AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)05/10 Report--

On May 9th, Honda China announced terminal car sales in April. Data show that Honda's cumulative sales of terminal vehicles in China in April were 94879, down 0.4% from a year earlier, with Guangzhou Auto Honda down 40.9% to 60498 and Dongfeng Honda down 34.2% to 34381. In addition, Honda's cumulative sales of terminal vehicles in China from January to April were 315245, down 29.8% from a year earlier, with Guangzhou Auto Honda down 21.7% to 178424 and Dongfeng Honda down 38.2% to 136821.

Although the decline in Honda's terminal car sales in China has narrowed significantly, it is still far below expectations. After all, Honda's sales in China should have soared after a decline in production and sales caused by massive epidemic control measures across the country in the same period last year. Honda's sales in China should have soared. It is understood that this is the eighth consecutive month of decline in Honda's terminal sales in China compared with the same period last year.

In addition to Honda China, Nissan China has also declined. Nissan China reported sales of 61313 vehicles in April, down 1.5 per cent from a year earlier, with Dongfeng's daily sales falling 0.9 per cent to 57545 vehicles. In addition, Nissan sold 223274 vehicles in China from January to April, down 29.9% from a year earlier, with Dongfeng Nissan down 27.1% to 219506 vehicles.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Federation of passengers, has said that the decline in Japanese car sales is related to the development trend of the car market, the domestic fuel vehicle market share is facing a sharp decline, and independent brands rely on new energy vehicles to quickly seize market share.

At present, the market of Japanese brands still can only rely on traditional fuel vehicles, but fuel vehicles are becoming more and more difficult to sell. Take the Nissan brand as an example, the Xuan Yi is the best-selling model of the Nissan brand, but its cumulative sales in the first four months were only 95969, while the second place was Xiaoke, which sold only 30222. The same is true of the Honda brand, whose best-selling model in the first four months was the Accord, which sold 73560 new cars, while CR-V, Civic, Feido and Haoying all sold less than 50, 000.

At present, Toyota, Honda and Nissan have all announced to speed up the transformation of new energy vehicles. At the end of January this year, Honda announced the establishment of a new electric industry development headquarters and reorganized the organizational structure of the regional headquarters. At the 2023 Shanghai auto show, Honda China announced that it had fully entered the era of electrification: after 2027, all Honda models launched in China will be hybrid and pure electric vehicles, and will no longer launch new pure fuel models. By 2035, Honda China will account for 100% of pure electric vehicle sales. Earlier, after changing its president, Toyota announced on April 7 that it would set up a new department to focus on the development and production of pure electric vehicles, with a goal of producing 1.5 million electric vehicles a year by 2026.

Of course, such a radical move may still be less than satisfactory under the fierce offensive of independent brands. According to the data, the retail volume of the BYD brand in April was 183534, surpassing FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC-Volkswagen, which were 96203 and 78011 respectively.

In the era of fuel cars, the three heroes of the Japanese system are famous for their fuel saving and stable quality, and the magic weapon against independent brands is cheapness. Today, in the era of new energy vehicles, especially traditional joint venture manufacturers, are looking for room for survival in the gap between the giants of BYD and Tesla.

On April 26th, Seagull, a brand new pure electric small car from BYD Ocean net, went on sale with a price range of 7.38 yuan to 89800 yuan. It is understood that the car is based on BYD e platform 3.0, CLTC mileage for 305km and 405km, the main competitors for Honda Feido, Toyota Wechi, Volkswagen Polo and other traditional fuel vehicles.

According to the data, the number of BYD dolphins in the best-selling small car in April was 29961, followed by Wuling colorful fruit, which just went on sale, with 15001, followed by pure electric car, Ola good cat from Great Wall Motors. Honda Feido, once the king of small cars and known as the "civilian supercar", sold only 6453, while Toyota dazzled 6317.

The cold wave is still clinging to the flavor of spring, and the new war is continuing. Tesla's low-cost model has been released, and the upcoming Xiaomi cars are likely to seize the position of traditional joint venture brands, but at least from the current perspective, independent brands are already some ahead.

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