Nissan Going To Extremes To Lure Youth Back To Cars
2008年02月29日11:50
在年轻人云集的东京原宿，日产汽车(Nissan Motor Co.)的11名设计师梦想着能够开发出能够侧向驾驶，装备着会说话的机器人的轿车，以及另一种具有运动酒吧风格的轿车。日本年轻人对汽车的兴趣正在失去，而他们则在努力赢得世界上这批最铁石心肠的客户的芳心。
In the teenager-teeming Harajuku neighborhood here, 11 designers at Nissan Motor Co. have dreamed up a car that drives sideways and comes equipped with a talking robot and another that evokes the atmosphere of a sports bar. They are trying to woo some of the world's toughest customers: young Japanese, who have fallen out of love with the automobile.
日产负责设计下一代汽车的一个部门的主管弗朗索瓦?培根(Francois Bancon)说，为了吸引未来一代的驾车者，我们需要努力工作。这些人发现他们很难喜欢上轿车了。
'We are going to have to work hard to attract future generations of drivers -- people who find it difficult to love the car,' says Francois Bancon, who heads a Nissan division charged with designing next-generation automobiles.
日产Pivo 2概念车日产所试图解决的问题也同样困扰着所有日本汽车厂家。尽管他们的销售量在美国和其它海外市场快速增长，但国内的销售却持续下滑。2007年日本汽车厂家的国内销售量接近300万辆，比1990年的高点下跌了31%，而同期的出口量则增长了30%，至580万辆。
Nissan is tackling a problem common to all of Japan's big auto makers. While their sales are rapidly expanding in the U.S. and other overseas markets, sales back home continue to slide. Since the peak in 1990, Japanese car makers' domestic sales have dropped 31% to nearly three million automobiles in 2007, even as their exports rose 30% to 5.8 million vehicles.
其中的理由包括汽油价格高涨和日本的人口老龄化现象。但更让日本汽车制造商担忧的是，有迹象显示这种下滑是日本年轻消费者爱好发生重大变化的组成部分。
Reasons include higher gasoline prices and Japan's graying population. But even more worrying to the auto makers are signs that the downturn is part of a deeper generational shift among young Japanese consumers.
根据日本汽车工业协会(Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association)和日产汽车进行的市场研究，同将汽车视为自由象征和较高社会地位的父辈不同，如今痴迷互联网的日本年轻人对汽车的感情非常冷漠。伴随着互联网成长的他们不再需要依靠汽车购物、娱乐和社交，而是宁愿将钱花到其他方面。
Unlike their parents' generation, which viewed cars as the passport to freedom and higher social status, the Internet-connected Japanese youth today look to cars with indifference, according to market research by the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association, or JAMA, and Nissan. Having grown up with the Internet, they no longer depend on a car for shopping, entertainment and socializing and prefer to spend their money in other ways.
日本最大的商业报纸《日本经济新闻》(Nihon Keizai Shimbun)去年对1,700名年龄在20至30岁之间的日本人进行的调查发现，这个年龄段中只有25%的日本男性想拥有一辆汽车，低于2000年时的48%。JAMA发现，2005年18至29岁年龄段的日本男性占日本全部驾车者的比例为11%，约为1993年所占比例的一半。
A survey last year of 1,700 Japanese in their 20s and 30s by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan's biggest business newspaper, discovered that only 25% of Japanese men in their 20s wanted a car, down from 48% in 2000. JAMA found that men between the ages of 18 and 29 made up 11% of Japanese drivers in 2005, roughly half the size of that group in 1993.
原宿街头到处都是Kazuto Matsui这样的消费者。这位头发蓬乱的20岁的学生说，年轻人能借父母的车，我认为他们更愿意将钱花到电脑和iPod上面。Matsui还没有驾照，也不急于获得驾照。尽管他说有一天可能会想要辆汽车，但现在轨道交通就够了。
The streets of Harajuku are filled with consumers such as Kazuto Matsui. 'Young people can borrow their parents' car, and I think they'd rather spend money on PCs or iPods than cars,' says the 20-year-old student with shaggy hair who doesn't have a driver's license and is in no rush to get one. While Mr. Matsui says he may want a car some day, 'trains will do' for now.
