Reborn Tokyo Golden Age

"How do these two technologies, boxer engines and full-time four-wheel drive systems, perform in the market?"

"Subaru's two technologies have been well received by users, especially in the Great Lakes region of eastern North America, where Subaru's brand awareness is widely spread."

“How are global markets doing?”

"Uh" Nakamura Takao was a little stuck, "Subaru's market performance is much worse than Toyota and Nissan, but its potential is worth looking forward to."

Of course, Subaru's global market is difficult to describe. It can only be said that it is the last one among the eight neon automakers and is a proper niche car.

Whether it is horizontally opposed or full-time four-wheel drive, the design and production process of each part have very stringent requirements.

Their manufacturing costs are much higher than common in-line or V-type engines, as well as two-wheel drive vehicles.

At the same time, high-precision manufacturing requirements also bring higher maintenance costs. In addition, their compact layout on the body makes maintenance more difficult.

Therefore, the advantages of these two technologies are obvious, but of course there are also disadvantages, that is, they are not suitable for mass-market car manufacturers to adopt this technology.

Shirakawa Kaede probably knows the problems Subaru is facing now, but we will talk about these later.

"Nakamura-san, please go ahead. The more detailed information about Subaru the better."

After personally experiencing it in a Subaru four-wheel drive, Shirakawa Kaede feels that Subaru's design is actually okay for the current era.

"Hai" got his permission, and Takao Nakamura continued to introduce Subaru's technology.

“In addition to the above two technologies, Subaru’s safety design is also unique.

The high-strength ring frame can protect the safety of passengers to the greatest extent in the event of a collision. "

In the exhibition hall, there was a Subaru model with only the frame retained. Based on it, Takao Nakamura also introduced the advantages of this safety design to Shirakawa Kaede.

This annular structure disperses the shock of collision to various directions, avoiding the deformation of the car caused by inconsistent force transmission routes of ordinary frames.

After this introduction of mechanical design concepts, Subaru left a very special impression on Shirakawa Kaede.

It is probably the Japanese car that is least like a Japanese car among Neon car companies.

Handling, power, and safety are not the characteristics of ordinary thin-skinned Japanese cars.

At the same time, from the perspective of the technology market, these three technologies are also Subaru's three pillars, and they are the only things worthy of praise.

Gee, that’s interesting.

"In addition to continuing to deepen its existing advantageous technologies, Subaru is also developing the latest generation of assisted driving systems ADA (Active Driving Assist)."

"Wait, assisted driving system?" Bai Chuanfeng thought he heard wrongly. This thing is available now?

"Hai" Takao Nakamura nodded, "ADA is an anti-collision system designed based on safety.

This system combines ABS technology and body active protection technology to form a VDC control system.

With it, the car can automatically identify the distance, shape, moving speed of the object ahead, etc., and prompt the driver to brake the vehicle at the appropriate time.

This involves cutting-edge technologies such as millimeter wave radar, lidar, monocular cameras, and binocular cameras, which are still in the development stage. "

This explanation from Takao Nakamura feels a bit like opening up a new world for Shirakawa Kaede.

It turns out that they had already started researching the assisted driving systems commonly used in cars in later generations in the late 1980s.

"If you need support on the chip, you can contact TSIC. For software support, you can contact SSM."

I dare not say anything else, but in terms of professional auxiliary chip design, TSIC is definitely Neon's Namba Wen.

The same goes for SSM, which was split from HAL. They focus on the development of various software tools, and have now slowly become the leader in the field of Neon professional software.

"Hai!" Takao Nakamura, who was standing next to him, heard the news and rubbed his hands in excitement.

Having a technical background, of course he knew the names of TSIC and SSM, which were the professional technology companies he had always coveted.

However, due to the huge losses of Fuji Heavy Industries, they had no chance to cooperate with the two.

Now Shirakawa Kaede has taken the initiative to provide Subaru with corresponding technical support and improve the assisted driving system as soon as possible.

Hearing this news, Takao Nakamura was of course happy. Someone gave him a pillow as soon as he fell asleep.

Tsk, Bai Chuanfeng Holdings's thigh is right.

Takao Nakamura, who was feeling a little excited, began to introduce another cutting-edge research by Subaru.

“In addition to traditional fuel vehicles, Subaru also developed pure electric vehicles (EV) in the 1970s.

At that time, Tokyo also held an auto show specifically for electric vehicles, and Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and Mazda all competed for this.

However, due to technical limitations, pure electric models have remained at the concept prototype stage.

Subaru also participated in the design at the time, and it still retains the original technology development progress. "

The concept of electric vehicles has actually been around for a long time, and Neon had a development competition for this in the 1960s and 1970s.

Even in China, the concept of electric vehicles has long appeared. In the original handwritten letter of a certain boss, he suggested that the country should deploy the electric vehicle field as soon as possible.

It's just that although there are ideas, it is still too difficult to actually commercialize it with current technology.

Shirakawa Kaede also saw the EV electric car designed by Subaru at the scene. Not to mention the bloated shape, they cannot be called pure electric cars.

This is more like a crude oil-to-electricity conversion, but this is not their fault, because the hardware limits the implementation of the technology.

