In the past two years, everyone has been boasting as if Chinese cars have already conquered the world without any rivals. The question arises, are fuel-powered cars really out of the game? Are Japanese cars really out of the game? Can we really defeat Toyota cars at any moment?

A car sales list in May came as a big surprise, which could be considered a disaster for the famous Toyota. However, the truth behind it shows that Chinese cars are not easy.

30 years ago, a popular advertisement for Toyota cars, "There must be a road when the car arrives at the mountain, and there must be a Toyota car on the road," impressed countless people in China. You have to say that Toyota really understands China.

Since then, Toyota's sales in China have been skyrocketing. At its peak, many models of Toyota had to be purchased at a premium.

In 2021, Toyota sold as many as 1.944 million cars in the Chinese market, setting a record high.

From then on, under the pressure of the rapid growth of Chinese cars, Toyota began to decline in China. However, in 2023, it still won the championship of Japanese car sales with 1.701 million cars.

In the first quarter of 2024, Toyota only sold 374,000 cars in the Chinese market, a year-on-year decrease of 1.6%, far behind its biggest competitor in China, BYD.

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If this continues, Toyota's sales in China this year are likely to decline further.

As expected, Toyota's car sales continued to decline in the second quarter, and a sales list in May directly revealed Toyota's predicament.

In the recently released list of car sales in the Chinese market in May, only the Sylphy ranked 3rd among the top 10, and there was no Toyota car among the top 20, which was very rare in the past!In fact, as the world's largest automaker, Toyota Motor Corporation still achieved a global sales volume of 11.2 million vehicles in 2023, representing a year-on-year increase of 7.2%; its revenue was $249.2 billion, with a net profit of $34.197 billion.

This performance is enough to significantly outpace its main global competitors.

However, 2023 might have been its last moment of glory, as Toyota began to show signs of decline in 2024.

In the first quarter of 2024, Toyota sold 2.4 million new vehicles, with a year-on-year increase of only 0.1%, which is quite a subtle performance.

You might think that the sales volume of a single quarter is not enough to indicate the trend for the entire year, but in April, Toyota's global sales dipped again.

In that month, Toyota's global production was 756,254 vehicles, a decrease of 4% year-on-year; global sales also slightly decreased to 797,097 vehicles, both figures being below the levels of the same period last year for three consecutive months.

Under pressure, Toyota also started a major discount promotion mode.

On June 18th, an official WeChat message from FAW Toyota announced that the price of the Corolla has been reduced to a starting price of 79,800 yuan, with a discount of up to 43,000 yuan.

Those familiar with the Corolla know just how affordable the price of 79,800 yuan is.

The Toyota Corolla was once known as a divine car, unbeatable in the Chinese market among its peers, and now it has fallen to this level, which is quite lamentable. Many people might regret having bought it at a loss in the past couple of years.So, what do the challenges that Toyota faces today indicate? We can at least summarize three points.

Firstly, while we cannot be arrogant enough to claim that we can defeat Toyota tomorrow, with the collective rise of Chinese automobiles, the Chinese market is no longer easy to navigate, and even Toyota must face tremendous competitive pressure. The Corolla is the best example; it has fallen into the most fiercely competitive market segment.

Secondly, in today's global automotive market, there is only a way out by accelerating the transition to new energy. In fact, on the path to new energy, Toyota has started earlier and moved faster than any other car manufacturer. Toyota was the first car manufacturer in the world to mass-produce hybrid models and is still the king of global hybrid models. In the fiscal year of 2024 (from April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024), Toyota's hybrid model sales reached 3.743 million units, accounting for 33.4% of total sales, a figure even higher than BYD's total sales last year. However, Toyota's electric vehicle sales were only 117,000 units, accounting for less than 1% of total sales. It is evident that Toyota has been continuously making efforts on the hybrid route and has achieved remarkable results, but it has greatly underestimated electrification, which may have a lot to do with their insistence on hydrogen energy.

Thirdly, in the era of new energy vehicles, electrification may not necessarily be the end point, but the route of oil-to-electric conversion is unlikely to have a way out; more importantly, comprehensive intelligence is a direction and way out that has been firmly established.At present, Toyota Motor Corporation still needs to continuously invest in areas such as smart cockpits and intelligent driving. This largest global automaker is indeed more conservative on the path to electrification and intelligence.

However, Toyota Motor Corporation is definitely a formidable opponent that should not be underestimated.

Compared to the century-old car manufacturers in the United States and Europe, Toyota is a car giant that has risen in the last 30 years.

Precisely because it has risen recently, its business philosophy is not outdated, making it our strongest opponent.

In summary, in the past 30 years, Toyota has been a monument in the Chinese automotive industry. In the next 30 years, it has become the target we need to strive to surpass.