On October 10th, Honda China announced its terminal car sales for September 2024. The data shows that Honda's terminal car sales in China in September were 62,586 units, a year-on-year decrease of 42.93%. In July and August of this year, Honda's terminal car sales in China also fell by more than 40% year-on-year. In other words, Honda's terminal sales in China have declined by more than 40% year-on-year for three consecutive months.

Official data shows that since February of this year, Honda's sales in China have been declining year-on-year for nine consecutive months. Specifically, from February to September, sales decreased by 38.63%, 26.32%, 22.18%, 34.66%, 39.04%, 41.4%, 44.29%, and 42.93% respectively. From January to September of this year, Honda China's cumulative terminal car sales were 588,018 units, a year-on-year decrease of 29.27%, with the decline widening again. In the first eight months of this year, Honda's cumulative terminal car sales in China were approximately 525,400 units, a year-on-year decrease of 27.2%.

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To keep up with the domestic new energy vehicle wave, in recent years, Honda, Nissan, and Toyota, the three major Japanese brands, have paid more and more attention to the development of electric vehicles in China. Honda has begun to adjust the construction of new energy factories in China. Dongfeng Honda's electric car factory will start production in September this year, and GAC Honda's new energy factory will start production in November this year.

At the same time, Honda has released new energy models such as e:NS1, e:NS2, e:NP1, and e:NP2 in China, but sales have always been poor.

Recently, Honda has intended to adjust its global electrification strategy. At Honda's Technology Day, Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe told investors that the company's plan to build electric vehicle factories globally has a certain degree of flexibility, and Honda can adjust its strategy if the market trend is unexpected. Toshihiro Mibe mentioned that Honda may delay the construction of some battery production lines.

According to previous plans, Honda's goal for electric vehicle transformation is to invest 10 trillion yen in electric vehicle transformation by 2030. By 2040, Honda plans to achieve a global sales share of 100% for pure electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles. Toshihiro Mibe said that the current goal will remain unchanged and explained the current stagnation of electric vehicle sales as a "short-term headwind."

In the first half of this year, Honda sold about 13,000 electric vehicles, accounting for about 0.7% of its total passenger car sales.

In the Chinese market, as the penetration rate of new energy vehicles continues to increase, the market share of joint venture fuel vehicles is gradually being eroded.

The Passenger Car Association's data shows that in August, the retail sales of mainstream joint venture brands were 480,000 units, a year-on-year decrease of 27%, and a month-on-month increase of 7%. Among German, American, and other joint venture brands, Japanese brands have the largest decline in retail share. In the same month, the retail share of Japanese brands was 12.6%, a year-on-year decrease of 4.2 percentage points.

At present, the sales of the three major Japanese car companies in China have declined to varying degrees compared to the past three years. From 2021 to 2023, the market share of Japanese cars in China fell year by year, to 22.6%, 20%, and 17%, respectively, and fell to 14.9% in the first half of this year. Today, Nissan China's latest September sales data shows that Nissan's sales in China (including passenger cars and light commercial vehicles) were 61,395 units, a year-on-year decrease of 3.8%.In it, Dongfeng Nissan (including Nissan, Venucia, and Infiniti brands) sold 57,741 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 5.8%. From January to September this year, Nissan Motor China (including passenger cars and light commercial vehicles) accumulated sales of 496,998 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 9.10%.

In September, Nissan Motor CEO Makoto Uchida said in an interview: "Compared with other parts of the world, Chinese customers' needs are very different. If we continue to do things in the same way as before, I think the probability of our survival is not high."

He said that Nissan Motor is striving to stay in China, and there has been a huge change in strategy, which is simply to design and manufacture localized Nissan cars in China.

Nissan is currently working with its Chinese partner Dongfeng Motor Group to develop 5 new energy vehicles for the Chinese market, which will be launched no later than 2026.