[Aika car shopping guide original]
In the more than 20 years since entering the Chinese market, Honda has accumulated countless fans, and the "Honda Dafa" has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Compared with Honda's high-light performance, its high-end brand Acura has been tepid in China, and even in the eyes of many people, it has "disappeared". The recent move to bring Acura back to people's vision is to expose a news that the brand will withdraw from the Chinese market on the Internet.
In fact, since entering the Chinese market in 2006, Acura has never sold more than 17,000 units in China, and last year's sales were only 6,500 units, and the sense of existence was not as good as Infiniti. From a product point of view, Acura models have fewer products, slow replacement, and no more differentiation from Honda, which is probably the reason why Chinese consumers are not interested. I'm afraid that until now, many people have never really understood Acura, so please follow my perspective in this article and take you back to the past and present lives of "Akula".
In the 1970s, two oil crises broke out around the world, and the U.S. auto industry suffered a huge impact. At the time, Japanese cars were cheap and fuel-efficient, and were loved by American consumers. The second oil crisis was followed by the Iran-Iraq War, which led to a sharp decline in oil production and an even total recession in the Western economy.
The U.S. government believed that the impact of Japanese cars on the domestic automobile industry had posed a huge threat, so in 1981, Japan signed a voluntary export restriction with the United States, and Japan could only sell 1.68 million cars to the United States each year. Although the agreement was only signed for three years, the U.S. government extended the agreement for another year as Japan's trade deficit with the United States continued to widen.
As early as the mid-1970s, Honda began to consider how to increase the profitability of bicycles within the limited export volume. After nearly 10 years of research, in 1986, Honda launched the luxury brand Acura (Acura), which is also the first luxury brand among Japanese car brands (before Lexus and Infiniti).
Acura's first two models, the Legend and the Integra, targeted the impact in both market segments. Legend (mileage) is certainly very familiar to some old Honda fans, according to the Chinese market for model size division, Legend (mileage) belongs to the medium and large cars, in the US market Legend four-door version is classified as Full-size Car (full-size car), two-door Coupe model is classified as Mid-size Car (mid-size car).
The name Integra is believed to be even more familiar to everyone, and Guangqi Honda introduced and named it The Model last year, as a sister model of the Civic, which is sold in the Chinese market. The Integra itself was born to succeed Honda Quint (Civic's five-door hatchback), which is also sold in the Us market with the Acura logo, positioning the Compact Car (compact car).
The initial success made Honda have more expectations for Acura. At the same time, Honda also hopes to develop a sports car that is not inferior to Ferrari and Porsche to enhance brand awareness and image. In 1990, Honda released the NSX, a model that dates back to the 1984 Honda concept HP-X, whose performance metrics largely referenced the Ferrari 328/348 at the time.
In 1990, the Acura logo was introduced and was expected to be installed on the 1991 model. However, the original LOGO design did not have a horizontal bar in the middle, and this design was not approved by Soichiro Honda. Eventually, Soichiro Honda ordered the destruction of the initial LOGO design and added a horizontal bar to the LOGO, which became the version we see now.
Acura has developed very smoothly in the U.S. market and has a near-perfect start. Acura has raised its profile in the U.S. market through three models, Legend, Integra and NSX, and has blinded old luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz in the luxury car market. Legend's success was phenomenal, so much so that later the Lexus ES, Infiniti J30, and Lincoln Continental were all models developed specifically for this segment to compete with, and Subaru Legacy's design was inspired by Legend.
However, a crisis ensued. Perhaps the early stage was too smooth, acura's success in the US market did not allow Honda executives to make the right choice in the next step, of course, this is also inseparable from the changes in the world situation at that time.
Debut is the peak (1986-1992)
Japan developed rapidly in the 1980s, while the United States experienced a sharp increase in fiscal deficits and a sharp increase in the foreign trade deficit. The U.S. government hopes to improve the balance of payments imbalance in the United States by devaluing the dollar. In 1985, the United States co-opted some Western countries to coerce Japan into signing the Plaza Accord, which led to a sharp appreciation of the yen and a sharp expansion of Japan's domestic bubble. Finally, after the collapse of the bubble economy, Japan fell into an economic depression that lasted for more than 10 years.
The Japanese economic crisis of the 1990s was called "The Lost Decades." During this period, Honda also suffered a huge blow, thereby reducing research and development funds. In the FAR away U.S. market, Acura's life is not good, and although the newly launched NSX has received some praise, sales have continued to decline.
In order to increase sales, Honda introduced the third generation Vigor in the US market. Many Chinese consumers may be unfamiliar with Vigor, which is actually a high-end version of accord. The 1992 Vigor Hanging Acura logo was officially sold in the U.S. market, and it was positioned between the Legend and The Integra as a Mid-size Car.)
Although Vigor began to retune the chassis in the third generation and no longer shared the chassis with accords, its performance in the US market can only be described as dismal. Consumers prefer a higher-positioned Legend, or a better Lexus ES 300. Due to poor sales, in May 1994 Honda officially discontinued the Acura Vigor sold in North America, and the model that replaced it was the Acura TL.
