How To Lead Nissan Out Of The Crisis?

With the global debut of ariya, a pure electric cross-border vehicle, and the release of its new logo, Nissan has launched a new medium-term business plan of "Nissan next".

Facing the global trend of electric and intelligent vehicles, Nissan launched a new strategic model ariya on July 15, which abandoned the logo of Nissan for 20 years and hung the brand-new flat logo of Nissan.

It is noteworthy that this is the first time that Nissan has changed its standard in 20 years, and it is also the first time that Nissan has launched a global model in five years.

After more than a year of scandal and a sharp decline in profits, Nissan hopes ariya can lead the company's recovery.

"Nissan ariya will witness our transformation, and I believe this new car will lead Nissan back to growth." After the first interview with makhida, Nissan's chief executive, said in an interview with Nissan's chief executive, ariotya.

"We need to pay attention to sales performance, and hope that enterprises can achieve positive growth and turn losses into profits. We want to demonstrate how we can use the enterprise value of Nissan to achieve stable growth through new models including Nissan ariya. " In the interview, Uchida repeatedly stressed "turning losses into profits.".

At the same time, Uchida also urgently needs to eliminate the impact of Carlos Ghosn's financial scandal on the company, and lead Nissan to return to profitability.

According to the financial data released by Nissan in fiscal year 2019, the sales volume of Nissan in this year was 9.8788 trillion yen, a decrease of 14.6% compared with the previous fiscal year; the global sales volume decreased by 10.6% to 4.93 million units. The most important thing is that Nissan suffered a huge loss of 671.2 billion yen, which was the first loss of Nissan in recent ten years.

On June 29, Mr. Uchida formally apologized to investors for the huge loss and said it would adjust its business route. If the company fails in reversing Nissan's situation and fails to improve Nissan's profitability, he will resign as CEO of Nissan.

"On the one hand, we should streamline fixed costs and control production capacity; on the other hand, we should continue to invest in the future at the level of product research and development." The global target, including China, is expected to return to more than 2% in fy2021 and 5% in fy2023, according to Mr. Uchida.

In the view of the industry, no matter for Nissan, which suffered huge losses last year, or for Uchida, who is in a difficult situation at home and abroad, the launch of Nissan ariya is undoubtedly a "cardiotonic", which can stimulate the confidence of the outside world for Nissan to a certain extent.

Supplement the short board of electrification

According to Nissan's ambitious transformation plan, 12 new models will be launched in the next 18 months. Among them, ariya plans to sell in Japan in mid-2021 at a price of about 5 million yen (equivalent to about 320000 yuan), and plans to sell to Europe, North America and China in 2021.

"China is a very important market for Nissan motor, which is mainly based on three aspects: first, China is the world's largest automobile consumer market; second, China leads the development of the latest technology; third, China's market has a diversified consumer base, in addition to the first-time customers, there are a large number of second-time car buyers." On July 15, Ashwani Gupta, Nissan's chief operating officer and chief performance officer, said in an interview with 21st century economic reporter that the diversified demand of China's market has also become an important reason for Nissan to develop ariya models.

At the same time, Gupta said that Nissan's product lineup in the Chinese market will not only develop in the direction of electrification, but also in terms of automatic driving technology, safety and intelligent networking technology.

"China is a leader in the field of intelligent Internet connection. It has different applications that can connect with the society and the people around them. Through these technologies, Nissan ariya can provide the best on-board / off-board application in the same level, which will enhance the recognition of Nissan brand in Chinese consumers. " Based on the technology of power, the company will introduce the technology driven by power technology to meet the needs of Chinese consumers.

According to the four-year new medium-term business plan issued by Nissan, Nissan will start with ariya. It is estimated that by the end of fiscal year 2023, the annual sales of pure electric vehicles and electric vehicles equipped with E-power intelligent charging technology will exceed 1 million. At the same time, Nissan plans to import more than 20 models equipped with automatic driving system into 20 markets, and the target sales volume of models equipped with automatic driving technology will exceed 1.5 million.

Among them, by the end of fiscal year 2023, Nissan will introduce seven pure electric vehicles to the Chinese market, and introduce E-power intelligent charging electric technology to its core products. The electric vehicles sold in China will account for 23% of Nissan's total sales in China.

