This chess board is the largest and most rolling automobile market in china. The chess players are three japanese giants: toyota, japanese and honda. Their rivals, not only each other, but also the chinese autonomous brand corps, represented by biadi, with a market share of over 60 per cent. The core chips of the chess game have moved from the traditional engines, gearboxes to electric iterative speed, intelligent experience and cost control capabilities。
The japanese car used to hold a good game, peaking at 23 per cent in china. Today, however, the chess board has turned upside down: in march 2026, the total daily share fell to 9. 8 per cent, with only 6. 7 per cent of new energy penetration, while china’s brand of new energy penetration has exceeded 55 per cent. This game of chess, the three chess players walked out of a very different path。
Toyota's chess road: full localization, chinese rules
Toyota is the most stable player in the current situation. In 2025, 1. 78 million of them were sold in china, the only positive-growth brand among the three branches of japan, and even in march 2026, when 635 of them had a weak advantage over the old rivals. Its core strategy is not “maintenance”, but “integration”。
The chief engineer of china has full process decision-making power from product definition to supplier selection。
Toyota’s real intentions: to look at it as a cost-cutting, market-adapted place, and to use the chinese battlefield as an incubator for its global transformation. It is a bet that re-engineering competitiveness with chinese supply chains and r & d rates will not only survive in china, but may also feed the global market in the future。
The chess path of japanese production: the outbreak of the product, the capture of the share by “new forces”
Japanese is a fast-tracking chess player. After seven consecutive years of declining sales, it grew by 7. 2 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, showing signs of recovery. It's more direct: to open up with a blast。
This is simply a way for china's new powers to “settle and price their own people”。
Japan's intentions are deconstructed: this is a classic “war-breaker”. Rapidly attracting market attention and orders through a very competitive vehicle model is designed to quickly stop the bleeding and revive channel confidence. The strategy is to move forward on product definition and pricing in the chinese market, moving to a successful, autonomous brand, until it survives。
Honda's chess game: strategic contraction, looking for a new board to survive
Honda is the most passive chess player in the current situation. In 2025, only 645,000 vehicles were sold in china, a sharp decline of 24. 3 per cent over the same period, and a net annual loss of 42-69 billion yen is expected to be recorded for the first time since 1957 in the 2025 fiscal year. Its plight stems from a series of miscalculations。
Its new energy products are referred to as “using chinese supply chains to sell import prices” and losing competitiveness。
Honda's intentions are clear: after examining china's supply chain, the president of the three departments, min hong, said that competition with chinese cars was “unwinnerable”. The real intention is, therefore, to move strategically away from the positive side of china’s electric car market, towards emerging markets that can take advantage of their cost advantages and brand's remaining temperature, and to focus on hybrid technologies that still have room for profit。
Game final: the winner is time and judgment
This game has now become clear。
The deep logic of the chess game is that competition rules in the automobile industry have been redefined by the chinese market and local firms. It is no longer a hundred-year-old engine technology, but an iterative speed of software in “months” or even “weeks”, ecological capacity linked directly to consumers, and efficiency of supply chain integration under extremely cost-controlled controls. Whoever accepts and adapts to this new rule will be able to continue on this board。
Toyota and japanese are trying to adapt, and honda seems to be ready to leave this board for a different game。
