On January 18, Dongfeng Company announced that as an important part of Dongfeng Company's "Oriental Wind Rise" plan and "Science and Technology Leap" action, Dongfeng's high-end new energy off-road vehicle project was officially started in Wuhan Economic Development Zone. The Dongfeng high-end new energy off-road vehicle project is also the Dongfeng M Division established in January 2021, which is a key project of Dongfeng Company's "14th Five-Year Plan". In fact, in 2021, Dongfeng's M division has been established, and at the Shanghai Auto Show in April 2021, Dongfeng also proposed that it will further highlight the differentiated layout in the field of autonomous passenger cars, focusing on building Lantu Automobile, Dongfeng Fengshen and high-end electric off-road brands.
According to Xiaoxiang Morning News, the relevant personnel of Dongfeng Company revealed that the office of the M team is located in the group technology center, and in the future, the M division will operate through an independent company like the H division Lantu, mainly operating high-end electric off-road vehicles. At present, the new project plant has officially started construction and is expected to be put into operation in 2023, with a planned production capacity of 100,000 vehicles. This also means that the actual research and development progress of the new project may be faster than expected, and the new brand models are expected to be released in the second half of this year and officially launched and delivered in 2023 next year.
It is understood that Dongfeng will develop a new MORV electric off-road vehicle platform, and will be derived from this new platform different subdivision positioning models. According to the latest official 4S store renderings, the new brand may be named "Mammoth". Previously, there were media reports that Dongfeng attaches great importance to the M brand, the brand's first model is likely to be a pure electric version of the warrior, expected to be priced between 600,000-700,000 yuan, the future positioning of electric high-end off-road "M" will be the benchmark tank brand.
To this end, Caijing Auto contacted the relevant personnel of the M Business Department, which said that the brand has not yet been released, it is not convenient to disclose specific information, and it is expected that the brand will be released in the first half of this year.
Independent brands enter the market segment into a growth point
In fact, in the field of off-road vehicles, Dongfeng Company has long had a layout. In 2002, Dongfeng established Dongfeng Off-road Vehicle Co., Ltd., and produced a series of high-mobility military and civilian off-road vehicles with the same name of "Warrior". This traditional fuel off-road vehicle has been evaluated: combined with the overall performance of the car, Dongfeng Warrior has surpassed the Hummer of the United States in terms of load carrying capacity, fuel economy, driving range, parking brake gradient, handling stability, and durability.
Although the name may be the same, it is reported that Dongfeng related people said that Dongfeng high-end new energy off-road vehicles and Dongfeng Warrior positioning are not the same, there is no competition at the same level.
However, as a niche market in China for many years, the civilian off-road market has been "monopolized" for many years by joint ventures or imported brand models such as Pajero, Wrangler, Tuda, Land Cruiser, Prado, FJ, etc. The overall market share of independent brand off-road vehicles is low, while the sales of civil off-road vehicles under Dongfeng are more "low-key". Zhang Xiang, an analyst in the automotive industry, said that Dongfeng has accumulated many years in the field of professional off-road vehicles. It previously launched the traditional fuel professional off-road vehicle "Warrior", which supplied both the military and the civilian sector, but has been sold very little and has not opened the market.
Until last year, Great Wall Motors created a new category with the tank 300, and under the influence of the limited production capacity caused by the lack of cores, the cumulative sales of the tank 300 model in 2021 still reached 84588 units, becoming the annual explosive model. At the same time, the success of new products under the new brand of Tank 300 has attracted more and more independent brands to start focusing on civilian off-road vehicles, opening up the niche market of off-road. Zhang Xiang said: Now that Great Wall Motors has opened up the domestic professional and high-end off-road vehicle market, Dongfeng can just take advantage of this trend to open up a world.
New categories that meet the needs of the times undoubtedly have great growth opportunities, and when the current automotive market shifts from incremental to stock, competition is also intensifying within this limited market space. A few days ago, Chery Jetto Automobile released a new hardcore off-road vehicle Jetto T-X, and BYD and Geely have also announced that they will manufacture hardcore off-road vehicles. Recently, some media reported that BAIC Motor announced the planning information for the future resumption of production of New Cars of Beijing Off-Road Brand, which also includes a new generation of BJ212. The first generation of Beijing Jeep 212 was born as early as 1965, which is the earliest passenger car produced in China and the purest ORV off-road vehicle. After more than 30 years of hot sales, the market ownership reached 600,000 vehicles, and the cumulative output ranked first in China.
In such a competitive environment, the high-end pure electric off-road vehicle brand established by Dongfeng is bound to face a lot of pressure. According to the Phoenix Network Auto report, the view is that the civilian pure electricity remodeled by the Warrior is difficult to meet the economic population, which indirectly means that there will be no better market feedback, and even some people bluntly say that "Dongfeng can not dry the Great Wall".
Zhang Xiang, an analyst in the automotive industry, said that domestic car companies have launched high-end new energy brands, and Dongfeng has established high-end new energy brands, which is in line with the overall strategy of domestic car companies. China is the world's largest automobile market, and the volume of high-end new energy off-road vehicles will also be very large, and Dongfeng's high-end new energy off-road vehicles are also an important market segment.
For the establishment of Dongfeng M Division, You Zheng, member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and deputy general manager of Dongfeng Company, said that the Dongfeng high-end new energy off-road vehicle project will become a high-end off-road culture disseminator and leader integrating automobile research and development, design, intelligent manufacturing, high-end customization, off-road experience and service ecology.
