Japanese Carmakers See Next Few Years as Fight for Survival in China

livemint.com:

hybrid cars ahead of schedule in China, Uchida said. The competitiveness of this new lineup “will be the determinant of our survival," he said, adding that 2024 is the year Nissan will be carefully monitoring. Honda Motor’s finance head, Masaharu Hirose, said on Wednesday that competition in the Chinese electrified-vehicle market was making it more difficult for Honda to achieve its previously announced goal of selling 1.4 million vehicles in the country this year.

It still aims to meet the target through measures such as incentives, he said. In the first half of this year, Mazda Motor sold roughly half the number of vehicles in China that it sold in the same period last year. This week, Mazda said that looking toward 2025, it would work to expand its electrified-vehicle lineup in China.

The intent isn’t to withdraw and “we are taking urgent action to recover," Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Guyton said. Mitsubishi Motors said last month it had suspended production at its joint-venture business in China, in response to sluggish sales. Japanese automakers, like other foreign car brands, had thrived in China for decades as it whizzed past the U.S.

to become the world’s biggest car market by vehicle sales. Today, overall demand for cars in the country has peaked, and the remaining area of growth—battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles—is dominated by local manufacturers such as BYD. This year, analysts expect Chinese brands to surpass foreign brands in their share of the overall domestic market for the first time in decades.