Whenever a brand with the banner of new energy vehicles is released, someone will always question their souls: "Does the Chinese market still need a new brand today?"; Sailin's farce, Byton The crisis and PPT car manufacturing originator Jia Yueting announced personal bankruptcy and reorganization. For Chinese consumers, it can be said that it is absolutely unnecessary. For car companies, especially Dongfeng Group, a long-established central enterprise, the answer given when facing soul torture is that it may not be too late to start now.
Why establish the Lantu brand?
Product improvement is an industry trend for every car brand. For example, Geely’s Lynk & Co, Chery’s Xingtu, Great Wall’s WEY, etc. For Dongfeng Group, especially its independent brands, there is an urgent need for a mid-to-high-end electric vehicle brand to open up the existing embarrassing situation and support the group's long-term development. At present, Dongfeng's own-brand passenger car business is indeed not very popular. A series of sub-brands such as Fengguang, Fengshen, Venucia and Fengxing have not shown obvious competitiveness in the competition with other independent brands. Without the support of mid-to-high-end brands, it is foreseeable that Dongfeng’s independent brand passenger car business will Be marginalized and even eventually delisted.
It was Dongfeng Motor's plan for the future that it decided to launch "Plan H" around the end of 2018, and then tapped talents from various sectors and outside the group to form a new team. By 2020, Dongfeng released its high-end new energy vehicle brand "Lantu" in Wuhan on July 17. ?The birth of Lantu announced that Dongfeng Motor has its own high-end car brand, which also shoulders the important responsibility of Dongfeng brand's upward development.
Landu is homophonic to "blueprint", which means beautiful plans and prospects; "Lan" is the breeze in the mountains, representing pure nature, "Tu" is a new plan, representing the blueprint for a better life; brand logo" Taking the shape of Kunpeng spreading its wings, the stretched wings symbolize strength and creativity, creating a blueprint for a better life. "
On the one hand, new energy is the country's strategic choice, and central enterprises have the obligation to actively respond to national policies. . On the other hand, the Lantu brand will be built into the "new strength" of China's new energy 3.0 era; it is an important strategic layout for Dongfeng Motor's development in the new fifty years, and it also accelerates Dongfeng Motor's new five-level layout.
Lantu is not starting from scratch
In fact, most state-owned car companies have their own new energy sectors. GAC has GAC New Energy, and Changan has Changan New Energy. Chery has Chery New Energy, and BAIC has BAIC New Energy. However, these companies can more or less only be regarded as a business segment of traditional car companies in the field of new energy. The "Lantu" brand created by Dongfeng Motor is different from traditional state-owned car companies, and it also has many "new car-making forces" "Strength that is not available.
Lantu has a management team with senior industry experience. The core management are: CEO and Chief Technology Officer Lu Fang, responsible for company strategy and development planning, product management and development, and procurement management; Chief Brand Officer Lei Xin, responsible for sales operations, brand operations, ecological operations, and product planning; Chief Financial Officer Shen Jun is responsible for operational control and financial management; Chief Operating Officer Jiang Tao is responsible for manufacturing management, manufacturing technology, and quality management.
It can be seen from this senior management team that Lantu’s organizational mechanism is innovative in Dongfeng Group. In fact, to operate the Lantu brand, Dongfeng Group established "Lantu Automotive Technology Company", which is independent of any subsidiary of Dongfeng Company and adopts completely market-oriented operations.
Lantu Automobile will explore an innovative integrated development model of "mature car companies + new car-making forces" and adopt the Internet's OKR (objectives and key results) target management form. "We are a new car-making force." Strength includes both the entrepreneurial company’s innovative system and the group’s strong support,” Lei Xin said.
Different from the rigid rules and regulations of previous state-owned enterprises, where administration is greater than the market and cannot operate independently, Lantu Brand is more flexible in terms of organizational mechanism and has established a more efficient, innovative, pragmatic and flat management operating model.
In terms of factory operations, Lantu will upgrade and transform the original Dongfeng Renault Wuhan factory as the brand's production base, with an annual production capacity of 150,000 units.
The first SUV model will be positioned in the price range of 200,000 to 350,000 yuan. The new car will also be put into production at the upgraded and renovated former Dongfeng Renault Wuhan factory. Currently, the Lantu brand has planned 9 models, covering SUVs, MPVs and other products. The first This model is planned to be put into production in 2021.
Different from the new car-making forces, Dongfeng calls Lantu its "new car-making strength." In other words, it is easy to enjoy the shade with a big tree behind it. With Dongfeng's experience accumulated over more than 50 years, With strong car manufacturing capabilities, steady development strength ranked 82nd among the Fortune 500, and resource strength of full value chain partners, the Lantu brand is not starting from scratch. Lei Xin said that Lantu "from product research and development to production and manufacturing, the Lantu brand can make use of all resources of Dongfeng Group."
