Some time ago, Japan forcibly started discharging contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea, which aroused public resentment around the world. Japanese high-level officials even took despicable actions to attack China, which was highly opposed to it. National resentment reached its peak. Let’s leave aside the impact that the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water will have on the global marine ecology and the living environment of people in coastal areas. Let’s just say that the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water in Japan is really not a talisman for Japanese car companies? The decline of Japanese car companies may be "accelerating across the board." Long before the discharge of nuclear sewage, Japanese cars had already begun to decline frequently in China. First, the economic and fuel-saving advantage of Japanese cars has been lost due to the development of domestic brand engine thermal efficiency technology. And with the rise of domestic hybrid and pure electric technologies, the "fuel-saving" advantage of Japanese cars has become even more obvious. It is gone. In addition, Japanese car companies have always had a lazy attitude towards electrification transformation, and are far behind China's independent brands in the pace of electrification and intelligence. Furthermore, Japanese car companies are not sincere enough, even in markets where they do not have advantages. In the era of new energy vehicles, we still hope to achieve brand premiums. This results in a situation where the vehicle price is higher than that of independent brands, but the configuration performance is far inferior to that of independent brands, seriously underestimating the Chinese market and Chinese consumers. Not only that, as the prices of new cars in the Chinese market continue to drop, Japanese cars’ strong point of having a “high” value retention rate has also been severely impacted. At the same time, Japanese cars have become a "consensus" among c
Some time ago, Japan forcibly started discharging contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea, which aroused public resentment around the world. Japanese high-level officials even took despicable actions to attack China, which was highly opposed to it. National resentment reached its peak. Let’s leave aside the impact that the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water will have on the global marine ecology and the living environment of people in coastal areas. Let’s just say that the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water in Japan is really not a talisman for Japanese car companies? The decline of Japanese car companies may be "accelerating across the board." Long before the discharge of nuclear sewage, Japanese cars had already begun to decline frequently in China. First, the economic and fuel-saving advantage of Japanese cars has been lost due to the development of domestic brand engine thermal efficiency technology. And with the rise of domestic hybrid and pure electric technologies, the "fuel-saving" advantage of Japanese cars has become even more obvious. It is gone. In addition, Japanese car companies have always had a lazy attitude towards electrification transformation, and are far behind China's independent brands in the pace of electrification and intelligence. Furthermore, Japanese car companies are not sincere enough, even in markets where they do not have advantages. In the era of new energy vehicles, we still hope to achieve brand premiums. This results in a situation where the vehicle price is higher than that of independent brands, but the configuration performance is far inferior to that of independent brands, seriously underestimating the Chinese market and Chinese consumers. Not only that, as the prices of new cars in the Chinese market continue to drop, Japanese cars’ strong point of having a “high” value retention rate has also been severely impacted. At the same time, Japanese cars have become a "consensus" among consumers that they have thin paint, poor sheet metal, weak power, and poor safety. It can be said that long before Japan's nuclear wastewater was discharged, the situation of Japanese car companies in the Chinese market was "nothing they want". In the first half of this year, the sales of the three major Japanese car companies in China all experienced varying degrees of decline. Toyota China sold 879,400 vehicles in the first half of the year, a year-on-year decrease of 2.8%; Honda China sold 529,600 vehicles in the first half of the year, a year-on-year decrease of 22%; Nissan's situation is even less optimistic, with sales in the first half of the year being 358,500 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 24.4%. The top three Japanese brands are still having a hard time in China, not to mention marginalized brands such as Mitsubishi, Infiniti, and Mazda. But with the discharge of Japanese nuclear sewage, Japan's road to China will only become more difficult. Although it is said that the discharge of nuclear sewage will have a greater impact on seafood, skin care products, beverages and other types of products, it is still unknown whether the imported original parts of Japanese cars are contaminated by nuclear sewage. Even if only a very small part of the raw materials for the models they sell in China are imported from Japan, why should Chinese users choose Japanese brands over the near future when faced with independent brands that have stronger product capabilities and lower prices than Japanese brands? Contamination of imported raw materials is not a key factor. Based on Japan’s irresponsible discharge of nuclear sewage, most Chinese people have an unprecedented high level of resistance to Japan. They “support domestic products” and “Japanese car companies should improve their technology and product quality” etc. The remarks were widely circulated on social media, and someone even wrote a poem among BYD Song Pro DM-i car enthusiasts, insinuating Japan's wolfish ambitions that have harmed China since ancient times. Originally, Japanese car companies were unable to do anything, but with so many years of car-making history, they might be able to save something. The discharge of this nuclear sewage has accelerated the loss of Japanese people's support in China, and I am afraid that the downward trend will accelerate again. If you want to save yourself, why not learn ethics? But Japanese car companies do not have room for change. For example, BMW set a good example for Japanese car companies at the Chengdu Auto Show. At this year's Shanghai Auto Show, BMW MINI China was accused of being treated differently at the auto show because the ice cream at the booth was only given to foreigners and refused to be distributed to Chinese people. Then BMW responded with a rhetorical tone, which once again aroused public dissatisfaction and the brand image in China suffered a heavy blow. But at the Chengdu Auto Show, BMW came up with a new strategy. BMW's foreign executive Gao Xiang communicated in Chinese throughout the Chengdu Auto Show and sang a Chinese song "Chengdu". All these actions were called BMW's "concern for the Chinese market". Confession". Of course, there are some notable players in the performance of German car companies in China. For example, Volkswagen, which directly announced that it will cooperate with Chinese car companies to develop models, announced a technical framework agreement with Xpeng Motors one month before the Chengdu Auto Show. Sub-brand Audi has also begun signing a strategic memorandum with SAIC Motor. From the Japanese car companies that are still under the influence of Japan's nuclear wastewater discharge incident and the German car companies that have frequently "showed their goodwill" to the Chinese market, we can clearly see the current two differentiated paths of joint venture car companies in China. One side is The "antique faction" whose ideology is still stuck in the era of fuel vehicles; on the other side are the "awakening faction" who realize that they can no longer just sit back and make money and start to adopt strategies. Nowadays, the development and differentiation path of joint venture car companies has begun to show. How will joint venture car companies differentiate in the future? Where should our development in China go? This is probably an issue that joint venture car companies that want to stabilize the Chinese market should carefully consider.
