Sales at Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. showed no signs of recovery in April despite a strong rebound in the overall Chinese car market from a year earlier.
Nissan sales dipped 1.5 percent to 61,313 last month while Honda deliveries were flat at 94,879, according to numbers released by the China offices of the two major Japanese automakers this week.
Through April, Nissan and Honda both saw China sales plunge 30 percent from a year earlier. Nissan and Honda delivered 223,274 vehicles and 315,245 vehicles in China in the first four months of 2023, respectively.
In contrast to the sales slump at Nissan and Honda, new-vehicle deliveries in China rebounded 56 percent to 1.63 million in April, with year-to-date volume sliding 1.3 percent to 5.9 million, according to the China Automobile Dealers Association.
With the Chinese market fast pivoting to full electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, Nissan and Honda plan to accelerate the introduction of electrified vehicles.
Nissan will launch seven electrified-vehicle models by 2026, Shohei Yamazaki, chairman of Nissan’s China management committee, said in a statement on Tuesday, without identifying the models.
Honda sells two plug-in hybrid products – plug-in variants of the Breeze and CR-V crossovers – in China.
At the Shanghai auto show last month, the Japanese brand said it would begin sales of two additional e:N series electric models, the e:NP2 and e:NS2 crossovers, in China in early 2024.
Honda’s first two e:N products, the e:NP1 and e:NS1 crossovers, went on sale in China in the second quarter of 2022.
