Author: Estifu
Suzuki Motors, which is mainly engaged in mini cars (including K-Car) and small cars, completely cooperated with two partners in China in 2018 "separate". This also means that Suzuki Motors has completely ended its business of manufacturing cars locally in China.
Suzuki’s imported car business also ceased operation, which also caused the price of the new parallel-imported Jimny to be as high as 300,000 yuan.
Starting from the disappointment in the Chinese market
Go back to June 15, 2018. On that day, Jiangxi Changhe Suzuki announced that after friendly negotiations between shareholders, Japan The shareholder Fang transferred all the Changhe Suzuki shares he held to Changhe Automobile, and the latter completed the industrial and commercial registration change procedures for the equity and company name as early as May 30, 2018.
A notice heralded the end of "Changhe Suzuki". BAIC Group has removed Changhe Suzuki and all SUZUKI branded models from its shelves.
On the other hand, Changan Automobile, Suzuki's partner in Chongqing, also issued an announcement on September 4, 2018, indicating that Changan Automobile and Suzuki Automobile had formally reached an agreement. The core content of the agreement is: Changan Automobile will Acquired 40% and 10% equity interests in Changan Suzuki held by Suzuki Japan and Suzuki China respectively for RMB 1 in cash.
In fact, after the completion of this acquisition, Changan Automobile became the 100% controlling shareholder of Changan Suzuki. This means that "Changan Suzuki" has changed from a joint venture to a "sole proprietorship", ending a 25-year history. If "Changan Suzuki" subsequently puts into production vehicles with the SUZUKI trademark, it will basically be a technology-licensed OEM model.
Changan Suzuki currently has only three models on sale
The lack of product appeal to Chinese consumers is one of the major reasons for Suzuki’s poor sales and its withdrawal from the Chinese market. .
Changan Suzuki, founded in 1993, opened up the Chinese market with the Alto mini car. But in fact, Suzuki's pioneering work in China was the ST90 mini truck produced by licensing its technology to Changan Automobile. The "ST90" produced in Chongqing was launched in 1984 and was labeled with the CHANGAN logo at that time.
Later, Changan Suzuki successively introduced Cultus, Swift, SX4 and other models to enrich its product matrix. Subsequently, sales peaked in 2011 - 220,000 new cars were sold throughout the year, but in the following years it entered a year-by-year decline.
Suzuki's "global car" S-Cross, known as Xiaotu in China
Because Suzuki's models are small, the equipment level is not high, and the engine displacement is also small... it is not in line with China's Constrained by local consumption habits, coupled with the rise of independent brands and other factors, by 2017, including the sales of the two joint ventures Changan Suzuki and Changhe Suzuki, Suzuki sold 115,000 new cars in China throughout the year. In 2018, this number became 57,000 vehicles, and by 2019, there were only 26,000 vehicles left.
The formation of the four major market structures
What is more interesting is that on the one hand, sales in the Chinese market are declining, but on the other hand, Suzuki Motors' sales are increasing in other markets around the world.
In 2018, Suzuki ranked tenth among the top 10 global car companies with annual sales of 3.2132 million units, a year-on-year increase of 1.2%. After leaving the Chinese market that year, Suzuki Motor also established a four-market structure focusing on Japan, India, Europe and Southeast Asia.
List of main sales models of Maruti Suzuki in India
Judging from the sales data in 2018, Suzuki sold 715,000 new cars in Japan in 2018, of which 587,000 were K-Car; in the Indian market, it used a rich product portfolio and low prices to create good results of 1.73 million units, with a market share of 51.2%; in Europe, it still sold 246,000 units, and its sales volume is expected to exceed 2019. 250,000 vehicles. The remaining 520,000 sales were completed in Southeast Asia and other regional markets.
Therefore, from the perspective of the global market structure, Suzuki seems to be living a relatively "moist" life even without the Chinese market. Before withdrawing from the Chinese market, Suzuki also withdrew from the world's second largest automobile market: the United States as early as 2012. The reasons are similar to the Chinese market.
