Toyota Honda's metaphor behind the power electric vehicle in China

In addition to the government providing a larger amount of subsidies and improving the use of facilities, companies need to do is to achieve localized research and development and local production.

After Toyota announced the opening of a Chinese R&D center to promote the localization of environmental protection technologies, Honda selected Guangzhou as its third global electric vehicle validation experiment base. The target also refers directly to the localized production and localized R&D of electric vehicles.

Through these major moves, "Two Fields" seems to indicate that they are pragmatic and no longer conservative in the development trend of China's new energy vehicles.

The Guangzhou Auto Show next week will become an important time window for multinational electric vehicles landing in the Chinese market. General Motors' long-term propaganda for the long-range extended-range electric vehicles will be announced. This will become the first multinational car company to enter the Chinese market electric vehicles. Honda is the first multinational company to establish a timetable for domestic electric vehicles in China. Toyota will also introduce electric vehicles two years later, and plug-in hybrids from the current Prius are also undergoing validation experiments in China.

China’s policy makers still adhere to the new energy vehicle route that focuses on electric vehicles. In line with policy requirements, it has become a pragmatic move for multinational car companies. The “Two Fields” that have been leading in the hybrid field have also shifted to plug-in hybrids and pure electric vehicles.

But the line of battle is often on paper. The actual market situation is that regardless of the small-displacement turbocharging technology, hybrid vehicles or pure electric vehicles, the first obstacles to universality are high cost issues. Only environmentally-friendly automotive products with reliable technology and suitable prices can gain scale opportunities.

To solve all these problems, apart from the government providing a larger amount of subsidies and improving the use of facilities, what companies need to do is to achieve localized R&D and localized production. As a result, the logic of new energy vehicles entering the Chinese market is consistent with that of traditional fuel vehicles. Can not specify active and pragmatic market strategies, it is just a show.

In the global industrial landscape, even in new areas such as electric vehicles, China does not have the potential to develop “curve-overtaking” alone. Integration is the most pragmatic option for Chinese and foreign companies. In addition, after the talent advantage has gradually weakened, the development of new energy vehicles will require the cultivation of local key components and R&D systems.

What can local companies get in this integration? Officials of the National Development and Reform Commission have used the “brotherhood theory” to hint at Toyota’s conservativeness and win the right to speak for China. However, the brothers in the business field still have to use their interests and strength as a link. In the process of domestic electric vehicles, apart from mastering the manufacturing process through joint venture companies, China also needs to accelerate its own progress in the field of new technologies and achieve integration in technology research and development through capital intervention and talent introduction.

Ten years after China's accession to the WTO, local auto companies should already have this kind of game ability compared to the auto industry's opening up, and they should have such a sense of leading in cooperation.