May 20th is a very festive day. The brand-new GAC Honda Accord was launched on this date. But this did not bring any surprises to Guangqi Honda, but an unexpected shock! After checking the latest car sales data, we found that the sales volume of the new Accord in the first month after the replacement did not exceed 10,000, only 9,008 units, a sharp drop of 56% year-on-year, a new low in three years, which is particularly eye-catching.
You must know that the Accord has always been the mainstay of Guangqi Honda's sales, and was once one of the best-selling models of mid-level cars. But now after the replacement, the performance in the first month has plummeted, which is a very bad sign for the product and the brand, and seriously dragged down the overall performance. According to data, in June this year, Honda China sold only 113,100 vehicles, a year-on-year decline of 19.8%. In the first half of this year, the cumulative decline was 22% year-on-year.
In fact, the month before the replacement of the new Accord, that is, in April, the sales volume reached 25,600 units, and it won the sales champion of mid-size cars in that month. Now that the brand-new eleventh-generation Accord has been replaced, there is such a completely different performance, so many people start to think, will this be another blockbuster model that failed to replace?
Generally speaking, models that fail to replace have obvious weaknesses, such as the former X-Trail, which was also Japanese. This SUV was once the best-selling joint venture SUV model, but the previous generation model was replaced with a three-cylinder, which completely ruined its promising future. The brand-new Accord was also launched amidst controversy. In order to compete in the new energy market, the oil-to-electric model it launched is also very repulsed by consumers.
The momentum of new energy is very strong now, which is an important factor weakening the market sales of traditional car companies such as Guangqi Honda. But the competition is also very fierce. If you lack sincerity in order to disrupt the situation, it will definitely be difficult to win. Therefore, the operation of the new Accord oil-to-electricity conversion is a very low-level and backward method that lacks competition. This method has been used by self-owned brands for many years when they first launched new energy sources, but now they basically have their own electric development platforms, which is conducive to the development of models that are more in line with the market.
On the contrary, the Accord’s oil-to-electricity conversion was not fully developed according to the characteristics of new energy electric vehicles. The battery was designed under the rear seats, which led to the elevation of the fuel tank and occupied part of the trunk space. Moreover, after some people tried the oil-to-electric Accord, they found that the rear passenger space is not so comfortable, and the head is easy to go up, and the practicality is weakened. It is difficult to win in the introverted market.
In addition, consumers now value the smart capabilities of cars. Therefore, the screens of many models are getting bigger and bigger, and the experience is getting better and better. The screen of the brand-new Accord is only 12.3 inches, and the instruments of many domestic car companies are larger than this. However, the instruments of the Accord are only 10.2 inches, and the screens all use wide sides. This operation is a bit against the trend. Taking the development of smart phones as an example may make it easier to understand. Today’s smart phones, everyone is making a large screen with narrow sides, almost the entire screen is full-screen display, and abandons the wide-edge and small screen design of traditional mobile phones. Therefore, the instrument design of the Accord is somewhat similar to the way old mobile phone screens are processed. Obviously, it has not kept up with the latest development trend. How can it impress the increasingly young consumer groups? There are still many product problems like
, and you can experience them yourself if you have the opportunity. In addition, recently, the Honda brand has been recalled continuously due to quality problems. In March, April and June of this year, after Honda recalled nearly 2 million vehicles globally, in July, domestically produced hybrid models, ZR-V Zhizai and Civic hybrid models were recalled due to engine electronic control unit (ECU) setting reasons and light vehicle pollutant emission standards. Therefore, the cumulative decline in its domestic sales is also reasonable.
After the replacement of the brand-new Accord, it failed to become a hit, but hit a new low.There are reasons for the downturn in the general environment, but the most fundamental reason lies in the product strength of the model itself. Anyway, the new Accord has a lot of problems after the replacement. As for whether it will be another big failure of the replacement model, we need to observe the follow-up performance before making a conclusion.
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