Author | Anjou Cao

One year after releasing the 2023-2025 “Three-Year Action Plan for Transformation and Upgrading”, Dongfeng Motor once again increased the new energy circuit.

On April 25, Dongfeng Motor's general manager Zhou Zhiping said that in the next three years, Dongfeng Motor will spend more than 60 billion yuan to launch 30 new new energy products for passenger cars and 14 new energy basic models for commercial vehicles.

Another aspect of this increase is that Dongfeng Motor has experienced a continuous slump in overall sales and performance in recent years, and there is an urgent need to open up a breakthrough in the still vast new energy market to recover its “lost ground.”

To this end, Zhou Zhiping proposed that this year, Dongfeng Motor will launch 13 new new energy products for passenger cars and 7 new energy basic models for commercial vehicles, and aim for annual sales to return to the level of 3 million vehicles, reaching 3.2 million units. Among them, sales of new energy completely hit 1 million units.

Currently, Dongfeng has had a good start.

In the first quarter, Dongfeng Motor sold a total of 660,000 vehicles, up 28.3% year on year. Among them, sales of new energy vehicles increased 1.6 times year on year, especially sales of autonomous new energy vehicles increased 2.5 times year on year.

This is inseparable from Dongfeng Motor's various specific initiatives in the past year to promote the “Three-Year Transformation and Upgrading Action.”

In the past year, Dongfeng Motor has successively launched a series of changes such as the “Transition Action”, “Dynamic Project”, and “Yosheng Project”, involving autonomous passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, and R&D systems. The brand matrix, product matrix, scientific research plans and resources have been sorted out, creating a brand pattern and new competitive advantages in all fields.

In particular, after the launch of “Operation Transition”, Dongfeng Motor Group's headquarters directly operated “Dongfeng” brand autonomous passenger cars. The integrated management of the three major product lines of Dongfeng Fengshen, Dongfeng Yipai, and Dongfeng Nano not only reduced management levels, reduced costs and increased efficiency, but also further clarified the positioning of each brand.

At present, Dongfeng Motor has completed a multi-dimensional global layout in the field of new energy vehicles, including the luxury electric off-road brand Dongfeng Mengshi, the high-end smart electric vehicle brand Dongfeng Rantu, and Dongfeng Fengshen, Dongfeng Yipai, and Dongfeng Nano under the “Dongfeng” brand for mainstream markets.

After being “completely refreshed”, at the Beijing Auto Show, Dongfeng Motor's major independent new energy brands were brought together for the first time at the International Auto Show, opening a new chapter for Dongfeng Autonomous Renewable Energy.

In addition, along with the announcement of increasing new energy, Dongfeng Motor also began pre-sale of the Dongfeng Yipai Epi008 and Dongfeng Fengshen L7 at the Beijing Auto Show, as well as the first launch of the Dongfeng Nano 01 co-created version.

According to management, the pre-sale price of the Dongfeng Yipai e008 is 200,000 yuan to 250,000 yuan, and the CLTC range is 636 km, and it is positioned as a large smart family SUV; the pre-sale price of the Dongfeng Fengshen L7 is 128,900 yuan to 156,900 yuan, with a pure electric battery life of 205 km and a comprehensive battery life of 1,500 km.

As the traditional automobile industry enters the new energy era, increasing the new energy circuit has become a top priority for traditional car companies to stabilize or even increase sales.

This is also a game-breaker for Dongfeng Motor to achieve a recovery in sales and increase its position and voice in the industry.