In the mid-1990s, Acura executives decided to adopt the number + letter naming method because Honda did not want Acura models to have too much connection with the parent brand in naming, and the main rivals Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Lexus and other brands adopted similar naming rules. However, this decision has aroused the opposition of many owners and fans, who believe that the way the alphabet is named is not strong enough, and Legend and Integral have left a mark in everyone's mind. Despite this, Acura decided to change the naming method, and the Integra, which was not selling well in the Canadian market, was replaced by the Acura 1.6 EL (actually Honda's Domani rebrand), the Legend in the US market was named 3.5 RL, and the Vigor was 2.5TL/3.2TL.
If a brand's best-selling product has a significant decline in sales, then the blow to the brand is fatal. In the early days of the Acura brand, Legend was able to account for 40%-50% of the brand's total sales. In 1995, Legend's annual sales plummeted from 36,000 units to 18,000 units, which directly led to Acura's sales in the United States falling below 100,000 units that year. Compared with the performance of nearly 150,000 units per year in the early 1990s, in the 8 years from 1992 to 1999, Acura's sales in the US market were only 100,000 to 110,000 units per year, which can be said to have encountered a real bottleneck. In addition to the appearance of Japan's economic downturn, Acura's products have a greater relationship with the indistinct differentiation of the parent brand Honda and the rapid rise of luxury brands such as Lexus.
1999 and the year of the millennium may have been a turning point for Acura. In the past two years, Acura TL has ushered in a replacement and the launch of MDX, bringing Acura back on track. Most importantly, Acura and Honda have formed a certain difference, and it is no longer just a reseller relationship.
In 2000, Acura launched the MDX. To be precise, this is also acura's first SUV model, and the previously launched SLX is only a rebranded model of Isuzu Thoropers. The MDX positions the mid-size luxury crossover SUV in the same market segment as the Mercedes-Benz M-Class, BMW X5, Lexus RX and other models.
In the development of the VTM-4, Honda also thought of further optimizing the system. In 2004, Honda introduced the SH-AWD all-wheel drive system, and the biggest advantage of this system is the independent torque distribution of the wheels on both sides. SH-AWD was also the first to be applied to the second generation acura RL, which to some extent made up for the lack of luxury of RL front-drive vehicles.
In the period from 1999 to 2006, Acura encountered a crisis and completed its rebirth, and the second generation of TL and the newly launched MDX made Acura's sales steadily increase. In 2000, Acura has recovered sales to 140,000 units/year, and this number has climbed year by year, peaking in 2005, with annual sales of nearly 210,000 units/year.
Crisis and Rebirth (1992-2006)
Like most brands, when the brand is solid and strong, developing new markets becomes a top priority. Acura's expansion speed is not very fast, its time development line is like this: launched in North America (the United States and Canada) in 1986, entered Hong Kong in 1991, entered Mexico in 2004, came to China in 2006, introduced To russia in 2014... As you can see, Acura has no action in the Australian market and the European market, and in fact, Europe and Australia have a low degree of recognition for Acura, so in the two lands, you can only see models with Honda logos hanging.
In 2006, Acura officially entered the Chinese market and brought acura TL and RL two sedans.
Although the "debut" in China is not eye-catching enough, Acura does not mind, after all, at this time Acura can be described as a boom in the US market. In 2006, Acura launched the RDX, which is one size smaller than the MDX, eager to further expand the market. Starting from Acura MDX, Acura has launched some personalized models, such as ZDX, TSX Wagon and so on.
Since 2012, Acura's sales have gradually stabilized, and the average annual sales in the US market can be maintained at about 150,000 units per year. Around 2014, Acura once again renamed its car. ILX is based on the Honda Civic chassis, in fact, it replaces the former Integra and CSX in the North American market, and TL and RL are replaced by TLX and RLX respectively.
Back in China, in 2016, Acura officially settled in GAC, TLX-L, RDX successively domestically, Acura also launched a special model for the Chinese market - CDX. However, at present, Acura only retains two models in the Chinese market, CDX and RDX, and the rest of the models are delisted due to poor sales.
While Toyota introduced a number of new cars last year, Honda's corresponding action was somewhat sluggish, which can also be seen that in the competition of "two fields", Honda has shown fatigue. Looking back at the 16 years since Acura entered the Chinese market, the first full year, 2017, sold 16,000 units to an all-time high, and then began a decline. As mentioned earlier, Acura's activity in the North American market stands in stark contrast to the coldness of the Chinese market. In the 2021 U.S. luxury brand sales list, Acura ranked fifth with 157,000 units, behind BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and Audi, which is very different from China. Acura's presence in the Chinese market is not strong, the characteristics are not clear enough, and the product update speed is not fast enough are the reasons for the decline in sales year by year. Regarding the future of Acura in the Chinese market, I am afraid that it is not good for the time being, but one thing is certain, if it does not change, it is really not far from delisting.
Editor's comments: If you want to launch a more high-end brand on top of the parent brand, you can't avoid homogenization factors. Today, few car companies have the strength to develop engines and chassis for a single brand of their own. Sharing the chassis and engine with ordinary models, how to rely on luxury brand identity to sell a premium? In my opinion, if you want to do a good job as a high-end brand, you need to retain the excellent characteristics of the parent brand and have your own unique characteristics. It is not difficult to find that Lexus, which is in the united states and the Chinese market, seems to be the only positive teaching material.
Highlights review:
Super Bowl auto commercial collection of tens of millions of dollars knife famous scenes
The 2021 top ten good cars in the eyes of the US media 911 is not inferior to Civic?
The 5 fastest SUVs in New North are in 03.3 seconds on this admission ticket
China Entry and Outlook (2006-)