AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/07 Report--

Gao Guolin, vice president of Dongfeng Automobile Co., Ltd. and deputy general manager of Dongfeng Nissan passenger car Company, recently told the online car market, "We are working on a new plan to replace Qijun with a four-cylinder engine, and the research and development cycle will take at least two years."

As a member of the Japanese compact SUV market, Qijun is being forgotten by consumers. According to the latest retail data of the Federation of passengers, Dongfeng's daily production and sales fell 21.9% to 444705 vehicles in the first half of 2022 compared with the same period last year, of which the seventh generation Teana increased 10.1% to 74171 vehicles, Xiaoke fell 6.3% to 74064 vehicles, and Xuanyi series fell 17.4% to 207222 vehicles.

The collapse in Dongfeng's daily production and sales is also to be expected. apart from the epidemic and the impact of spare parts supply, the most direct impact is probably the failure of Xinqi Jun's replacement. Xinqi Jun sold 11212 vehicles in the first half of 2022, compared with 81886 in the first half of 2021, a year-on-year drop of 86.3%. The collapse in Qijun sales has a direct impact on Dongfeng Nissan's market performance.

As Nissan's former "magic car", the previous generation of Qijun has won the joint venture SUV sales crown many times, but also won the global sales crown for two consecutive years in 2016 and 2017, but the new generation of Qijun has been reduced to this, what happened?

As one of Dongfeng Nissan's "troika", Qijun competes with Toyota RAV4 and Honda CRV. According to the data, Nissan sold 169582 vehicles in 2020, ranking ninth on the SUV list, while Honda CRV and Toyota RAV4 sold 243037 and 173833 vehicles respectively. Although Qijun's sales are less than the latter two, it can also be regarded as the existence of the king level of the compact SUV market.

In July 2021, Nissan Xinqi Jun officially went on sale, with a new car priced between 18.19 yuan and 262900 yuan. As a new generation of models, the new car is mainly aimed at the appearance, interior and configuration adjustments, and the biggest change of the new car lies in the power. The newly developed VC-Turbo super-variable engine 1.5T three-cylinder turbocharged engine, maximum power 150kW, maximum torque 300N ·m, and Xinqi Jun sales plummeting "hero" is this 1.5T engine which spent a lot of money on research and development.

In the end, Nissan proved with practical actions that the three-cylinder car really could not get through in China. Xinqijun sold a total of 1875 vehicles from August to December in 2021 and only 11211 in the first half of 2022, with monthly sales at the level of 2000. Qijun's market share was replaced by Honda CRV and Toyota RAV4, and as one of Dongfeng Nissan's four best-selling models, its declining sales have affected the market performance of Dongfeng Nissan and even Nissan in China.

Why does the novelty Jun carry a three-cylinder engine? In overseas markets, American, Japanese, legal and other car companies are trying to promote three-cylinder engines only because they are more in line with increasingly stringent fuel economy and emission regulations. Since 2016, car companies such as GM, Ford and Peugeot Citroen have launched three-cylinder models crazily, and the three-cylinder engine is regarded as the trend of automobile development in the future, as well as in China. At that time, SAIC GM, Changan Ford, Dongfeng Peugeot and other car companies also began to put three-cylinder models into the market, including Changan Ford's Fox and Fox. SAIC GM's Yinglong, Weilang, GL6, Malibu XL, Kruze and other models are equipped with three-cylinder engines, but without exception, these models were severely beaten by the market after being replaced with three-cylinder engines, and then switched back to four-cylinder engines in order to save the market in the next few years.

Nissan spent a lot of money on developing the VC-Turbo super-variable engine 1.5T three-cylinder turbocharged engine, which is actually based on the changes in the global automobile market environment, but it is only half a beat slower than its competitors. Changan Ford and SAIC GM were beaten by the market a few years ago, and Nissan paid too much energy and money for this brand-new engine, even though it knew the attitude of the Chinese market towards the three-cylinder engine. But we still have to make a final attempt. Of course, Nissan has also proved with practical actions that the three-cylinder engine is indeed unable to get through in China, and the novel Jun finally failed in the three-cylinder engine, which could still compete with Honda CRV and Toyota RAV4 before, but now it can't even match the odds of the old opponent, and this disadvantage will continue.

From the perspective of the current market, if Qijun still wants to stay in the market, there are only two ways out, and the most direct way is to change back to the fourth cylinder. Take Buick Yinglang as an example, the early Yinglong was on a par with Japanese miracles such as Lang Yi, Xuanyi and Carola, but sales have plummeted since the replacement of three-cylinder engines in 2017, resulting in a continuous decline in SAIC GM sales. Since then, in order to recover market sales, Buick Yinglang in the end market price plunged sharply, but even so did not obtain market recognition. After learning from the bitter experience, SAIC GM launched the Yinglong model with four-cylinder engines in April 2020, and sales have soared since then, with a cumulative total of 305000 vehicles in 2020 and 279000 in 2021.

Another export is to sell at a reduced price, but with little success. Take Guangzhou Automobile Honda Ling Pai as an example, when the 1.0T three-cylinder was launched, the price was reduced by 25000 yuan compared with the 1.8L version, but even so, the Ling Pai sales of the three-cylinder engine did not make a breakthrough, with retail sales of 15255 vehicles in the first half of the year. In other words, as long as the price is right, there are still users willing to pay, but not too much.

Another export is to sell at a reduced price, but with little success. Take Guangzhou Automobile Honda Ling Pai as an example, when the 1.0T three-cylinder was launched, the price was reduced by 25000 yuan compared with the 1.8L version, but even so, the Ling Pai sales of the three-cylinder engine did not make a breakthrough, with retail sales of 15255 vehicles in the first half of the year. In other words, as long as the price is right, there are still users willing to pay, but not too much.

Of course, the BMW X1 is a prominent model in the three-cylinder market, with retail sales of 37004 vehicles in the first half, second only to the BMW 3-Series, BMW 5-Series and BMW X3. However, this does not mean that the BMW three-cylinder can completely conquer consumers. In fact, most of the sales of the BMW X1 are still dominated by the 2.0T four-cylinder version. What's more, unlike the mainstream joint venture brands, the purchase of the BMW X1 pays more attention to the "BMW logo" and actually pays less attention to the quality of the power system.

Today, the market pattern has changed greatly, consumers have become more picky about car purchases, and product choices have become more and more abundant. Perhaps, in the past, only Honda CRV, Toyota RAV4, Qijun and other model options, but continue to impact the joint venture market and high-end market of independent brands, but also began to make the traditional joint venture SUV market more and more pressure, and if Nissan plans to launch four-cylinder new Qijun two years later, the market may have been segmented, there is hope to return to the four-cylinder Qijun?

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