Sales have been cut in half, and Lantu has no blueprint

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Author｜Yu Kun

Source: Zero State LT

Lantu depicts poetry and the distance, but life is not easy right now.

On April 15, Lantu Auto and Baidu signed a strategic cooperation agreement. The two parties announced that they would cooperate on car intelligence. Baidu was able to add another member of Apollo’s partners in external publicity words, and Lantu can also show the outside world that it has paved the way for car intelligence, but market sales often best reflect the situation of a car company. Rational consumption The choices made by the people don’t lie.

Since the beginning of this year, the sales volume of Lantu FREE, the only model currently on sale under Lantu, has dropped sharply. Since the monthly sales of 3,330 units in December last year, it has plummeted to 1,553 units in January this year, and it has dropped to 740 units in February. .

Change comes too fast, like a tornado.

Objectively speaking, under the influence of various factors, the sales of many domestic new energy vehicle companies this year are not as good as last year, but the decline of Lantu is the largest among all new energy vehicle companies. The sales in December 2021 also made Lantu ranked fourth in the high-end electric SUV market sales list for that month, and the sales a month later made Lantu quickly silent.

From the perspective of sales, Lantu FREE is really “free”. Following Lantu FREE, Lantu has launched the Lantu Dreamer, which is positioned as a high-end electric MPV, and the model has been pre-sold on April 7 this year. Having a firm foothold in the high-end electric SUV market, and entering the field of high-end electric MPVs, is it a struggle or a struggle for Lantu?

Sales roller coaster

Lantu FREE will be officially delivered in August 2021. In the month of delivery, Lantu FREE sold 408 vehicles. From September to November, the sales were 908, 798 and 990, with an average sales volume of 899 in three months.

Frankly speaking, the sales performance of these months has been mediocre. It was not until December 2021 that Lantu FREE delivered 3,330 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 236%. After the highlight in December last year, Lantu’s sales performance has gradually returned to normal. From January to March this year, 1,553, 740 and 1,385 vehicles were delivered in a single month, with an average sales volume of 1,226 in just three months. vehicle.

Therefore, excluding the “outliers” brought by the first month of launching to the market and the last month of sprint sales at the end of the year, at present, the average sales performance of Lantu FREE this year is better than last year.

As we all know, Lantu was founded by Dongfeng Group, but it is also independent of any company under Dongfeng Group to achieve comprehensive market-oriented operation and management. If we trace the history of Lantu, we have to mention the project code-named “Dongfeng No. 56” that was established within Dongfeng.

In 2018, the “Dongfeng No. 56” project was established. The project is called “H Division” within Dongfeng Group, focusing on building high-end electric vehicle brands; on June 16, 2020, the “h Division” was officially unveiled. On July 17 of the same year, Dongfeng Group officially released the Lantu brand.

Lantu’s executive configuration undoubtedly shows Dongfeng’s determination to enter and base itself on the high-end electric vehicle market: the new company is in charge of Dongfeng Group Party Committee Standing Committee and Deputy General Manager You Zheng, and the new company’s CEO and chief technical officer is managed by Dongfeng Group. Lu Fang, the former special technical director of the strategic planning department, will serve as the chief brand officer of the new company.

However, the rapid pace of Lantu’s car manufacturing highlights Dongfeng’s urgency for fear of missing out on new energy vehicles: the entire car-building process from its own brand release to channel laying to product delivery was completed in less than three years. Although with the support of resources from Dongfeng Group, compared with last year, the sales performance in recent months is not bad, but such “Lantu speed” has also buried hidden dangers for itself.

“Low-end” Dongfeng is difficult to breed high-end “Lantu”

Dongfeng wants to use Lantu to enter the high-end electric vehicle market. In fact, this is not the first time that Dongfeng has hit the high-end.

As early as April 2016, the “Dongfeng No. 1” project, which has been brewing for many years, has launched a model, Dongfeng A9, which is positioned as a high-end passenger car of a national brand. The official price at that time was 179,700 to 219,700 yuan.

A is the first letter of the Latin alphabet, 9 is the largest one-digit natural number, and the name of “Dongfeng A9” is more similar to the name of a missile, all of which indicate that this is a model that had high expectations. However, the final market sales were bleak. In the year of listing, 148 units were sold in April, 58 units in May, and 48 units in June. There was even an internet rumor that not only 1 unit was not sold in a month, but 4 units were returned by the dealer. tower.

In terms of appearance design, the front face and rear of Dongfeng A9 are similar to Zotye Z700, the side of the body is very similar to Dongfeng Citroen C5, and the appearance is not much unique and recognizable. Adjustment and engine performance were also mediocre. Finally, combined with the not-low price, Dongfeng A9 caused a “sales accident”.

Opening the official website of Dongfeng Group, we can see that at present, Dongfeng’s independent passenger car brands include Fengshen, Fengxing, and Scenery, and the rest are joint venture brands: such as Dongfeng Nissan, Dongfeng Honda, and Dongfeng Peugeot. Dongfeng’s self-owned passenger car brands follow the civilian line. Most of the models on sale do not exceed 150,000 yuan. The sales performance of these models is mediocre, and the market presence is not high.

