Nissan Honda steals electric cars in China

At the end of July, Dongfeng Nissan and Guangzhou Automobile Honda Motor Co., Ltd. disclosed their domestic electric vehicle strategies. After the two Japanese-style joint ventures with different styles competed in the self-owned brand field, they quickly extended the battlefield to a new energy market that appeared to be hot.

In the field of pure electric vehicles, Nissan currently only has Nissan's commercial electric vehicle Leaf. After listing in December last year, it has already achieved sales of more than 10,000 vehicles in the United States and other markets.

Honda also accelerated the speed of new products in this market. During the Shanghai Auto Show in April, the Nikkei News disclosed for the first time that Honda expects to reduce the production cost through the production of assembled parts and batteries for electric vehicles in China and become the first Japanese car maker to start production of electric vehicles in the Chinese market.

The plan for Nissan's electric vehicle China that was planned for more than two years has changed significantly in the past week. Nissan President Carlos Ghosn stated that Dongfeng Nissan’s own brand Kai Chen will produce electric vehicles. This means that the previously planned import and eventually domestic Nissan "Leaf" plan was halted. “In China, independent brands are more likely to be encouraged by policies,” said Ghosn. At present, the state's preferential condition for the purchase of private electric vehicles is a subsidy of 60,000 yuan per vehicle, plus the local government's additional subsidies will be higher.

As early as more than two years ago, Nissan’s strategic blueprint for its promotion of electric vehicle planning in China is: 2010 is a preparatory stage; in 2011, it is an import and R&D stage; cities such as Wuhan are selected as pilots and will be sold in the form of imports in the future; 2013 To achieve domestic production, mainly CKD assembly; in 2015 for the depth of domestic production and sales at the same time achieve the goal of 50,000 vehicles.

Ghosn has fully staked its electric vehicle strategy in China on an emerging brand that has not yet been put on the market, indicating that Kai Chen has achieved a more important strategic position in the company. Last week, at the Dongfeng Nissan engine production capacity expansion ceremony, the company’s general manager Song Yuan Shi Ming revealed that he and the company’s deputy general manager Ren Yong had just traveled to Japan’s headquarters and confirmed the domestic technology of pure electric vehicles. “There is no technical problem at all. The key is how to develop electric cars suitable for the Chinese people with Kai Chen's brand."

In contrast, Guangzhou Automobile's joint venture own brand will still be positioned in the traditional car. "We have not yet planned to produce electric cars," "We have no intention of following other people's orders," Yao Yiming, the company's executive deputy general manager, revealed for the first time last week that Guangben has already determined that the electric vehicle Honda Fit, which was put into operation in China at the end of 2012, will purchase batteries. Whether simultaneous localization is still under discussion. Previously, Honda did not disclose the specific time that electric vehicles landed in the Chinese market.

The idea and Qichen belonged to the joint venture's own brand. The first concept S1 was listed in April this year. Prior to Qichen, Kai Chen planned to invest in the Chinese market in the first half of 2012; and the second concept is planned to be officially launched in 2015. The launch rate of this new product is much lower than that of Kai Chen. Kai Chen will launch five models in the next five years. By 2015, it plans to sell 300,000 vehicles, of which electric vehicles are expected to be 50,000.

However, due to the fact that the Guangben Fit Electric Vehicle has a clear production base and timetable for listing, the Qichen Electric Vehicle that has not yet announced its schedule and production base may be domestically produced later than the former.

At present, Qi Chen has officially confirmed to settle in Dongfeng Nissan's Zhengzhou factory. Both Guangzhou and Zhengzhou are very hopeful that the Qi Chen electric vehicle project will be able to settle in the local area.

"We have no political tendency," Ren Yong said. Enterprises must arrange their layout from an economic perspective. In the face of the industry's doubts about the Qichen electric vehicle being assembled in the form of CKD, Ren Yong responded to the company's registration and establishment of a battery production plant in Guangzhou. “The domestic battery manufacturers are mostly like the production conditions. Handwork workshops, and we started with the scale of industrialization.” Ren further emphasized that “Kaichen Pure Electric Project is a Dongfeng Nissan project.” “At the end of 2011, we will release the 2015 Green Plan including the Qichen Electric Vehicle Project.”

The Honda Small Electric Vehicle Strategy and Nissan’s joint-venture autonomous electric vehicle strategy show that the Japanese new energy routes in China are quietly divided, but in the face of the immaturity of the Chinese market and the uncertainty of the policies, the impact of their choices will be unpredictable. It is rather remarkable that the largest Japanese car company, Toyota Motor, has never said that it wants to follow other car companies and launch active offensives on electric cars.

The country’s average fuel consumption system for automotive companies during 2015-2020 is being worked out, including the issue of China V. Yao Yiming said, “This will affect our plans for the launch of electric vehicles.”