However, although current EV electric vehicles are not realistic, some necessary technical reserves cannot be left behind.

“Shirakawa Battery’s research institute in Tohoku is conducting research on lithium battery technology.

Subaru can cooperate with them in researching the EV electric vehicles here. It does not need to be aimed at mass production. It just needs to maintain the continuous accumulation of technology. "

Bai Chuanfeng didn't expect that he could change his destiny and commercialize electric vehicles decades in advance. That was unrealistic.

But necessary technical accumulation is needed, even if you spend a little more money, it doesn't matter.

When he heard that Shirakawa Holdings was also developing lithium battery technology, Nakamura Takao was even more impressed by his boss.

Awesome, these are cutting-edge technologies.

It seems that Shirakawa Holdings pays more attention to technology development than outsiders think, but this is definitely good news for Subaru.

After looking at civilian cars, Nakamura Takao also introduced car types in other fields to Shirakawa Kaede and others.

Yes, in addition to civilian cars, Subaru also has other model businesses.

For example, two-wheeled motorcycles, light three-wheelers, buses and other niche vehicles, but there is not much left in this part of the business.

In addition, Subaru is also involved in special vehicles.

JR, private railways, and national railways use a large number of railway vehicles from Subaru.

Diesel locomotives, trams, freight cars, special operation vehicles, and large rail trains were all part of Fuji Heavy Industries' business in the past.

Not to mention that this surprised Shirakawa Kaede. It turns out that in addition to cars, Subaru's business scope is so wide.

If the previous car models surprised Shirakawa Kaede, then when he saw the products of the aircraft division, he was shocked.

Well, most of those aircraft are out of the civilian category. There are many models, ranging from ancient aircraft to modern aircraft.

I can’t tell you the details~

In fact, Shirakawa Kaede is also quite conflicted about the aircraft division. On the one hand, he only wants Subaru to focus on the civilian automobile field, but on the other hand, he doesn't know whether to let go of the aircraft division.

But when it comes to the Ministry of Defense, I'm afraid there are some things that he can't make the decision alone.

Forget it, let things take their own course in advance. If something unexpected happens in the future, it’s not too late to make plans then.

Today I was at Subaru's headquarters to get a general idea of ​​the situation here. As for the main engine plants, they are all in Gunma Prefecture. Shirakawa Kaede and the others must have been too late to see them this time.

According to Takao Nakamura, there is also a main engine plant in North Misbaru, mainly serving the local market.

After roughly understanding the situation, Shirakawa Kaede already had concerns about Subaru.

"Nakamura-san, everyone, we might as well discuss Subaru's follow-up plans together."

"Hai" everyone agreed in unison, and at the same time, their faces became much more serious.

Isn't it because they worked so hard to introduce Subaru's various technical advantages just now to win the favor of Shirakawa Kaede and then have more resources?

After a large group of people visited the headquarters, they all began to walk to the conference room upstairs.

There, it was time to decide the future fate of Subaru.

"Nakamura, everyone already knows about Sansebaru, so now let's talk about its market, shall we?"

When there is a business crisis, the first thing to do is of course market analysis.

Only by finding the crux of the problem can we create corresponding solutions.

Speaking of this topic, Nakamura Takao's expression also became serious.

“Subaru currently has three main consumer-grade models on sale, namely LEONE, Domingo and ALCYONE.

The LEONE series is positioned in the mid-range. Full-time four-wheel drive and horizontally opposed systems are used in this series, and they also have a large audience in Neon.

Domingo is a K-CAR, a type of light van. It is designed to be lightweight, economical and simple.

The last ALCYONE (Alcyone) was developed specifically for the high-end market. It was Subaru's first two-door coupe and Subaru's first model exported overseas.

In addition to the ALCYONE (Alcyone), the other two car series above were updated in the 1980s and corresponding versions were also sold overseas.

In addition, there are also extended versions of them, such as off-road versions, travel versions, etc., which are also on sale. "

Strictly speaking, Subaru actually only has these three models on sale at this time, and most of the other original old models have been discontinued.

There is no doubt that for a car company, the three models on sale are a bit too few.

This may be one of the reasons why Subaru is relatively niche. The market itself is limited and there are relatively few options, which is equivalent to a two-way restriction.

However, Subaru's real business crisis is not here, but in its previous market positioning.

“Because we adhere to the full-time four-wheel drive and horizontally opposed routes, Subaru models have been warmly welcomed in the North American market due to their good maneuverability.

Since the 1980s, the sales volume and revenue in the Beimi market have far exceeded that of Neon. Later, the club simply focused on the Beimi market and began to conduct targeted operations.

However, since the appreciation of the yen, Subaru's overseas sales have plummeted. Especially after 1986, the North American market lost almost 60% of its market share. "

Speaking of the disaster caused by the appreciation of the yen, Takao Nakamura also looked sad.

I think Subaru had its glory days back then, but the changes came so fast that the former Fuji Heavy Industries was completely caught off guard.

The consumer model with the largest profits and sales has suffered a waterloo, and Subaru's losses are almost certain.

After understanding the situation Subaru was facing now, Shirakawa Kaede also had a general idea in his mind.