From dreamers to future plans, LANTU shows the mature mind of a ＂new brand＂
At the Guangzhou Auto Show, which opened on November 19, 2021, Lantu Automobile officially launched the second model of the brand, the pure electric MPV "Dreamer". The new car is based on ESSA’s native intelligent electric architecture, positioning a large MPV, and launching four-seat customized and seven-seat models. It will be launched in mid-2022.
After the official debut of the new car, Lantu Automobile organized a media communication meeting, with Lantu Automobile CEO and CTO Lu Fang and CBO Lei Xin explaining the origin, positioning, and goals of the "Dreamer" car for us, as well as the current achievements and future plans of Lantu Automobile.
Dreamers and dream homes
First of all, Lu Fang deconstructed for us why Lantu Automobile chose to develop MPV models in the second model. Lantu believes that from a national perspective, the peak carbon dioxide emissions carbon neutrality target puts new requirements on the development of the automotive industry. The "window period" for the rapid popularization of new energy vehicles in our country has opened, but there is currently no MPV that can meet the conditions of low-carbon travel. As a national team of high-end electric vehicles, Lantu has the responsibility and obligation to meet the needs of low-carbon travel in the market.
From a market perspective, new energy MPVs are a rigid demand for consumers, but the market is blank. With consumption upgrades, changes in the family structure of two-child and three-child families, and the family structure of "4 + 2 + X" with only one child, there is a big family as soon as you go out. Consumers need an MPV that can improve the quality of travel and take care of every need of the family. But at present, there is no MPV on the market that can solve the travel needs of the whole family.
From the external environment, the current MPV market does not have high-end pure electric products for users to choose from. There is no pure electric MPV on the market that truly meets the family experience and business travel, and there is no pure electric MPV that truly meets the family economic travel and can enjoy high-end quality.
Therefore, Lantu hopes to create an MPV that can compete with foreign luxury brands. Whether it is Lantu FREE or Lantu Dreamer, they all hope to represent Chinese brands to promote brand improvement, which is also the confidence we have shown in technology.
In addition, Lu Fang said that on the eve of the auto show, Lantu Auto held a small-scale tasting meeting on November 17, allowing users to experience the Lantu Dreamer model first. In just three days, we have received a lot of user feedback and hope to order. As the second or third car at home, many Lantu FREE users have been recommending this car to their friends, which shows that Lantu’s choice is correct and meets user requests.
In terms of the specific positioning of the model, Lei Xin said that Lantu Automobile believes that in the current new energy vehicle consumer market, users are more concerned about how to meet their own needs, and will not decide to buy a car, SUV or MPV. This purchase logic is the same whether it is for home or commercial use. And Lantu Dreamer is a pure electric MPV model built from actual needs, hoping to meet a variety of different vehicle scenarios such as business travel and family travel at the same time.
Landmap Dreamer can be customized according to user requests. The 4-seat version may be more inclined to the business travel of high-end business people, and the 7-seat version pays more attention to family travel. But Landmap does not deliberately target a certain market. Landmap is aimed at all target users, hoping to bring you a free and continuous exploration lifestyle and life concept with richer products.
When asked by the media that the name of Lantu’s first car is English FREE, and the second Dreamer is Chinese, how does Lantu consider the future naming system? Lei Xin said that for start-up brands, products are brands in a sense. Through individual naming, Lantu Auto hopes to create popular products and then empower the brand.
As an independent high-end new energy brand, Lantu’s future name will be mainly named in Chinese. The name Dreamer has two meanings. One is to represent everyone who has a dream and everyone who strives for the Chinese dream. They are the new backbone of this era and the realization of the Chinese dream. Another layer of meaning is the movable dream home. At work, it is a mobile living room, and at home, it is a movable warm home. It can be oil and electricity, IKEA and IKEA, and the city can be far away. It is a mobile third space that everyone wants to have.
When it comes to the characteristics of Landmap Dreamer in terms of intelligence, some media asked what upgrades the Dreamer has in terms of autonomous driving compared to Landmap FREE? How do you view autonomous driving in your future plans?
In this regard, Lu Fang said that from a technical perspective, both Lantu FREE and Lantu Dreamer can achieve advanced driving assistance at the L2 + level. However, Lantu Automotive never promotes autonomous driving, but defines these technologies as intelligent assistance systems, intelligent driving services or advanced driving assistance. Because Lantu insists on safety first, insists on seeking truth from facts, and never misleads consumers for gimmicks.
In addition to the L2 + level intelligent driving assistance, the Landscape Dreamer is also equipped with a 5G in-vehicle entertainment office system, a lift triple screen, wireless charging, and a car TV system, making it a relatively intelligent model in the MPV market.
Regarding the price range and IPO time of Landmap Dreamer, Lei Xin said that Dreamer will be officially listed in the middle of next year, and the price will be announced at that time. For competing products, Lei Xin said that the current high-end new energy MPV market is still a blue ocean, and there is no IKEA for the time being. At the same time, there is a high-end electric MPV with a higher degree of intelligence, so Landmap Dreamer has no direct competitors yet.