Also according to the official website of Dongfeng Group, in addition to Lantu FREE, its new energy vehicles include Dongfeng Fengshen-E70 500, Dongfeng Fengxing Jingyi S50EV, Dongfeng Fengxing Lingzhi M5EV, etc. There are only a few passenger vehicles, most of which are vans or commercial vehicles. .

Among these models, Lantu FREE was placed at the top of the official website. Although it appeared to be a standout, it also gave birth to some sense of separation. Dongfeng, which has done a general business in the independent sector, mainly focuses on relatively extreme markets all the year round. The rash launch of Lantu with a high-end appearance is not very convincing in terms of brand heritage or technology accumulation.

There are some sound analysis in the market that Lantu FREE is benchmarking against the ideal ONE, but from an objective point of view, the two only overlap in the use of automotive power sources and the market price, and most places are not similar, such as the number of seats. This important dimension is different, that is, these are two models with different positioning, and Lantu FREE has no direct competition in the strict sense.

However, because the price is very close, and all of them use the extended-range electric drive method that is not available on the market, the Ideal ONE is bound to become a car that many people will refer to when making consumption decisions about Lantu FREE. Since the launch of the Ideal ONE in October 2018, the sales volume is now one level higher than that of the Lantu FREE. Even in December 2021, when the sales performance of the Lantu was the best after the launch, the Ideal ONE also sold 14,087 units, which is the same as the Lantu in the same period. 4 times the sales.

“FREE” is hard to exceed expectations

In fact, no matter from the evaluations made by some professional car reviewers or the evaluations given by some car owners, Lantu FREE is not bad in terms of product strength, in zero-hundred-hundred acceleration, braking distance, track performance, car handling , power output and the creation of interior atmosphere and other aspects even exceeded people’s expectations.

However, compared with the six seats of the Ideal ONE and the seven seats of the BYD Tang DM, the five-seat design of Lantu FREE makes it at a disadvantage in terms of home use such as interior space, and the pure electric cruising range of 140km is not as good as the ideal ONE. 188km, in addition, if the trip computer display is not accurate, the trip software operation is complicated, the system logic needs to be optimized, and there is no reason for people to choose Lantu FREE. Therefore, whether it is from the brand or product point of view, the sales performance of Lantu FREE is also reasonable.

However, when “FREE” was not firmly established, Lantu launched another high-end model, the Ideal Home. Interestingly, just like Lantu FREE has no direct competitor, Lu Fang, CEO and CTO of Lantu Automobile, once declared that “as a new category of Lantu Dreamer, there is no competition.”

Lantu Dreamer is a medium-sized MPV model, which is divided into seven-seat version and four-seat version, and the pre-sale price is between 380,000 and 600,000 yuan. The beginning seems to be good. The pre-sale started on April 7 this year. According to official data, the order volume of Lantu Dreamer has exceeded 3,000 in the first two days, which is better than Lantu FREE.

The high-end new energy MPV market does have potential to tap, and Lantu Dreamers took advantage of the situation to enjoy a wave of dividends, but how long this situation can last has made the outside world doubtful.

First of all, just like the embarrassment encountered by Lantu FREE, Lantu Dreamers will still face problems such as lack of endorsement car companies and insufficient brand heritage after they really enter the market. Lantu Dreamer is called “domestic Alpha” by some people, but behind Alpha stands Toyota, a century-old car company, and behind Lantu is Dongfeng. Secondly, the number of players in the high-end electric MPV market will soon increase, and the Lantu Dreamer will usher in fierce competition. Geely’s flagship high-end market and positioned as a large-scale pure electric MPV, Jikr 002 will be officially launched this year, starting from BYD Denza’s new MPV, priced at 450,000 yuan, is expected to be unveiled soon.

Therefore, some people worry that Lantu Dreamer may open high and low like Lantu FREE.

Returning to Lantu, a car company, as mentioned earlier, it is a company that operates independently although it is backed by Dongfeng Group, but we cannot classify it as a “new force in car manufacturing”. To what extent can the management from traditional car companies, who are also deeply influenced by the corresponding corporate culture and management model, practice what they say “In terms of mechanism, Lantu Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. will explore a “mature car company + manufacturing”. There is uncertainty about the innovative integration development model of Chexin Power, which adopts the Internet-based OKR (objectives and key results) target management form, and the project development will also adopt a matrix-type parallel development method.

In addition to the sluggish sales, the latest bad news about Lantu’s personnel is that someone familiar with the matter broke the news that at the end of March this year, Lei Xin had been transferred from the position of chief brand officer of Lantu, and his position was temporarily taken over by Lu Fang.

Lantu is a high-end electric vehicle brand tried to create by a traditional domestic car company. Although the products it has launched are remarkable, there are also many problems. Although the rhythm of overall car manufacturing is relatively fast, under the circumstance that there is a market window period for new energy vehicle manufacturing and it is backed by Dongfeng Group, Lantu’s urgency and “rush to work” have a certain objectivity.

Lantu gives people a feeling of entering the game late but hoping to catch up and surpass quickly, but in the absence of brand support and products without strong advantages, this high-end road will be particularly difficult, and it will not be realized. It is difficult to talk about a larger “ideal” in the “FREE” map.

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