The MPV, which is named "Dream", is a struggle of Lantu.
On April 7, the medium and large luxury MPV Lantu Dreamer entered the pre-sale period, and as of April 9, the order has reached 3,000 vehicles, and the product is expected to start delivery as soon as July.
As the pioneering work of Lantu in the high-end MPV market, the price range of the Dreamer Seven-Seat Edition is 380,000-480,000 and the four-seat customized version from 600,000, which is much higher than other independent MPV and even some joint venture brands, taking the Buick GL8, which is regarded as the industry benchmark, as an example, 200,000 starts, and some netizens say to the price of the Dreamer that "if there is really no money, it is not worth talking about dreams."
Even if the price is controversial, in Lantu's high-end dream, the dreamer has to shoulder the responsibility of "raising a family".
Anxiety from the high end
Contrary to the positioning of "zero anxiety high-end intelligent electric brand", Lantu has never stopped anxiety.
Under the tide of traditional car companies such as GAC, SAIC, and Geely launching high-end electric sub-brands, in 2020, Dongfeng Motor launched a high-end electric sub-brand Landu, and the first SUV model released in June of the following year, FREE, was set up with an annual sales of 13,000 Flags.
Flag is Flag because it all ends up falling, and so is FREE. The reality of less than 7,000 vehicles and the dilemma of declining sales in 2022 have broken Lantu's heart. In the competition for extended-range trams and high-end SUVs, the ideal ONE delivery volume reached 11,034 units in March 2022, and the Lando FREE delivered 1,400 vehicles in the same period, which was only 12.6% of the opponent.
Seeing that there was no wave in the SUV field, the anxious Lantu had to avoid the front and turn to the blue ocean market to seek opportunities, and finally it targeted MPV.
Public data shows that the overall penetration rate of new energy MPV in 2021 is only 3.32%, compared with the 14.8% penetration rate of new energy vehicles.
It is worth noting that this "blue ocean" is sprouting new shining points. Since 2010, the seemingly tepid MPV has completed three stages of evolution, from the initial model concept is not clear, to 2011 began to be functionally oriented, and then after 2017, the family demand appeared, the MPV market officially entered the experience-oriented stage.
In the past ten years, the MPV market has achieved changes from commercial to household use, and the price has also gone all the way up, the market share of low-end MPV has declined all the way, and the high-end MPV with a steady growth share has become a piece of fat.
The positioning of high-end MPV has brought a broader prospect for Lantu dreamers, but an embarrassing question has also come: what is the strength to sell for 600,000 high-end dreamers?
Some people think that the price of 600,000 dreamers is inflated, and some people feel that a million Alpha is worth the money, in the high-end MPV matter, Toyota Alpha can be regarded as the most vocal in the industry, the price in Japan is less than half a million, and the price can be increased to one million in China.
Behind the high premium, on the one hand, it is inseparable from Toyota's marketing control of the high-end market, on the other hand, because the nearly ninety-year-old Toyota has deep roots in the automobile market, and consumers are also paying for Alpha's brand heritage when buying a car.
In contrast, the newly established Dongfeng Lantu is inherently insufficient in terms of value accumulation, and its parent Dongfeng Motor, which mainly focuses on the low-end market, is even weaker in high-end.
In addition to the high-end MPV of the joint venture plate Dongfeng Honda and the fourth generation of GYAH of Dongfeng Yueda Kia, the Lingzhi and Fengxing M7 of Dongfeng Motor's autonomous plate are all low-end MPV, and such price-for-volume products are mainly tool-based commercial, which is different from the experience-oriented home needs of the high-end MPV market.
In the absence of an autonomous plate precedent, the rush of Dongfeng Lantu is somewhat of a stone-throwing exploration, and the lack of performance of the Lantu FREE that was thrown first is also a proof of its lack of high-end experience.
Perhaps the future will not be a smooth road to meet lantu dreamers, but fortunately, in the blue ocean of new energy MPV, more people are dreamers who cross the river by feeling the stones and grabbing the first field, at least they have not lost on the starting line.
"Mysterious" dreamer
"As a new category, Lantu Dreamers have no competitors yet."
Lu Fang, CEO and CTO of Lantu Automobile, proudly said to the media: "At present, the high-end new energy MPV market is still a blue ocean, (except for the dreamer) there is no MPV that truly meets the family's economic travel and can enjoy high-end quality, and there is no high-end electric MPV that meets the current development trend." ”
Taking advantage of the opportunity, The lantu dreamer pre-sale order exceeded 3,000 vehicles in three days, and the performance was indeed stronger than that of the "eldest brother" - the cumulative order volume of lantu FREE in the 43 days of listing was only 3689 vehicles.
In fact, while Lantu is aiming at the high-end MPV field, other car companies have not sat still. BYD Denza and Geely's Extreme Kr both plan to launch high-end MPV models this year, and will compete with Dreamers for market share. Although the two products did not publish specific power data, it can be seen from some details disclosed by the industry.
Recently, Zhao Changjiang, general manager of BYD's Denza Sales Division, revealed that Denza's high-end MPV DM supermix technology has a comprehensive endurance of 1000km. Previously, some media reported that the NEDC cruising range of the first pure electric MPV of Extreme Kr can exceed 700km.
It is worth noting that Dreamer, which opened the pre-sale, did not announce the battery capacity and mileage. Combined with the data transmitted on the Internet, Dreamers seem to be slightly weak in solving "mileage anxiety", and the pressure on Dreamers will be further enhanced after the release of Denza and Extreme KrYPVs.
Perhaps the short-board dreamer of endurance can escape for a while through "tactical avoidance", but the pot that is not technically hardcore enough is not so easy to shake off.
In the industry, Xiaopeng full-stack self-developed intelligent driving algorithm Xpilot, Geely's SEA Haohan architecture, BYD's DM-i super hybrid technology are all hot existence, compared with lantu, which has not yet played a strong technical highlight, the high-end hat obviously lacks a sign label of its own.
Taking the previously listed Landu FREE as an example, its 20 series of standard advanced intelligent driver assistance systems are all based on the solution of supplier Bosch, which is slightly less evolvable. As Chen Qingtai, chairman of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Association, said, the industry "the first half is electrified, the second half is intelligent", and if you want to outperform the lantu of the same industry, you need to achieve the evolution of intelligent technology.
In addition, large MPVs have the stereotype of poor crash performance. In this month's crash test, the buick GL8, which has been selling long, received a P-class (poor) score in the indicator of "crash resistance and maintenance economy", ranking at the bottom of the same batch of test models.
For most MPV in the market, comfort and safety seem to have become a difficult two-way existence, and dreamers who have not participated in third-party crash tests still have a lot of room for improvement in this regard.
Following the breakthrough of the joint venture monopoly with SUVs, the blood of independent brands is injecting into high-end MPVs, and the "blueprint" envisioned by Lantu Dreamers is also what other independent brands are looking forward to, and a wind about change is finally coming. However, unlike the SUV's many years of reserves and breakthroughs, manufacturers who want to achieve MPV breakthroughs still need to accumulate strength.
epilogue
The fast-growing MPV can accommodate the second and third "Alpha". In the case that the domestic high-end MPV market has been dominated by foreign brands for many years, some independent brands have begun to be eager to try, and Denza, Extreme Krypton, Hongqi, Weipai, etc. have all stood on the starting line.
Combined with the known product strength and technical reserves, the "head bird" Lantu dreamer is not perfect, but the momentum of domestic high-end MPV on the field is unavoidable.