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Lantu Automobile, as one of the sub-brands of Dongfeng Company, has been no more than four months since the brand was released. On July 17, Dongfeng launched its new high-end electric brand, named "Lantu"; on July 30th, i-Land, the first concept car under Lantu Automobile, was unveiled in Wuhan, and Lantu Automobile Brand Strategy was unveiled; at the 2020 Beijing Auto Show, Lantu Automobile released its first mass production concept car, iFree.

On November 25th, Dongfeng Company announced that the FREE, the first production car of Lantu, was officially pre-produced. The car was positioned as a medium and large SUV, providing both incremental and pure electric versions. The mass production version of Lantu FREE will be released on December 16 and will be officially listed in the third quarter of 2021.

From the appearance of the new car, Lantu FREE highly restores the iFree design of its concept car. At present, the car is still covered with camouflage paper, but from the front face, it is equipped with an exaggerated straight waterfall forward air grille, and the narrow through headlights are connected to the Lantu car logo. The rear part of the car echoes with the front design, such as through-type taillights, sunken lower encirclement, etc., which looks more atmospheric.

In terms of power, the new car will use two power system options: incremental and pure electric, which will provide a system composed of motors, battery packs and 1.5T four-cylinder augmenters, while the pure electric version will provide front and rear motors.

According to the plan, the Lantu brand has planned nine models, covering sedan, SUV, MPV, crossover vehicles and high-performance headlights. From 2021 to 2025, Lantu will put no less than one new model on the market every year, and the first mass production model will be officially launched in the third quarter of 2021.

Dongfeng Automobile Group has four independent brands, namely, Dongfeng Fengshen, Dongfeng scenery, Dongfeng Fashion and Dongfeng Qichen. These four independent brands are basically located in the low-end market. The newly released Lantu brand is mainly committed to the high-end new energy market, undertaking the high-end task of Dongfeng Company.

In the first 10 months of this year, Dongfeng passenger cars sold a total of 54364 new cars, down 0.87% from a year earlier. In recent years, independent brands such as Geely, Great Wall and Red Flag have developed rapidly, while the development of several major brands of Dongfeng passenger cars has been unpopular.

Lantu brand undertakes the high-end task of Dongfeng Company, but at the same time, the development pressure is also huge. First of all, in terms of high-end brands, domestic well-developed brands include Red Flag and Lecker brand. Red Flag has a long brand history, while Lecker brand relies on Volvo's technical support, which are difficult to reach by Dongfeng Motor. In the field of new energy vehicles, the sales of Tesla, Lulai, Xiaopeng, ideal and other brands continue to grow. Although Lantu is backed by Dongfeng Group, as a new brand of new energy, how should Lantu compete with them?

At present, auto companies including Changan Automobile, BAIC and SAIC all plan to recover the gap between their own brands in the market through higher-level brands or models. As can be seen from the development plans of the above auto companies, there will be more and more independent high-end brands in the Chinese auto market in the future. With the establishment of a new brand, independent car companies may be expected to break through the dilemma of the middle and low end of product positioning, but the road of self-improvement is not smooth, and high-end brand products, technical design and corporate image are insurmountable dilemmas. Brand freshmen, including Lantu, still have a long way to go in the future.

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