On June 30, Dongfeng Motor Company announced the launch of its 52 million new car in the final assembly workshop of Wuhan Lantu Automobile Factory. The off-line model is the first mass-produced model of Lantu Automobile – Lantu FREE.
At the press conference, a blue Lantu FREE codenamed "001" slowly rolled off the assembly line, which was also the first mass-produced deliverable model of Lantu Automobile. According to the plan, the Lantu FREE will be officially delivered to consumers on July 29.
In this regard, Yu Zheng, a member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and deputy general manager of DONGFENG MOTOR CORPORATION, said: "With the launch of the’Dongfeng Rise ‘plan, Dongfeng will start a new journey of comprehensive transformation into a technology-based enterprise and continue to promote the high-quality development of China’s automotive industry. Lantu is the pioneer of Dongfeng’s’technology leap, new energy leap, and intelligent leap’. The first car of Lantu FREE rolled off the assembly line, becoming a new starting point for Lantu cars to accelerate on the new energy track."
Lantu Automobile is a high-end intelligent electric vehicle technology company under Dongfeng Group, established in 2018. In July 2020, Lantu officially released the brand strategy and the first concept car iLand, and in September 2020, the world’s first mass-produced concept car iFree.
On June 19 this year, Lantu Auto’s first new car, Lantu FREE, was officially launched. The new car is positioned as a "performance-level intelligent electric SUV". The price starts from 313,600 yuan for the extended-range version and 333,600 yuan for the pure electric version. It also provides two power solutions for extended-range electric and pure electric. It is also the only electric SUV model in the industry that uses a dual-power layout.
On the evening of June 26, Lantu Automobile announced that from now on, Lantu Automobile will establish an independent legal person company, the company is registered as "Lantu Automotive Technology Co., Ltd.", which is jointly funded by the joint stock company of Dongfeng Automobile Group and the core employee shareholding platform of Lantu Automobile.
Among them, core employees hold more than 10% of the shares, and as a holding subsidiary of Dongfeng Motor Group’s joint stock company, it has opened a true sense of independent operation.
At that time, Lu Fang, CEO of Lantu Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., said, "In order to promote more flexible corporate systems and mechanisms, and continue to introduce high-end talents, the company has launched an Equity Incentive Plan for the core backbone of enterprises. In the future, strategic investors will be introduced to explore more possibilities in the capital markets."
This time, the Lantu Automobile factory has undergone a number of upgrades on the basis of the original Dongfeng Renault factory, and its production intelligence has reached a world-class 4.0 digital factory. A large number of technologies such as IoT, big data, edge cloud and AI are used in the factory to monitor factory equipment in real time, improve factory logistics efficiency and improve production management level.
At this press conference, it was learned that Lantu Automobile has established a 5G intelligent digital factory with Siemens and Unicom for the production and manufacturing of Lantu Automobile.
At present, Lantu Automotive adopts a full value chain self-management strategy, has developed ESSA’s native intelligent electric architecture, and is also conducting new explorations in the fields of intelligent connectivity, intelligent driving, and intelligent interaction.
According to the plan announced earlier by Lantu Automobile, Lantu Automobile will launch at least one new car on the market every year from 2021; in the next five years, Lantu Automobile’s products will cover multiple market segments such as cars, SUVs, and MPVs, and continue to expand the product lineup of high-end electric vehicles.
At present, Lantu Auto is rapidly expanding its offline direct sales channel layout, having opened 14 direct sales stores across the country. By the end of this year, there will be more than 50 direct sales channels.