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This is not the first time a Japanese carmaker has imported from China and sold it to the Japanese market. It is reported that the new Honda Accord will be imported into the Japanese market as a reverse import car, and this time it will only provide a plug-in hybrid version of e:HEV, which is divided into two appearance styles: Touring Line and Sports Line.

As a classic Honda car, Accord has a history of 38 years. In 1994, the fifth generation Honda Accord came to China by way of import. in order to meet the needs of domestic consumers, the domestic Accord model also added a special model with 2.2L engine and leather seats.

On July 1, 1998, Guangzhou Automobile Honda Automobile Co., Ltd. (formerly Guangzhou Honda Automobile Co., Ltd.) was formally established as a joint venture company jointly funded by Guangzhou Automobile Group and Honda Technology Research Industrial Co., Ltd., each holding 50% of the shares. The term of cooperation is 30 years. The following year, GAC Honda introduced the sixth generation Accord into domestic production, becoming the first domestic model under GAC Honda. The sixth generation Accord has been produced for three years. Up to now, Accord development has gone through ten update iterations. The 11th generation Accord was officially listed in China on May 20, 2023, launching a total of 7 models with fuel version and plug-in hybrid version, with a price range of 17.98-258800 yuan.

In terms of power, the fuel version will be equipped with a 1.5T engine with a maximum power of 192 horsepower and a maximum torque of 260Nm. The transmission system will match the CVT continuously variable transmission. The plug-in hybrid system will be composed of 2.0L engine and motor, including engine maximum power 109kW, motor maximum power 135kW, system maximum power 152kW, maximum torque 335Nm.

As a medium-sized car owned by Honda, Accord's competitors are Nissan Teana, Toyota Camry, Volkswagen Passat and other models, but since the launch of the new Accord, its sales performance has not been significant. Retail data show that Accord sold only 108376 vehicles from January to August in 2023, less than Camry and Passat, which sold 139841 and 112803, respectively.

In April this year, Guangzhou Auto Honda officially launched the vehicle export business, the first export model is the ODYSSEY. It is understood that this is the first time that Honda has imported new cars from China to the Japanese market for sale, and GAC Honda will also promote its export business to other countries in the future.

Affected by the epidemic, the global chip shortage and other factors, in order to control production costs, coupled with the gradual decline of consumer demand for cars and MPV models in the Japanese market, and to ensure profitability, Honda announced the closure of the Shirayama plant in Saitama Prefecture at the end of 2021, making Odyssey, Legend and Clarity models bid farewell to the Japanese market. However, after the suspension of Odyssey production in Japan, many consumers expressed a strong willingness to buy, so it began to spread that Honda plans to reverse introduce Odyssey from China into the Japanese market.

More and more Japanese models are out of production. In addition to Accord, Toyota Camry will stop production in Japan at the end of the year, and Nissan Altima (domestic Teana) and Versa (domestic Sunshine) will stop production in 2025. According to the survey, the main buyers of medium-sized cars in Japan are usually over 50 years old, the actual group is not large, and compared with SUV, cars are not an audience in the Japanese market.

Data show that China's car exports have surpassed Japan to become the world's largest, which also provides a new direction for joint venture car companies. On the one hand, the increase in China's car exports is due to the fact that manufacturers in Japan, Europe and the United States have been affected by chip shortages, resulting in disruption of the global supply chain and problems on the supply side. On the other hand, Chinese independent brands speed up the layout of overseas, as well as the accelerated development of new energy vehicles, the development pressure of Japanese car companies is also increasing.

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