"Judging from the current development of Nissan, it is relatively slow among the top three Japanese companies, and its technical characteristics are not particularly prominent. Unlike Toyota and Honda, they have made comprehensive progress in hybrid, pure electric and plug-in hybrid. Nissan adheres to a relatively traditional development strategy. " On July 20, Cui Dongshu, Secretary General of the national passenger car market information association, pointed out in an interview with the reporter of the 21st century economic report.

In fact, from the launch of Nissan's first pure electric leaf in 2010 to ariya's global debut this year, Nissan's layout in the field of pure electric vehicles is rare in the past decade.

"In terms of electrification, Nissan has great advantages in the early stage, but its recent performance is not ideal. Of course, there are some internal problems of Nissan." Cui Dongshu said, "now the launch of ariya is also a short board. Try to test the market reaction with ariya, and then launch some new products according to the situation. Of course, Nissan's electrification still needs to be promoted slowly, and it is impossible for Nissan to enter the Chinese automobile market at once. "

Can ariya, the latecomer, break the game?

Ten years ago, driven by the former head of Nissan, Mr. Ghosn, the Nissan LEAF leaf leaf became the benchmark model of pure electric vehicles in the world, and has always maintained its position as the world's top seller of electric vehicle sales.

In March 2019, the leaf becomes the first pure electric vehicle in the world with a cumulative sales volume of more than 400000.

However, in sharp contrast to leaf's performance in the global market, Nissan's pure electric vehicle model seems to be not smooth in China's auto market.

According to the data, as early as 2011, Nissan LEAF has been imported into China, and then in September 2014, it made use of the domestic model Qichen CHENFENG, but the high price of 2678-281800 and the lack of brand appeal of Qichen eventually led to the end of production in 2016.

At present, the performance of Xuanyi pure electric vehicle, the only electric vehicle launched by Dongfeng Nissan, is not ideal. From January to May this year, Xuanyi pure electric vehicles close to leaf power system only sold more than 300 vehicles.

At the same time, a large number of competitors, including Tesla, have made key progress in battery density, intelligent Internet connection and automatic driving, and have seized the opportunity of China's vigorous development of electric vehicles and are weakening leaf's leading position.

Therefore, as a key model for Nissan to open the "era of neitian Cheng", it is very important for Nissan whether ariya can copy leaf's competitive experience in the global market.

"Before I went to work in China, after introducing a global product into the Chinese market, sales naturally became more stable. But now, consumer demand is likely to no longer be based on a globally consistent basis. The demands of Chinese consumers and American consumers are quite different. We need to adapt to this kind of market environment, which is also the area where we need to adjust our strategy and working methods in the future. " Uchida said in an interview with reporters.

Meanwhile, Nissan will continue to increase its attention and investment in the Chinese market, and make full use of the resource advantages of the alliance by introducing products and technologies that are more in line with the needs of Chinese consumers.

"One is that we need to design models for the local market, that is, for the Chinese market, and the other is time to market." It is pointed out that there are three key points in China's automotive market, namely, the automotive networking conference, Nissan's automotive safety conference, and Nissan Tiancheng Automobile assembly Co., Ltd.

In addition, Nissan is also accelerating cooperation with Chinese enterprises to maintain its advantages in cost and technology.

On June 19, Nissan announced that it would jointly develop with Xinwangda Electric Vehicle Battery Co., Ltd. the next generation of on-board batteries suitable for Nissan E-power intelligent charging electric vehicle models.

However, in today's increasingly fierce competition in China's electric vehicle market, can the belated ariya catch up and help Nissan reverse the previous unfavorable situation? "Nissan and its electric vehicle market will gradually improve, and with the development of its electric infrastructure, Nissan will have a better performance." On July 20, auto analyst Zhong Shi said.

Similarly, in Cui Dongshu's view, Nissan ariya has certain competitiveness in China's automobile market.

"From the current point of view, in the new energy vehicle market, Nissan itself lacks certain pure electric vehicle type support, but at the same time, China's automobile market and consumers still relatively recognize the Nissan brand." Cui Dongshu finally said.

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