The K-Car model that Suzuki sells mainly in Japan and Suzuki’s main model in Europe (official website in Italy)
In fact, Suzuki has to face a more realistic reality The problem is that it cannot integrate into the world's first and second largest automobile markets, and it is only a regional automobile company at best. The possible success in regional markets cannot make Suzuki a global car company in the full sense.
The more specific problem is that Suzuki focuses on the emerging markets of Japan and India. The models and products it launches have their own characteristics, but they cannot complement each other - products for the Japanese market are only suitable for the Japanese market (large For the most part); and products for the Indian market are only suitable for the Indian market. This has brought some troubles to Suzuki's operations in Europe.
Unraveling the Dilemma in the European Market
In the European market, Suzuki Motor’s current main sales models include Celerio, Ignis, Swift, Baleno, S-Cross, Vitara and Jimny. The levels of these seven models are basically concentrated under the compact car category, which are more suitable for use on narrow streets in Europe. In addition, the prices of these models are also concentrated between 10,000 and 25,000 euros, which meets the car purchasing needs of young Europeans - low price threshold and low maintenance investment.
However, Europe’s increasingly strict carbon dioxide emissions have become a stumbling block for Suzuki’s new car sales. The most typical example is the new generation Jimny.
The all-new fourth-generation Jimny
The fourth-generation Jimny, which has been on the market for one year, has attracted a lot of attention in Europe. The Jimny is a rare professional-grade Off-Road in the small SUV field. This car is equipped with a K15B naturally aspirated gasoline engine, an in-line four-cylinder, 1.5-liter displacement, and a front-mounted four-wheel drive chassis layout. Equipped with a 4-speed automatic or 5-speed manual transmission, its carbon dioxide emissions range from 154-170g/km depending on the transmission.
Due to EU regulations, the average carbon dioxide emissions of all car manufacturers must meet the standard of 95g/km before 2021, otherwise they will suffer huge fines. For this reason, Suzuki has no choice, and the European company plans to temporarily remove the Jimny from its sales catalog. This is confirmed by feedback from the British and French markets.
Suzuki’s British department stated that Jimny will be sold in limited quantities in the British market in 2020. At the same time, the British department will do its best to ensure the delivery of new cars to consumers who have placed orders.
48V Mild Hybrid System
The French attitude is basically the same. The French department stated that the Jimny’s excessive carbon dioxide may cause the bicycle to face an “ecological fine” of up to 2,153 euros when registering. This is a big hurdle for consumers. Before 2021, sales of Jimny models will be stopped in the French market.
From a sales perspective, Jimny’s sales are not high. In 2018, 10,400 units were sold in Europe; and in 2019, with the launch of the fourth-generation new car, it is expected to reach 16,000 units ( The total sales volume in Europe in the first 11 months of 2019 was 15,400 vehicles, with an average of about 1,400 vehicles per month).
Therefore, it may be an acceptable fact for Suzuki to discard models that account for 6% of total sales in Europe. It is currently unknown what kind of technical transformation Jimny will undergo (Italian official website shows Coming? in? 2021).
Vitra
In fact, in response to the EU's carbon dioxide emission standards, Suzuki is also slowly updating its product series to use hybrid technology.
In order to continue to maintain the good sales momentum in 2019 in 2020, Suzuki began to deploy mild hybrid systems for a number of European sales models at the end of 2019. These models include Ignis, Swift, S-Cross and Vitara, but Jimny is not included.
On Ignis, Swift and Baleno, a 12V voltage SHVS (Smart Hybrid Vehicle by Suzuki) hybrid module is used, including a 1.0-liter Boosterjet turbocharged engine with an output of 111hp and a 1.2-liter Dualjet naturally aspirated engine with 90hp output.