The Lantu brand is also facing internal and external troubles
In 2019, Dongfeng Motor’s sales reached 2.932 million, of which Dongfeng Nissan’s sales were 1.1703 million, and Dongfeng Honda’s sales were 789,800. Excluding Infiniti and France The sales volume of domestic brands and Korean brands, and the sales volume of independent segment cars are not good. In June this year, Dongfeng Motor sold 243,100 passenger cars. Among them, joint venture brands still accounted for the majority of brand sales with 214,800 units, while Dongfeng's own-brand passenger car sales were only 28,300 units.
Although Dongfeng has gone through more than 50 years of car manufacturing history, the development of its own brand models has not been satisfactory. What's more, the sales volume of Dongfeng's own brand cars are generally contributed by models with a value of less than 100,000 yuan. Now that it is suddenly hitting the high-end market, for Dongfeng's own brand with a small consumer base, the launch of Lantu is more of a surprise.
In the field of new energy, the competition is more about technology. Tesla’s success is due to its technical advantages in the field of new energy. Among them, autonomous driving technology is even more beyond the reach of its peers; the reason why Weilai can To survive among the many new car-making forces, in addition to spending money, it relies more on its research and development results with the largest number of patents; BYD's market value exceeds that of SAIC. In addition to years of hard work in the field of new energy, I believe that blade battery technology also contributes. In contrast, Dongfeng has lacked eye-catching R&D technologies in recent years.
Dongfeng’s own brand cars have previously borrowed technology from many joint ventures for their own models: for example, some use Citroen’s engines, some model chassis have shadows of Honda CR-V, and some are Nissan The pimping of retired automobile products... If Lantu cannot produce eye-catching technological achievements, it will be difficult for Lantu to have a large living space in the future.
Of course, it is not objective to say that Dongfeng has no technology research and development capabilities at all. Dongfeng has 19 years of experience in the research and development of electric vehicles in the field of new energy. It has mastered the "three electrics" core technologies of battery, motor and electronic control, especially optimizing a major anxiety of electric vehicle users: they dare not turn on the air conditioner in winter. Dongfeng It possesses high-efficiency heat pump air conditioning system technology to achieve "air conditioning freedom" for winter heating. But to be honest, these technological achievements do not seem to bring people a bright feeling in the electric vehicle market.
In addition, Dongfeng has only launched a few low-end models priced at more than 100,000 yuan in recent years, and little is known about the technical reserves of high-end models. Can it rely on the technical reserves of these low-end models to create a high-end new energy vehicle? Car brands are unpredictable.
In addition, in the face of the current accelerated localization of Tesla and the successive launch of many joint venture new energy models on the market; new car-making forces such as Weilai and Ideal have successively upgraded their products, while state-owned new energy companies that operate independently Independent car companies have also gradually opened up the market, such as BAIC New Energy, GAC New Energy, Changan New Energy, etc. In this situation, Lantu Automobile, as a latecomer, will face considerable pressure and huge challenges in the new energy market.
How the Lantu brand breaks through
Everyone has witnessed the situation of Dongfeng Motor’s independent brands in the passenger car market. If the Lantu brand wants to break through, some key factors must be Technology is the basis for breakthrough. For example, breakthroughs in the three technologies of electric vehicles, whether it is battery technology, electronic control, or motor technology, can quickly break the brand; or, Dongfeng Motor can use the most forward-looking intelligent network technology Applied to the Lantu brand, but the premise is that Dongfeng Motors is sufficiently competitive at a high level of autonomous driving and Internet of Vehicles. At present, these Dongfeng Motors do not seem to be proficient in these areas.
It is worth noting that except for Tesla, Weilai, Ideal and Xpeng, most domestic electric vehicles are digested by third-party travel companies or taxi companies. With the layout of Dongfeng Motor in the field of mobile travel, it is not very difficult to complete the digestion of a certain number of Lantu brand electric vehicles. But looking at those high-end car brands with a century-old history, the private consumption sector is their most important market.
In addition, it is easy to create a brand, but very difficult to build a brand. Especially in the current domestic electric vehicle field, the difficulty is enough to make many car brands retreat. If there is no way to quickly attract the attention of the market, the Lantu brand will die like many new power car brands.
Xu Liuping’s drastic reform at FAW has proved that Hongqi has achieved great results. Perhaps it is the hot sales of FAW Hongqi that stimulated Dongfeng Motor. Unlike the Lantu brand, Hongqi has a profound brand accumulation. , then how Lantu improves its brand power has become a key factor in front of Zhu Yanfeng and whether Dongfeng Motor can break the situation.
Written at the end
Brand improvement is not simply a price increase. Of course, rising prices are a factor that affects car configuration and quality. From the perspective of the real needs of Chinese consumers, low prices do not mean low quality. The core of a brand is trust, not price, and price is just the result. Since Xu Liuping took charge of the Hongqi brand, its performance in the market has shown that as a centrally-owned automobile manufacturing company, it is absolutely capable of producing products that the market expects. I hope Dongfeng's Lantu can also make this good move.
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.