Cao Yuan sent from Fujia Temple
Smart car reference | public account AI4Auto
Another joint venture brand withdraws from the Chinese market!
GAC Acura’s official website has displayed a 504 error and cannot be accessed.
At the same time, GAC Acura’s official WeChat public account was closed last year, and it no longer provides new car information viewing and purchase services.
Although after-sales can still go to the official 4S store, the customer service said that if the 4S store is not well managed, the after-sales service will be transferred to other authorized stores.
Before there was GAC Fick, now there is GAC Acura, and joint venture brands have exited in China one after another.
This did not come suddenly.
The official website cannot be accessed, production and sales are discontinued
The inaccessibility of GAC Acura’s official website is just the most direct manifestation of Acura’s withdrawal from the Chinese market.
As early as April last year, GAC Honda issued an announcement stating that GAC Honda would integrate resources to develop electrification, but mentioned GAC Acura in the announcement.
“GAC Honda will fully integrate GAC Acura brand resources and join the electrification business.”
It also states:
“From 2023, GAC Honda will no longer produce and sell existing products under the GAC Acura brand.”
In other words, in April 2022, GAC Honda has already announced that GAC Acura will stop production and sales this year.
At the same time, a series of price reduction measures launched by GAC Acura starting in 2020 also indicates that GAC Acura will soon be unable to survive in the Chinese market.
Why is this happening?
Acura and GAC Acura
First, briefly review the history of Acura.
In 1986, Honda established a luxury car company in the United States – Acura, Acura, which is also the first Japanese luxury brand.
At that time, it coincided with the Japan-US trade war, and Japan’s export of a large number of automobiles to the United States was the most intense in this trade war.
Japan exported a large number of cars to the United States, which seriously affected the employment situation in the United States at that time, and even triggered a wave of protests across the United States.
In the end, the auto trade war ended with compromise measures such as Japanese auto companies investing in the United States and voluntarily restricting exports.
While exports are voluntarily restricted, more expensive cars have to be exported in order to earn more.
This is how Honda Acura was born.
In the beginning, Acura was just an “OEM Honda”. The Legend, NXS, and Integra that were initially launched were all Honda models, and they were sold in the United States under the name of Acura.
Acura is very popular in the United States, and its sales once surpassed that of BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
For example, in 1990, the annual sales volume of Acura was 138,000, while the sales volume of BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the same year were 64,000 and 78,000 respectively.
At the same time, Acura’s success has also stimulated other Japanese auto companies. There is a saying that Toyota and Nissan established Lexus and Infiniti after seeing Acura’s popularity.
After 2000, Acura launched its first self-designed model in the United States: MDX; there are also RSX and TSX that replaced Integra.
Although Acura’s sales in the middle were affected by the recession in Japan, Acura’s annual sales in the United States have remained above 100,000 vehicles. In 2021, Acura’s annual sales in the United States will exceed 157,000.
In 2006, Acura officially entered the Chinese market and launched two sedans, TL and RL, but the market response was mediocre.
Subsequently, Acura launched MDX, RDX, ZDX and other models in China, but failed to save sales in China.
In 2016, Guangqi Honda established a wholly-owned subsidiary and established the Acura brand business department, which is responsible for the “localization” of Acura.
GAC Acura launched three domestically produced models, CDX, RDX, and TLX-L, for the Chinese market, which improved Acura’s sales in a short period of time. In 2017, Acura’s sales reached 16,300 units, setting a record.
But since then, GAC Acura’s sales have begun to decline. In 2021, GAC Acura’s annual sales will be only 6,554 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 54%.
Everyone knows what happened afterwards.
So why can Acura sell well in the United States, but no one cares about it in China?
High price but low popularity
Since its establishment in the United States, Acura has been participating in American motorsports, such as the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), the American Le Mans Series, and the IMSA GT Championship Series.
And Acura has also won many championships. Among them, in the 2007 Sebring 12 Hours Endurance Race, a group of Acura teams even defeated the same group of Porsche teams.
The V6 engines and V8 engines that participated in racing competitions are used in Acura’s passenger cars.
This is a bit like Porsche: Accumulate technology and reputation through motorsports, and then feed back passenger cars to promote sales.
But it doesn’t work in China.
First of all, the price of Acura does not have an advantage among the fuel vehicles in China.
For example, when Acura entered the Chinese market in 2006, it launched two cars, TL and RL, one for 430,000 and the other for 680,000.
The popularity has not yet accumulated, but the price is not cheap, resulting in fewer people buying and falling into an endless loop.
The following three domestically produced Acuras launched by GAC Acura also have a price range of 200,000 to 500,000.
As for other models launched by Acura, they are mainly imported, and the prices are not low.
Second, there are problems with Acura’s branding.
Acura has entered the Chinese market for 16 years, but some car owners said that the first thing that comes to mind when mentioning Acura is the logo of Changan Automobile.
△Left: Acura; Right: Changan Automobile
On major car websites, car owners gave good reviews of Acura’s performance, driving pleasure, and comfort, but some car owners said, “It’s embarrassing to drive a car that others think is a Changan car.”
The “collision” of the trademark is even more unfavorable for consumers to remember the Acura brand.
And most importantly, new energy is the general trend in the domestic auto market, and Acura has never launched a new energy model.
Before the end of sales, Acura’s three models were still fuel vehicles.
It failed to catch up with the trend of the new energy market, and GAC Fick also suffered from this loss.
Brands that used to dominate the fuel vehicle market can only stop production in the Chinese auto market in the era of electrification.
This reflects from the side that the domestic auto market is highly competitive. Only when major car companies come up with decent products and technologies, and use appropriate publicity methods, can they retain a place.
My lord, times have changed.
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