AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)11/06 Report--

Honda China unveiled e:N2 Concept, the second mass-production concept car of the eRover N brand, at the 5th China International Import Expo, and announced that it would launch 10 pure batteries within five years. At the press conference, Honda CEO Minhong stressed that Honda will "further expand the EVV N product matrix and launch 10 pure electric vehicles one after another by 2027", when it will "upgrade a new transformation to a pure electric brand."

As the second mass-produced model of the EVOR N brand, the new car is based on the intelligent and efficient pure electric architecture "ERV N Architecture F" dedicated to pure electric vehicles. According to the plan, the new car will be on the market between April 2023 and March 2024. From the published pictures of the model, the overall design style of e:N2 Conceptc is relatively simple, with a closed design style on the front face, a narrow V-shaped headlamp group on both sides, a glowing car logo in the middle and a front shovel decorated with horizontal lines below, which enhances the hierarchical sense of the front face in visual effects. The new car has sharp lines on the side of the body, using the popular hidden door handle and five-spoke wheels. In the rear part, the new car taillight group uses a through taillight, which echoes with the front face.

In the interior part, the new car is designed with a digital cockpit designed by EVR N OS, which is equipped with a hidden central control screen, a hidden central control screen and a rectangular steering wheel. No relevant information has been disclosed about the power.

The Chinese market is the most important market for Honda's electrified transformation. Honda currently has two joint ventures, Dongfeng Honda and Guangzhou Auto Honda. On October 13, 2021, Honda unveiled its electrification strategy in the Chinese market and unveiled two major brands: the new pure electric vehicle brand "EVV N" and the new intelligent and efficient pure electric architecture "EVV N Architecture". At that time, Honda China also brought two new pure electric vehicles, one from Dongfeng Honda e:NS1, the other from Guangzhou Automobile Honda e:NP1, the two models are sister models each other. Positioning of small pure electric vehicles, are based on Honda EVL N Architecture F platform, using the front motor layout, the two models in the appearance and interior decoration and other aspects are basically the same.

Among them, Dongfeng Honda e:NS1 officially launched on April 26th, 2022, the new car positioning small pure electric SUV, launched a total of four models, the price range is 175000-218000 yuan; Guangzhou Auto Honda e:NP1 Jinpai 1 officially launched on June 20, 2022, the new car launched a total of four models, the subsidized price range is 17.5-218000 yuan.

In addition to the layout of blockbuster models, in order to accelerate the electrification transformation, Honda China also announced in September 2022 that Honda China, Dongfeng Automobile Group and GAC GROUP jointly established a power battery purchasing company, Zhongrui (Beijing) Trading Services Co., Ltd., with a contribution ratio of 50%, 25% and 25% respectively. The legal person and chairman of the company are executive director and minister of China of Honda Technology Research Industry Co., Ltd., general manager of Honda Technology Research Industry (China) Investment Co., Ltd., and general manager of Honda Technology (China) Co., Ltd. After the establishment of the company, Honda's two joint ventures in China will focus on purchasing power batteries from Ningde Times. Meanwhile, GAC Honda and Dongfeng Honda will respectively build new factories for pure electric vehicles in order to facilitate the introduction of eRV N series products. Their respective new factories for pure electric vehicles will be put into production one after another from 2024, and the pure electric vehicles produced will not only supply the domestic market in China, but also be exported to overseas markets. According to Honda's previous disclosure, Honda plans to build a dedicated electric vehicle production plant in Guangzhou and Wuhan, China. It is reported that Guangzhou Auto Honda may take over Guangzhou's Guangzhou plant, while Dongfeng Honda will take over the Shenlong II plant.

In terms of cooperation between car companies, on March 4, 2022, Sony Group and Honda announced that they would jointly develop and sell electric vehicle products with high added value, with the goal of launching the first car in 2025. Honda and General Motors announced on April 5, 2022 that they will work together to build a new platform to build low-cost people-friendly electric vehicles, which are expected to go on sale in 2027 at a lower price than the Chevrolet Equinox (priced at $30, 000).

Judging from Honda's layout of the Chinese market in the past two years, the Chinese market is undoubtedly an important battleground for Honda's electric transformation strategy. As for the expectations for the Chinese market, Honda Minister Inoue revealed in an interview: "strive to sell 800000 pure electric vehicles by 2030."

However, from the current sales analysis, Honda e:NS1 and e:NP1 two major brands in the Chinese market performance is very mediocre. The data show that from May to September 2022, Dongfeng Honda e:NS1 sales were 147,537,349,878,200 respectively, with a cumulative sales volume of 2111 vehicles; from June to September 2022, GAC Honda e:NP1 sales were 110,269,273,400 vehicles respectively, with a cumulative sales of 1052 vehicles. Compared with the current mainstream electric vehicles, the performance of the two new brands, e:NS1 and e:NP1, do not have many bright spots.

According to the latest data, Honda's China terminal car sales fell 28.5% year-on-year to 106101 units in October 2022, with Guangzhou Auto Honda falling 28.2% to 55804 and Dongfeng Honda down 28.8% to 50297. According to the plan, all the new models Honda China plans to launch in the Chinese market after 2030 will be electric vehicles such as pure electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles, and no new fuel vehicles will be put into use. As for whether the expansion of the eDreN brand product matrix will drive the sales of Honda's electric products in China, it remains to be seen in the follow-up market.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat