State-owned Dongfeng revs up efforts in electrification

State-owned Dongfeng Motor announced an ambitious three-year plan on Monday to accelerate its transformation towards electrification.

As part of this plan, new models of Dongfeng's major passenger car brands will be fully electrified by 2024.

NEVs will account for 50 percent of Dongfeng's own marques and 70 percent of Dongfeng's own passenger vehicle brands by 2025. The carmaker has joint ventures with international brands including Honda as well as Peugeot and Citroen.

Dongfeng expects sales of its own brands to reach 2 million units by the same year, accounting for half of the carmaker's total deliveries.

You Zheng, deputy general manager of Dongfeng Motor, said the carmaker will invest 50 billion yuan ($7.26 billion) to develop its NEV business in the next three years.

The carmaker is expected to launch 18 new energy passenger vehicle models and 22 commercial vehicle models in the future, You said.

At the upcoming Shanghai auto show, Dongfeng's Aeolus brand will unveil a new series of electrified products. In the second half of this year, Dongfeng Motor will launch a new brand that focuses on small electric vehicles.

The carmaker launched the Quantum electric platform at the event.

According to Dongfeng, the new platform is capable of producing pure electric vehicles, range-extending vehicles and plug-in hybrids, and is compatible with various vehicle sizes and types.

The models based on this platform can achieve a range of more than 1,200 kilometers.

Besides the Quantum platform, Dongfeng has another two platforms.

The M Tech platform is dedicated to luxury electric off-road models, and the low-carbon DSMA architecture is reserved for products in the mid-to-low price range.

Dongfeng expects its sales in 2023 to reach 3.5 million units, of 2.63 million units will be passenger vehicles. In the first quarter of this year, it sold 455,000 vehicles.