AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)04/11 Report--

On April 9, Shenlong Automobile Co., Ltd. held a cadre meeting, and Zheng Hongyi, head of the Organization Department of the Party Committee of Dongfeng Company, announced the decision to adjust the members of the leading group of DPCA.

The meeting decided that Chen Bin will no longer hold the post of party committee secretary of Shenlong Automobile Co., Ltd.; Zhou Wei will no longer hold the post of deputy party committee secretary, party committee member, and trade union chairman of Shenlong Automobile Co., Ltd. Song Hanming will be appointed party committee secretary, discipline inspection secretary, and trade union chairman candidate of Shenlong Automobile Co., Ltd., and recommend Chen Ke and Li Jiong as deputy general managers of Shenlong Automobile Co., Ltd. The appointment and removal of relevant posts shall be handled in accordance with the relevant provisions.

Data show that Chen Bin was born in October 1976 and joined Dongfeng Automobile after graduating from university. he has worked in Dongfeng Automobile Bridge Co., Ltd., Dongfeng Dena Axle Co., Ltd., Dongfeng Automobile Co., Ltd. In August 2018, Chen Bin became general manager of Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. On September 2, 2020, Dongfeng Automobile Group Co., Ltd. official Xuan, Chen Bin served as assistant president of Dongfeng Automobile Group Co., Ltd., Executive Deputy General Manager and Party Committee Secretary of Shenlong Automobile Co., Ltd. Half a month later, Shenlong Automobile Co., Ltd. held a general meeting of cadres to announce that Chen Bin succeeded Rothbo, an executive stationed by French shareholders, as general manager of DPCA.

With the withdrawal of Guangzhou Auto Fick, DPCA has become the only joint venture of Stellantis Group in China. Data show that DPCA was founded in May 1992, jointly funded by Dongfeng Motor Group and Peugeot Citroen Group. As the first joint venture to enter the Chinese market, DPCA has mass-produced household-known models such as Fukang, and has reached an annual sales peak of 700000 vehicles, making it a popular car brand. However, at the same time when DPCA entered the highlight moment, the problems of product quality, technology iteration, business philosophy and even corruption were also exposed. coupled with the slow iteration of product updates and other reasons, DPCA gradually faded out of the market. Sales have declined for four consecutive years since 2016.

For DPCA, its electrification transformation has lagged behind the industry, which is closely related to the operation that has slipped to a low ebb. From 2016 to 2020, there were problems in many aspects, such as word-of-mouth and after-sales service of DPCA, which dropped rapidly from 700000 to 50, 000 in only four years.

Compared with the late-stage strategies such as the transformation of new energy, the top priority was to adjust the depressed situation and extricate itself from difficulties as soon as possible, and after Chen Bin took over as general manager, he began to solve the existing problems of DPCA and bring it back to the mainstream market as much as possible. According to data released by Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., DPCA sold 100567 and 125167 cars respectively from 2021 to 2022.

With the vigorous development of China's new energy vehicle industry, the major brands have entered the cruel "knockout" stage, and it is becoming more and more difficult for the late DPCA to catch up. In addition, under the background of volume price, volume configuration and volume brand, the marginal joint venture car companies with low sales volume are hit harder and have a deeper impact. Although DPCA implemented a rare promotion in the industry in March 2023, it did not have an obvious stimulating effect on sales. For the whole of 2023, DPCA sold 80300 vehicles, down 35.81% from the same period last year. This is the second time since 2021 that its sales have fallen below 100000, which is only 51.8% from the 155000 set at the beginning of the year. It is the largest decline of Dongfeng Automobile Group's joint venture brand.

In February 2023, DPCA announced the full promotion of electrification. According to the plan, in the future, China and France will support the diversification of technology sources, adopt global advanced electric technology, promote the electric transformation of DPCA, and fully support DPCA to accelerate the introduction of pure electric goods from 2023. In the next five years, DPCA will launch 9 new models and a number of modified models, 8 of which are new energy models. It is reported that the new model will be developed based on the electric mixing platform eHMIA, which can provide three kinds of power modes: HEV, PHEV and BEV, covering a variety of body forms of cars, SUV and MPV.

In October 2023, Dongfeng Group disclosed the transaction notice that Dongfeng Group and DMC signed an "asset transfer agreement" to purchase specific land use rights, buildings and structures in Wuhan and Xiangyang for 1.714 billion yuan. At the same time, the two sides reached a leasing arrangement under which Dongfeng Group will lease the target assets to DPCA for a term of 10 years. It is reported that the target asset is mainly the third plant of DPCA in Wuhan, which has been mainly used to produce existing Peugeot and Citroen passenger cars as well as Fukang models.

With regard to the acquisition of DMC target assets, Dongfeng Group explained that, on the one hand, it supports DMC in developing new models and promoting the transformation of new energy sources of DMC; on the other hand, this acquisition and leasing arrangement enables Dongfeng Group to make full use of existing production capacity, which is conducive to giving full play to the synergy of the group's manufacturing resources.

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