Swift Sport version
On the Vitara, S-Ccross and Swift Sport, a 48V voltage Hybrid system is used. The 48V system is paired with a 1.4-liter Boosterjet turbocharged engine. The 48V starter/generator integrated machine has a maximum power of 10kW (13.5hp), a maximum torque of 50Nm, and a battery capacity of 8Ah. It is not a hybrid "strong hybrid" that can drive the car alone. 48V is more of an auxiliary power, which can reduce the burden on the engine to a certain extent - reducing carbon dioxide emissions and reducing fuel consumption.
In this regard, Suzuki also provided a set of data. After being installed with the 48V system, the above three vehicles can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20% and fuel consumption by 15% according to the WLTP "World Test Rules". The entire 48V system adds no more than 15kg to the vehicle, and its lithium battery is installed under the front seats.
Toyota provides feasible solutions
However, for Suzuki, neither SHVS nor 48V hybrid system is the best solution in the European market. If effective measures are not taken in time, With its electrification strategy - including EV pure electric, PHEV plug-in hybrid and even exclusive travel plans, it may not be easy for Suzuki to maintain the current 250,000 vehicles in the European market.
Therefore, at the end of 2019, there was news that Suzuki Motors will officially launch technical cooperation with Toyota Motors in 2020. The first batch of European cooperation products, two new OEM cars, will be released in the autumn of 2020. . According to speculation, these two new OEM cars will use Toyota's PHEV plug-in hybrid technology, one is the Corolla hatchback and the other is the new RAV4. In other words, we will see the S-badged Corolla and RAV4 in Europe, allowing Suzuki to return to the compact market.
The cooperation between Suzuki and Toyota was not launched in a hurry, but after a long period of running-in.
The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding as early as 2017, and later formally signed a cooperation agreement in March 2019. The agreement stipulates that the two companies will focus on environmental protection, safety and information technology, procurement and new energy vehicles. In fact, the cooperation agreement shows that Toyota's THS hybrid technology will be shared with Suzuki; in return, Suzuki may license Baleno to Toyota for OEM use.
Toyota version of Baleno
In addition, the 1.0 and 1.4-liter Boosterjet turbocharged engines produced by Suzuki's engine plant in Poland may also be shared with Toyota. Because Suzuki's 1.0-liter Boosterjet has similar performance to Toyota's 1.2T, and Toyota does not yet have a 140hp output machine in Europe, Suzuki's 1.4-liter Boosterjet will be the best solution.
Going back to the Suzuki problem we mentioned earlier - Suzuki Motors is not currently a global car company in the full sense. It is probably because it realizes that future products and technology strategies are full of uncontrollable factors. In particular, there is a gap in competition with the mainstream market - making K-Cars in Japan and cheap cars in India are advantageous projects, but other than that, high-tech and high-profit models have not been involved.
Akio Toyoda and Osamu Suzuki
So we see that the "friendship" between Suzuki and Toyota has deepened again - on August 28, 2019, Suzuki announced a cross-sector agreement with Toyota We will form a capital alliance based on the stock model to accelerate cooperative research and development in the field of autonomous driving. This also proves that the future automobile market structure will be a "strong alliance", such as the former Renault-Nissan, and the recent PSA and FCA.
To this end, Toyota spent 96 billion yen (approximately US$910 million) to acquire 4.94% of Suzuki Motor's shares, while Suzuki invested 48 billion yen (approximately US$455 million) to acquire Toyota 0.2% equity. Although the shareholdings are not equal, Suzuki spent huge sums of money to join hands with the automobile giant, and its purpose is very clear: to accelerate technological change, reduce related investments, and get twice the result with half the effort.
The scope of cooperation between Suzuki and Toyota
Without the US and Chinese markets, Suzuki can still create sales of more than 3 million units, which shows that Suzuki's scale effect is still effective. Among them, the European market, which has a sales volume of more than 200,000 units, is so favored by Suzuki, and the logic is extremely clear.
A simple analysis shows that Suzuki takes the European market more seriously than the Chinese market, and its products are more sincere in keeping pace with the times. Therefore, conversely, without the help of these more than 200,000 units, it would not be easy for Suzuki to break into the 3 million Club. END
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.