Reporter丨Dong Tianyi
According to the “Wall Street Journal” report, Toyota Motor President Akio Toyoda said a few days ago that Toyota Motor is considering launching a general-purpose platform that can manufacture various electric vehicles, which is completely different from the current platform for electric vehicles.
“Electric cars need to be independent from existing models… The current trend is not to transform existing cars into electric cars, but to make electric cars with their own characteristics and make them really good cars.” Akira Toyoda To make the EV business profitable, “everyone is struggling” and that could continue to worsen due to factors such as rising resource prices, Nan said.
The report mentioned that the launch of a new dedicated platform for electric vehicles represents an important step for Toyota Motor in investing in electric vehicle architecture, and the optimization of the new platform based on standardized components for electric vehicles can not only increase production, but also save more in the long run. Much cost.
“The company has begun to prepare for the 2030 goal. Although it is very difficult to make electric vehicles profitable, it is something we must do.” Akio Toyoda said.
As the manufacturing core of Toyota’s pure electric models, all of Toyota’s pure electric models are based on the e-TNGA architecture, including the mass-produced bZ4X, and the bZ3 and Lexus RZ models that are scheduled to be officially launched this year. According to the plan, by 2025, the two major brands of Toyota and Lexus will introduce 35 new electrified models to the Chinese market, including 10 pure electric models. Akio Toyoda also brought more than ten pure electric products together in a press conference.
Image source: Visual China
In fact, Toyota’s “abandonment” of the e-TNGA architecture may have already begun. At the end of 2022, Reuters quoted people familiar with the matter as reporting that Toyota had been studying how to enhance the competitiveness of its electric models. One of the people familiar with the matter said that Toyota may postpone some electric vehicle development projects originally planned to be carried out within three years, including abandoning the e-TNGA architecture that has been in use for three years.
According to the above report, some Toyota engineers believe that the e-TNGA architecture can enable Toyota to produce traditional fuel and hybrid vehicles on the assembly line at the same time, but this also limits the innovation capacity of the factory. Another point of view is that since Toyota’s e-TNGA architecture is based on the TNGA system as a whole, and “TNGA” is planned around fuel vehicles, the e-TNGA architecture is neither exclusive to pure electric vehicles, nor is it the lowest-cost way to build cars. Superimposed on Toyota’s sales in the pure electric vehicle market, if Toyota continues to use the e-TNGA architecture, it may gradually lose its market competitiveness.
As Toyoda said, under the influence of unfavorable factors such as rising raw material prices and chip shortages, “every company is struggling” in order to make the electric vehicle business profitable. This may mean that Toyota’s creation of a dedicated manufacturing platform for electric vehicles is an important consideration for it to reflect on how to expand its electric vehicle business, and the core improvement lies in “cost reduction and efficiency increase.”
Take the performance of some domestic new car manufacturers in the first half of 2022 as an example. For example, the current revenue of Weilai and Xiaopeng increased by 23% and 122% respectively, but their non-GAAP operating losses (excluding equity incentives) But they expanded to 2.4 billion yuan and 3.6 billion yuan respectively. In addition, GAC Aian, Geely Jikrypton, and Cyrus , which is backed by Huawei , and its operating loss also widened compared to the same period last year.
“The current sales ranking is the loss ranking, and the capital market does not recognize this style of play.” Weimar founder and CEO Shen Hui also said before. However, the new-energy automobile industry’s customary model of “reversing sales at a loss” is gradually failing, and there are many problems in maintaining business operations in the form of continuous burning of money, causing some companies to sell more and lose more.
“From the perspective of industry delivery, new energy auto companies must no longer rely on burning money to pursue sales. If things go on like this, it will be detrimental to the development of the industry.” Shen Hui said.
Image source: Visual China
On the other hand, China New Energy The vigorous development of the automobile market has also forced Toyota to accelerate and overweight its product performance and launch rhythm. According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in 2022, my country’s new energy vehicles will continue to grow explosively, with production and sales of 7.058 million and 6.887 million vehicles respectively, a year-on-year increase of 96.9% and 93.4% respectively, and a market share of 25.6%, higher than the previous year’s 12.1%. percent. In the past two years, my country’s new energy vehicles have developed rapidly, ranking first in the world for eight consecutive years.
In this context, official data show that Toyota Motor’s new car sales in the Chinese market in 2022 will be about 1.9406 million, a decrease of 0.2% from 2021. This is the first time Toyota Motor’s sales in the Chinese market have declined in 10 years.
“The decline in sales of Japanese cars is related to the overall trend of the auto industry. The market share of fuel vehicles is shrinking sharply, while the new energy vehicles of Japanese car companies are still at a disadvantage. Decline.” Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Association, said in an interview with the “Daily Economic News” reporter.
In terms of specific data, among Toyota Motor’s joint ventures in China, GAC Toyota has a more outstanding performance. In 2022, it will produce about 1.0093 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 22.6%, and sell about 1.005 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 21.4%. In 2022, a total of about 183,900 new cars will be sold in the Chinese market, a year-on-year decline of nearly 19%.
The difference in data is also a projection of the layout of the two parties on new energy vehicles. At present, GAC Toyota bZ4X has been officially launched, and the second phase of its new energy vehicle capacity expansion project (GAC Toyota’s fifth production line) will also be officially put into operation at the end of 2022. The total investment of the project is 6.342 billion yuan, and the annual production capacity will reach 200,000 vehicles. The pure electric product UX 300e previously launched by Lexus is still born out of the fuel version, and its new pure electric model RZ has not yet been launched.
Cui Dongshu believes that the response to the “core shortage” problem is not timely enough, coupled with the fact that new energy vehicles are not strong enough, and the development of electrification is relatively lagging behind, which is inconsistent with the Chinese market route. A series of comprehensive factors have caused Japanese car companies to encounter development bottlenecks in China, but they have Thanks to the good reputation of Japanese cars in the industry, there may be a rebound in sales and market share in the future.
Editor in charge: Wei Zirong
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Interface Sina Technology Phoenix Technology Interface IT House Pinwan
Event Tracking
- 2023-01-16Toyota plans to produce up to 10.6 million vehicles in 2023
- 2023-01-11Toyota ‘s sales in the Chinese market in 2022 will fall by 0.2% year-on-year, the first decline in 10 years
- 2022-12-19Toyota will mass-produce pure electric pickup trucks next year, discussing production in Thailand
- 2022-12-19Toyota president once again questioned the full electrification of cars
- 2022-12-18Toyota launches its first pure electric pickup prototype in Thailand
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