培根说，日产的设计人员4年前曾对日本、美国、欧洲和中国16至20岁之间的年轻人进行过调查，希望了解轿车与他们生活的关系。出乎他们意料的是，他们发现全球各地许多年轻人都认为汽车没有必要，也不够酷，原因是汽车会污染环境，造成拥堵。这种观念在日本尤其强烈，日本的电脑和互联网已经普及，公共交通可靠且价格低廉，使得这里的汽车制造商面对的困难要超过其他地区的同行。
Nissan designers conducted interviews four years ago with 16-to-20-year-olds in Japan, the U.S., Europe and China to grasp how cars might fit into their lives. To their surprise, they discovered that many youths world-wide felt that cars were unnecessary and even uncool because they pollute and cause congestion, Mr. Bancon says. The feeling was particularly strong in Tokyo, where computers and Internet access are widely available and where mass transit is inexpensive and reliable -- which makes the auto makers' predicament worse here than in many other parts of the world.
汽车制造商发起了一系列的营销活动，希望吸引日本的青年男女，但远未到大获成功的程度。丰田汽车(Toyota Motor Corp.)去年秋季在东京港区推出了该公司车辆的公众试驾活动，计划今年还举办类似活动。该公司还希望通过www.gazoo.com网站推出的“驾驶一日”视频下载活动拉近同痴迷电脑的年轻一代日本人的距离。这些视频让观众以驾驶员的视角与一位年青的日本女模特共度一天，一起驾驶丰田车郊游，泡温泉、参观神社，并一起在景色秀丽的道路上畅游。
Auto makers are coming up with an array of marketing efforts to appeal to young Japanese men and women but have seen limited success. Toyota Motor Corp. sponsored a public test drive of its vehicles on the Tokyo waterfront last fall and plans similar events this year. The company is also trying to connect with the computer-savvy generation through its Web site www.gazoo.com, by featuring 'drive date' video downloads. Filmed from the perspective of a driver, the videos allow viewers to experience a day drive with a young, female Japanese model as they tour the countryside together in a Toyota car, relaxing at spas, visiting shrines and driving along scenic, congestion-free roads.
日产推出了形似盒子的Cube小型轿车，并通过日本乐队进行宣传，以吸引年轻驾车者。本田汽车 (Honda Motor Co.)则将赌注放在了运动型微型客车Edix上，这款2004年推出的轿车带有独特的V型座椅，在前排提供了能乘坐3人的空间。其构想是将乘客压缩到前排座椅中，这样后排就能腾出更多空间可以放下自行车和冲浪板等物品。不过这款车的销售一直不温不火。
Nissan launched the box-like Cube compact car, which it promoted through Japanese music bands to lure young drivers. Honda Motor Co. is betting on the Edix, a sporty minivan with a unique V-pattern seat arrangement that provides space for three passengers up front that it introduced in 2004. The idea is to squeeze the passengers into the front seat of the car so there is more space in the back for things like bicycles and surfboards. Sales have been modest.
去年日本全尺寸新车的销售降至35年来的最低水平。2008财政年度的情况也难有好转。一贯以作出非常保守销售预期而闻名的丰田和本田双双下调了截至3月31日财年的日本销售预期。日产本财年前9个月在日本的销量较上年同期下跌了3.8%。
Sales of new full-size automobiles in Japan dropped to their lowest level in 35 years in calendar 2007. Fiscal 2008 isn't looking any better. Toyota and Honda, known for making extremely conservative sales estimates, both revised downward their Japanese sales outlooks for the fiscal year ending March 31. Nissan's Japanese sales are down 3.8% for the first nine months of this fiscal year from the year-earlier period.
