launched in the first half of this year. Honda will hold an electrification launch event on April 12, where new details on the latest developments and expected challenges ahead will be shared.

According to incomplete statistics, in addition to BYD, a number of automobile enterprises have announced plans to stop selling fuel vehicles. As early as October 2017, Chang 'an Automobile released the Shangri-La Plan. According to the plan, Chang 'an Automobile will invest more than 100 billion yuan in new energy field in the next 8 years, and will completely stop selling traditional fuel vehicles by 2025; in addition, as early as 2018, BAIC Group announced that it expects to stop selling fuel vehicles completely by 2025, and plans to take the lead in stopping the sales of self-owned brand traditional fuel passenger vehicles in Beijing City by 2020.

In terms of multinational car companies, Volkswagen and Audi announced that they would stop internal combustion engine development in 2021, Audi would stop selling fuel cars by 2030, and Volkswagen would stop selling fuel cars in Europe by 2035. Toyota, too, plans to stop selling fuel-powered vehicles in China, North America and Europe by 2030, while its luxury Lexus brand will transform into an all-electric brand by 2035. In addition to the above car companies, including Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Honda, General Motors, Ford, Jaguar brands and Volvo have announced that they will stop selling fuel vehicles in the future. Porsche, Bentley, Maserati, Aston Martin and other ultra-luxury brands have also changed their layout in recent years.

Many countries have also issued timetables for banning the sale of fuel vehicles, including Norway, which announced a ban on the sale of traditional fuel vehicles in 2025, California, Germany, the Netherlands and India in the United States, which announced a ban on the sale of traditional fuel vehicles in 2030, while Britain and France postponed the ban for ten years and planned to ban the sale of traditional fuel vehicles in 2040.

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