Compared with the 170,000-yuan Land Rover, the 90,000-yuan Corolla is the deafening death knell for joint venture car companies.

In this unprecedented wave of transformation in the Chinese automobile market, the "discounted price" of 89,000 yuan for the FAW Toyota Corolla and the 169,800 yuan for the Jaguar Land Rover Discovery Sport, two seemingly parallel price adjustments, actually point to a cruel reality: the survival foundation of joint venture car companies is collapsing, and the death knell has been sounded.

However, compared with the collapse of Land Rover, the price reduction of Corolla is more symbolic - it tears apart the price system and market logic on which joint venture brands rely for survival, while Land Rover's predicament is more like a long-destined defeat.

The price of Jaguar Land Rover's domestically produced models has dropped to 170,000 yuan, which appears to be a decline in the luxury brand, but in fact reflects a deeper crisis.

Chery Jaguar Land Rover is lagging behind in the overall transformation to electrification. Its models on sale are still mainly fuel vehicles, and there are only some "oil-to-electric" products in the new energy field. In comparison, although BBA has performed mediocrely in the electrification track, it has at least completed its product layout, while Land Rover has not even got an "entry ticket".

As the brand value collapsed, distributors also cut prices frantically to survive, resulting in a market consensus of "70% off" and the brand premium disappearing. At the same time, the hot sales of imported models such as Defender and Range Rover further highlighted the embarrassment of joint venture production - localization not only failed to reduce costs, but also became a negative asset that dragged down the brand image.

If Land Rover's tragedy is due to insufficient product strength during the transformation period, then the retreat of Corolla, the king of family sedans in the world, in the Chinese market has more realistic reference significance.

As the world's best-selling single model, Corolla was once synonymous with "affordability" in the era of fuel vehicles. Its price dropped from 150,000 yuan at its peak to 80,000 yuan, which not only meant that Toyota was forced to give up its profit moat, but also exposed that the low-end market on which joint venture brands rely for survival is being completely conquered by domestic brands.

When BYD's fifth-generation DM-i technology reduced fuel consumption to 2.9L/100km and its comprehensive range exceeded 2,100km, but its price was comparable to that of Corolla, this technological gap directly undermined the traditional advantages of Japanese cars in terms of fuel efficiency and durability. What's more fatal is that the intelligent configuration of self-owned brand hybrid models, such as L2-level assisted driving and digital cockpit, has become standard, while joint venture models are still at the primitive stage of relying entirely on radio for entertainment.

The Corolla's price system has been forced to drop, which is also the reason for the end of the myth of fuel car value retention rate. Japanese cars once built consumer trust with high value retention rate, but the price of new cars was cut in half, which led to the collapse of the residual value system of used cars. When consumers realized the cruel reality of "buying a new car for 80,000 today and selling it for 50,000 tomorrow", the last psychological defense line of joint venture brands also collapsed.

For Chinese consumers, the predicaments of Corolla and Land Rover have different meanings, but their outcomes are the same. They both point to the structural flaws of the joint venture model.

Joint venture automakers have long relied on foreign technology input and have little reserve in the fields of electrification and intelligence. Toyota hastily launched the bZ series until 2023, and the bZ3, which uses BYD's three-electric system, has less than a fraction of BYD's models of the same level due to its outdated design and pricing errors.

The "twin models" strategy of Toyota North and South, which Toyota was once proud of, has now become a huge historical burden. For example, the competition between Corolla and Levin has led to serious internal friction between the brands, directly causing the combined sales of the two to plummet from 480,000 in 2018 to 128,000 last year. This approach of sacrificing market efficiency to balance the interests of joint venture partners is clumsy in the face of the flexible product iteration of independent brands.

When the business model of "using joint ventures to support independent businesses" becomes unsustainable, the blood-making capacity of the entire system has been exhausted. Some companies have begun to struggle to survive, but the path to transformation is full of thorns.

The 90,000 yuan Corolla and the 170,000 yuan Land Rover are the two most different stories of joint venture automakers. The former represents the collapse of the mainstream market defense line, while the latter symbolizes the loss of premium power. More seriously, this crisis is by no means a cyclical adjustment, but the prelude to the complete reconstruction of the power structure of China's auto industry. When independent brands have established generational advantages in hybrid technology, smart cockpits, and supply chain costs, the death knell of joint venture automakers is no longer ringing for a certain brand, but the end of an old era.