Does anyone believe that Toyota Motor Corporation, which has lost its face in competition with Volkswagen in the field of traditional internal combustion engines, will be willing to pray in the new round of new energy vehicles?

On the 22nd of this month, a larger R&D center than Toyota’s “Central Nervous”—The East Fuji Institute’s research center broke ground in Changshu. This move to achieve hybrid localization is seen as a counter-attack against Toyota by Toyota. hit. The president of the company, Toyoda Toyoda, who shouted "Chinese Most Important" in shouting Chinese, showed his great ambition of "There must be a Toyota car on the road."

Located at the foot of Mt. Fuji in Japan, No. 1200, Myoko, Susono City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Toyota is the Toyoda East Research Institute. As Toyota's “Central Nervous System”, it conducts countless forward-looking technology developments and its employees are highly proficient in Chinese. As far as the outside world imagines, Toyota is almost used to remotely controlling the Chinese market from its home country.

In Changshu, Jiangsu, China's third-tier city where there is no aircraft ups and downs, Toyota is building a larger R&D center than the East Fuji Institute. The 2.34 million square meters site is even far beyond the Tianjin FAW Toyota's production plant.

Toyota had been criticized for its conservative strategy. Compared with Guangzhou Dongfeng Nissan R&D Center, which has dominated several changes in Tiida and Tiida, and Toyota, which has established the “idea” brand, Toyota is more willing to maintain a tight technical blockade with its partners in China. Toyota Motor R&D was established early in the year. (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and Toyota Motor Technology Research & Communications (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. are just some of the dealers' maintenance training and troubleshooting. This to a certain extent makes Toyota, the world’s number one automaker, difficult to pull away from its opponents in China, but is later surpassed by Nissan.

However, none of the Volkswagen's popularity is more likely to hit Toyota. The new Passat specializing in the former subsidiary Shanghai Volkswagen made Camry more and more resilient. In addition, the success of the company’s “Blue Drive” strategy is just as obvious as the stock market's fluctuations. The turbocharged engine that covers almost all models makes Toyota’s natural Aspirated engine looks mediocre.

After losing the fuel-efficient and durable halo, Toyota must find a new business model to achieve its "ambition to have a Toyota car" huge ambition, the Japanese tried to regain a game with its hybrid technology.

On the 22nd of this month, Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda arrived at the construction site of the Changshu R&D center in Jiangsu Province. This move to achieve hybrid localization is seen as an anti-God strategy for Toyota’s “Blue Drive” strategy. hit.

“We decided to strive to develop vehicles equipped with domestic hybrid powertrains during the “12th Five-Year Plan” and implement production and sales of FAW-Toyota and GAC Toyota around 2015,” said Toyoda.

The cost of temptation "My car in Japan is the Prius," said Matsuda Hideki, general manager of FAW Toyota Motor Co., "I believe the Prius will definitely make a difference in China!" But at the end of 2009 when Matsushita made this remark, the company went into production in 2005. The Prius quietly stopped production for delisting. Toyota executives just seemed to have no idea how to expand the sales of the Prius in China. Due to the high cost of imported parts assembly, they could not convince Chinese buyers to pay for the price of 300,000 yuan. During the four years of listing, this The eco-friendly model with the highest sales volume in Japan has sold less than 4,000 vehicles in China, less than one-half of local sales in a single month.

“Japan has the lowest birth rate in the world, and the actual situation is that the domestic market continues to shrink,” said Akihiko Kubo, president of Weber Shandwick’s Japan office providing consulting services to Japanese companies.

The appreciation of the yen also makes Toyota's domestic production unsustainable. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, 46% of the 61 large-scale manufacturing companies indicated that if the current appreciation of the yen continues for more than six months, the production and research and development bases will be transferred overseas.

Japanese analysts have concluded that Europeans have always been uninterested in driving hybrid or electric cars. Americans do not even buy GM-produced Chevrolet Volt. Russian oil reserves are abundant and there is no need to worry about energy, but Brazilian ethanol. With sufficient fuel supply, the driving force for increasing the global proportion of hybrid vehicles will depend on China and India.

It seems that the construction of an R&D center in China is a two-bird plan.

China has become the world's largest production base in the electronics field. Most electronic components can be purchased at low prices in China, and many high-level corrections are devoted to the development of electric technologies. It is also possible to easily recruit professionals whose cost is far lower than Japan's. The skeptics also believe that Toyota will please the Chinese government trying to share Toyota's new energy technology.

The mixed gaming industry believes that new energy vehicles will not become mainstream in the market for at least 20 years. Volkswagen has been trying to persuade the Chinese government to accept its introduction of leading diesel engine technology, while Toyota is looking forward to the early arrival of the energy crisis, looking at those relying on traditional fuels. Colleagues have become defeated and have invested heavily in hybrid vehicles.

"In the future, the shortage of oil supply has gradually begun to show up. The gap between supply and demand needs to be offset by alternative fuels such as electricity, and the effective use of oil resources to save fuel, and the use of alternative energy sources to get rid of oil, is very important for this two-pronged development." On the 21st of this month At the meeting of Toyota's new energy technology line held at the briefing session, the managing director of the company, Ji Guikuan, said that Toyota's hybrid technology will become the common core technology for future automotive products. In the company's view, hybrid power is the only correct solution before completely freeing itself from oil dependence.

Although the Volkswagen POLO equipped with a TDI diesel engine consumes only 3.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers, this technology route has been difficult to please the automotive consumer market outside Europe. They did not start a rechargeable hybrid vehicle project until 2007. Avoid excessively passive in the competition in this field.

Toyota's "Prius" has been on the market in 1997, and sales have started in more than 70 countries and regions in North America. As of July 31 this year, the Prius has sold 2.68 million vehicles worldwide. Including the Lexus brand, Toyota's hybrid models even exceeded 3 million. As long as there is a demand in the market, Toyota can match the power system of this gasoline engine with the motor for all strategic models.

Although Toyota was accused of lagging behind Nissan and Mitsubishi in the mass production of electric vehicles, for Toyota, which is known for its prudence, its power density and charging time are still not perfect, and charging facilities are not perfect. A wise business. Compared with the transition to the electric car era, the era of extended hybrid vehicles is more profitable.

"The hybrid model will be available in all models in 2020," said Abe Shinichi, director of control and development of the HV system at Toyota Motor's Second Technology Development Division, in a speech.