日产急于解读日本年轻司机心中的真实想法，该公司的许多研究都是在1987年开张的Creative Box设计室中完成的。这个设计室位于原宿，这里能够激发设计人员对所有车型的灵感和创意。随着国内销量的下滑，Creative Box最近已越来越重视年轻司机。远离日产公司总部的束缚，设计人员能够自由支配时间，在充斥身着“非主流”服装的少女、街头乐队和搞怪情趣用品商店的街道上漫步。
Much of the research by Nissan, which is keen to decipher young Japanese drivers, is done at its 'Creative Box,' a design studio that opened in 1987 in Harajuku as a place to inspire creativity among its designers for all car models. As domestic sales have slumped, the Creative Box recently has focused more on young drivers. Far from the constraints of Nissan's corporate headquarters, designers set their own hours and stroll through the streets, home to wildly dressed Gothic Lolita girls, street bands and a novelty condom shop.
尽管吸引年轻人的难度不小，但日产的设计人员还是确定了在特定场合下会考虑拥有轿车的两个潜在目标群体，即喜欢上下班时驾驶环保型小轿车的众多城市年轻女性，以及想要有车参加聚会的众多日本年轻男性。日产在去年秋季的东京汽车展上推出了两款概念车，公司认为这能够满足他们的需求。
Despite the high bar of appealing to the young, the Nissan designers identified two potential target groups who could consider having a car for special occasions. They were the many young urban women who desire a small, eco-friendly vehicle for city commuting and the many young men who desire a car that lets them hang out together. The company unveiled two concept cars at the Tokyo motor show last fall that it believes meets their needs.
日产表示，公司了解到如果年轻女性能够拥有便于停车和减少在城市驾车紧张压力的轿车的话，她们会更乐于开车。因此日产设计了一款三个座位的电动轿车，带有象泡泡一样的旋转驾驶室，能够侧向驾驶，轻松地驶入停车位。这款名为Pivo 2的概念车在仪表盘上还安装了带有两个眼睛的头状“机器人”，能够以镇定的声音提供驾驶方位和指南，这有助于缓解司机的紧张感。
Nissan says it learned that young women might like driving better if they had a car that was easy to park and removed the stress of city driving. So it designed a three-seat electric car, with a bubble-like rotating cabin, capable of driving sideways to slip easily into a parking space. The car, called Pivo 2, also has a 'Robotic Agent' shaped like a head with two eyes that is mounted on the dashboard and provides driving directions and companionship in a soothing voice, supposedly reducing a driver's stress.
日产的调查显示，年轻男性不需要上下班用的轿车，而是想有一辆能与朋友一起聚会的轿车。因此该公司推出了一款敞篷小型概念车，活泼的内部空间使其具有运动酒吧的感觉，并且带有能够集体使用的电子设备。这款名为Round Box的轿车带有一个交互式的大触摸屏，前排和后排的司机及乘客都能使用。比如，通过车载导航系统，乘客能够搜索到餐馆，然后把行驶方向发送到司机的显示屏上。
Nissan's surveys showed that young men don't require a car for commuting but may want one for hanging out with friends. So Nissan came up with a compact convertible concept car with an interior inspired by the lively feeling of a sports bar, with gadgets meant to be used in a group. The car, called Round Box, features a large touch-screen, interactive display that the driver and the passengers in the front and rear seats can all use. With the car's navigation system, for example, passengers can search for a restaurant and then send the directions to it to the driver's display.
培根说，Round Box的主要目的不是从甲地到乙地，而是为司机和乘客提供一个社交空间。这位长着络腮胡的56岁的法国人称，这款车就是用来聚会的。1999年培根跟随日产首席执行长卡洛斯?戈恩(Carlos Ghosn)来到了东京。
Mr. Bancon says the Round Box's main purpose isn't to get from point A to point B but is to provide a social space for the driver and passengers. 'It doesn't convey status except the status of being together,' says the 56-year-old bearded Frenchman, who came to Tokyo in 1999 with Nissan's chief executive, Carlos Ghosn.
日产尚未计划近期大批量生产这两款车。但培根坚持认为，汽车业要想生存就可能需要在未来生产这样的汽车。
Nissan doesn't have plans to put either car into mass production anytime soon. Still, Mr. Bancon insists that for the auto industry to survive, it will likely need to produce cars like these.
他说，我们处在新世纪之中，有相当一部分人想要得到与汽车不同的东西。
'We are in a new era,' he says. 'There is a huge population who are expecting something different from the car.'
John Murphy
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