"Nissan stopped developing fuel engines", Chinese netizens climaxed | Electromotive force

Electromotive force

2024-06-06 07:07Published in Shanghai

Following the "three-cylinder engine", Nissan once again locked a hot spot in the rim due to the topic of engines.

Recently, Francois Bailly, Nissan's senior vice president in charge of Africa, the Middle East, India, Europe and Oceania, was once pushed to the hot list because he made some important views in an interview with Australian media - Drive, which caused a lot of attention and discussion in China.

So, what exactly did François Bailey say? Why has it become a hot topic?

Let's start with François Bailey.

"Our future is electric vehicles." "One thing is for sure, we won't be investing in a new fuel-powered engine system. ”

If these two sentences are put in ordinary times, there is a high probability that they will also attract a lot of attention in the industry. From the perspective of the industry, Nissan's attitude towards the transformation of new energy vehicles is very resolute.

The problem is that François Bailey said these words at a time when there is a big backdrop in the industry: Toyota, Mazda and Subaru recently announced that they will cooperate in the development of a new generation of hybrid engines.

Based on this background, looking at François Bailey's words, one left and one right, it is indeed a bit of a-for-tat.

Therefore, we see that many domestic media have brought the material of the other three car companies to develop new engines when they follow up and write articles. Everyone believes that these two pieces of news are intrinsically linked.

Of course, we don't know if François Bailey was referring to "Toyotas".

In response to the above news, "Electromotive" has not seen any relevant announcements from Dongfeng Nissan at present. Maybe they feel that this is Nissan international news and has nothing to do with Dongfeng Nissan?

Compared with the news that "Toyota" developed a new engine, the news of Nissan's abandonment of developing a fuel engine seems to be more spread in China, perhaps this is more in line with the "ZZ correct" of Chinese netizens.

Although François Bailey revealed that Nissan will no longer develop new gasoline engines, he did not disclose a specific timeline for Nissan to stop producing gasoline vehicles, saying, "It will depend on regional regulations and market demand." ”

Although Nissan has stopped developing new engines, it does not mean that it will fully switch to the pure electric vehicle market, and there is still a transition process in between.

According to François Bailey, "Nissan's e-POWER hybrid system is a stepping stone to full electrification. "With the transition to hybridization, Nissan's transformation technology path is consistent with that of most traditional car companies.

So, can Nissan e-POWER take on the responsibility of Nissan's transformation "stepping stone"?

In other markets, it's hard to say; In the Chinese market, it is still quite difficult at present.

Regarding Nissan's e-POWER hybrid system, "Electromotive" once wrote an article "The Strongest Comment on Mainstream Range Extension Technology: There is No Best, Only the Most Suitable", which is indeed very powerful.

In recent years, the domestic range extension market has exploded, as one of the very few traditional car companies that support the range extension technology route and deeply cultivate the range extension products and market, Nissan should take advantage of the situation to shine, but the fact is that it is completely opposite to everyone's good expectations.

In December 2021, Sylphy equipped with the e-POWER hybrid system was launched. As the pillar of sales, Sylphy chose to use the e-POWER hybrid system for the first time with such a blockbuster model, and Dongfeng Nissan's performance of e-POWER in the Chinese market can be said to be inevitable.

However, after the launch of the Sylphy e-POWER version, it did not make much splash in the market. In March 2023, Dongfeng Nissan launched a facelifted model of the Sylphy e-POWER version, which is still tepid.

According to Wilson's sales data monitoring statistics, in April 2024, the monthly sales of Sylphy e-POWER were 394 units, a year-on-year decrease of 71.22% and a month-on-month decrease of 15.27%; The cumulative sales volume from January ~ April was 1,619 units, a year-on-year decrease of 163.56%.

In addition to Sylphy, in May 2023, Dongfeng Nissan will introduce the e-POWER hybrid system to another blockbuster model, the X-Trail. Although the X-Trail was previously "broken by the three-cylinder", the e-POWER hybrid system unexpectedly saved the X-Trail.

It can be seen that after the new X-Trail was launched last year, the sales volume has picked up significantly. This performance of X-Trail e-POWER is a bit unexpected for Dongfeng Nissan. To this end, in June last year, Dongfeng Nissan also issued a "delivery note" for X-Trail e-POWER.

Overall, with the blessing of e-POWER, X-Trail's performance has improved slightly, but it is still far from rivals such as Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4.

The failure of Sylphy e-POWER, X-Trail e-POWER performance is decent, and on the whole, Nissan e-POWER's road to China is not smooth. Compared to the "household names" of Toyota THS and Honda IMMD, the Nissan e-POWER still has a long way to go.

For example, on the WeChat index, "Toyota Hybrid" and "Honda Hybrid" have corresponding entries, while the entry of "Nissan Hybrid" has not yet been established. On the surface, it is the presence or absence of an entry, but in fact it is a direct manifestation of the market heat.

In the Chinese market, facing the future, Nissan e-POWER has no small challenges. Not to mention the technology itself, the development environment in which it is located is not the same as when Toyota THS and Honda IMMD came in.

In recent years, the hybrid market has exploded mainly due to two major driving forces: dual-motor hybrids of independent brands, and range extenders by new forces. In particular, through technological breakthroughs, cost control methods, and price warfare methods, some self-owned brand hybrid vehicles have directly declared war on joint venture fuel vehicles. At present, the joint venture fuel vehicle is in a trend of retreat.

In such an environment, Dongfeng Nissan has not been spared.

Last year, Nissan's global sales were 3374271, a year-on-year increase of 4.6%, of which 793768 were sold in the Chinese market, a year-on-year decrease of 16.1%, which was the only market for Nissan to decline among the world's major auto markets.

How to win the battle to defend oil vehicles and the marketing battle of e-POWER hybrid are two important issues facing Dongfeng Nissan. As for pure electrics, as François Bailey said, "our future is electric vehicles", not the present.

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