The Warriors and Lantu may bring major increments to the East Wind
According to public information, dongfeng motor group co., LTD. currently has a total of four independently operated brands: Dongfeng Fengshen, Dongfeng Fengguang, Dongfeng Fengxing and Dongfeng Lantu. Among the four independently operated brands, the Lantu brand is mainly committed to the high-end new energy market, and the other three brands are mainly positioned in the low-end market.
Now the addition of the M division means that Dongfeng has two high-end new energy brands. As far as the official introduction is concerned, both are new energy passenger car brands, the difference may be that Lantu Automobile is biased towards high-end intelligent electric, while the "Mammoth" brand is exclusive to high-end pure electric off-road.
Since the opening of delivery, the first model of Lantu Automobile, the Landu FREE, has accumulated sales of only 6431 units in the five months of 2021, which is obviously not a blockbuster model, but the current sales have been climbing for 5 consecutive months. On January 19, the No. 29 model of the China New Car Evaluation Regulation (C-NCAP) announced the evaluation results showing that Landu FREE obtained a "five-star" evaluation of the C-NCAP test.
On the afternoon of January 21, Dongfeng Company released the news that the 10,000th Lantu FREE mass production car rolled off the production line. Dongfeng said that Lantu completed the leap from brand release to 10,000 vehicles in 553 days, which is the new brand of electric vehicles with the shortest time. On the whole, the market status of Lantu brand's first product, Lantu FREE, may provide a good endorsement for the new "Mengshi", and there are views in the industry that Dongfeng "Mengshi" has a good "base disk user" foundation.
For many consumers, the doubts about whether off-road vehicles can choose pure electric drive methods may be dispelled over time. On the one hand, the "double integral" policy has determined the inevitable trend of new energy becoming the mainstream market, and the drive mode of pure electricity is also the main application of the automobile market at this stage. On the other hand, the rapid advancement of the mainland's charging and replacing infrastructure facilities will form a nationwide full coverage around 2025, coupled with the increasing range of pure electric vehicles, and the electric four-wheel drive and even wheel hub motor technology is also advancing by leaps and bounds, and its off-road performance may be able to surpass fuel vehicles.
On January 6, the official website of Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd. released the annual sales data of 2021. In 2021, Dongfeng sold a total of 3,275,300 vehicles, of which 2,576,800 units were sold in the passenger car sector. There were 542,000 private-brand passenger cars, an increase of 32.2% year-on-year, and the sales of passenger cars of the joint venture brand were 2.0348 million units, and the sales of passenger cars of the joint venture brand were nearly four times more than that of the independent brands. The commercial vehicle segment sold a total of 698,500 units in the full year.
According to statistics released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in the sales ranking of Chinese brand commercial vehicle companies in 2021, Although Dongfeng's sales volume fell by 5% year-on-year, it still ranked first and led the second place by about 38,000 units. In the passenger car field, Dongfeng's sales increased by 23.6% year-on-year, and it only ranked seventh. Due to the possible differences in the statistical methods, the sales data officially released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers and Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd. are slightly different, but this does not affect the ranking order of sales.
Dongfeng Group announced on the evening of January 6 on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that the board of directors initially set the group's sales target for 2022 at 3.471 million units, an increase of 25% year-on-year. Passenger car sales targets are set at 2.894 million units, up 28% year-on-year, and commercial vehicle sales targets are 577,000 units, up 10% year-on-year. If calculated according to the actual sales volume in 2021, there is still a big gap between the actual sales of passenger cars and the expected target of 2022, and the actual sales of commercial vehicles in 2021 have exceeded Dongfeng's sales target in 2022. Obviously, in 2022, the passenger car market is the main focus of Dongfeng.
According to the China Automobile Association, the total sales of mainland vehicles are expected to reach 27.5 million units in 2022, an increase of about 5% year-on-year. Among them, passenger cars will be 23 million units, an increase of 7% year-on-year; commercial vehicles will be 4.5 million units, down 6% year-on-year; new energy vehicles will reach 5 million units, an increase of 42% year-on-year, and the market share is expected to exceed 18%. According to the forecast data of the China Automobile Association, the passenger car market has only slight room for growth in 2022, while the new energy vehicle market is expected to reach an increase of nearly half. This means that in 2022, only new energy passenger cars may have greater growth opportunities.
According to dongfeng's official plan, 100% electrification of new models of the main passenger car brand will be realized in 2024, and the sales of Dongfeng commercial vehicles, autonomous passenger cars and new energy vehicles will reach 1 million by 2025. Then, Dongfeng's layout of these two new energy passenger car brands is likely to become the core focus of Dongfeng in 2022.
Zhang Xiang, an analyst in the automotive industry, said that the domestic double integral policy requires car companies to transform to new energy in the future, and Dongfeng, as an important domestic car company, the main product is still traditional fuel vehicles, and the proportion of new energy sales is small, and the launch of M new energy brands is also in response to the national call. Because the model to be launched by the M division is a high-end pure electric off-road vehicle, which belongs to a professional off-road vehicle, the battery capacity required is also relatively large, which can help Dongfeng win more new energy points. As the second brother of domestic automobile companies, Dongfeng has worked in the field of professional off-road vehicles for many years and has also won many national awards. Overall, the establishment of the M Business Unit by Dongfeng Company is a natural thing, and it is a strategically correct step.
At present, China's off-road vehicle market is still in the cultivation period, has not yet reached the stage of full outbreak, coupled with the inevitable requirements of new energy development, this is undoubtedly a good opportunity for Dongfeng to occupy the subdivision track through the "warrior".