It can be seen that Lantu Auto executives are full of expectations for the Dreamer car, and about its sales expectations, Lu Fang said that Lantu hopes to be in the "first echelon" of the electric luxury MPV market for a long time with the Dreamer.
About Lantu Automotive
After talking about dreamers, we turned the topic to the brand of Lantu Automobile.
Regarding the brand positioning goal of Lantu Automobile, Lu Fang said that Lantu hopes to become a leading enterprise in high-end new energy vehicles in China. To this end, Lantu Automobile has made a lot of technological innovations, such as its self-developed super fast charging technology, which can not only improve the charging experience of users, but also reduce the time it might take half an hour or an hour to charge for about 400km in 10 minutes. In addition, from the perspective of social energy, after the voltage is raised, the efficiency of the whole vehicle will be improved, which will be helpful to society.
Lantu’s vehicle-road coordination is based on how to make the most efficient use of the road, and I believe that it will definitely be realized in the next 5-10 years. With the realization of coordination, vehicles can plan their routes in advance and use the most economical way to make each road the most efficient. Many of the technologies developed by Lantu are considering how to make the most efficient use of social resources in the future without generating too much waste.
Regarding the understanding of user operation, Lu Fang said that with the intelligent and networked car, users have established a closer relationship with brand owners in the whole life cycle of the car. In the past, users only simply paid attention to the product, but now they pay more attention to the service of the whole life cycle of the car. Users’ purchase behavior has gradually become a social activity, and users are more willing to enjoy the joy of contributing wisdom and thinking in the process of participating. So what kind of relationship to build with users and how to create more value for users are issues that car companies must think about if they want to achieve a win-win situation.
In this regard, compared to user operation and user circle, Landmap chooses and adheres to the concept of co-creating and sharing with users. Landmap has an equal relationship with users, treating users as collaborators and good partners, empowering them in both directions, growing together and sharing development results.
In 2019, Landmap has already started to co-create with users. In the prototype stage of Landmap’s FREE project, users tested and inspected together with Landmap. At that time, users put forward two or three hundred optimization suggestions, and Landmap finally adopted more than 130. There are also users who think that Landmap’s car keys are not good-looking, so Landmap solicited car key design solutions on the APP, and now the best solution selected by users has been implemented. Many users feel that Landmap FREE is very kind, because Landmap FREE also contains the user’s efforts and crystallization.
On November 17, Lantu held a small-scale Lantu Dreamer tasting activity, allowing users to easily communicate with travel company partners and listen to the opinions and suggestions of users and the market on MPV. At the press conference on the morning of the 19th, Lantu invited nearly 30 national teams of central enterprises to the Lantu booth, hoping to empower users with a high-quality full-life-cycle car ownership experience from the perspective of the user’s car ownership life cycle. Lantu also announced the official launch of the second global test peer program and renamed it the Global Creation and Enjoyment Peer Program, that is, we hope to continue to be user-centric, expand boundaries, deepen dimensions, and achieve comprehensive co-creation from products, services to ecological chains.
Landmap is not just a simple service for product sales, but really brings value to users. Landmap will definitely put user requests in the most important position and strive to explore a better model of co-creation and sharing with users.
Regarding Lantu’s "national team Moments", Lu Fang said that Lantu is a subsidiary of Dongfeng Company, and Dongfeng itself is a central enterprise. Central enterprises are to serve the people, that is, to serve users. Cooperation between central enterprises can create more value for society and users, which is a manifestation of practicing the social responsibility of central enterprises. In addition, central enterprises themselves have rich resources and capabilities. Central enterprises support and support each other, give full play to their respective advantages, and can make central enterprises develop better together. Cooperating with central enterprises can make users more confident in us, let users see Lantu’s ability is very strong, and believe in Lantu’s strength.
Lu Fang also said that at present, Lantu has been working closely with central enterprises in the whole ecological chain. Lantu’s direct-operated stores, financial services, intelligent networking, charging piles and other aspects are all cooperating with central enterprises such as COFCO Group and China Unicom. This close cooperation will have great support for Lantu’s products and services.
In terms of channel construction, Lu Fang said that currently Lantu adopts a direct sales model, in order to have a direct connection with users. By the end of this year, Lantu will build 57 Lantu spaces. In order to reach users more widely, more than 110 exhibition halls will be built in places with dense traffic such as supermarkets. At the same time, 23 delivery service centers and 51 officially authorized sheet spray centers will be built by the end of this year.
Next year, Lantu’s channels will expand even faster, and construction channels will be expanded from second- and third-tier to fourth- and fifth-tier cities. As long as there is demand, even if there are no local stores, Lantu will find ways to meet the demand, such as door-to-door test drives, door-to-door car deliveries, and so on.
For example, when Lantu was doing a global test peer program, it encountered two users in a very remote county in Xinjiang. The final delivery was also to find a way to send the car there, including follow-up repairs and maintenance.
Bang Dianping
From its first MPV model, Dreamer, to the brand’s understanding and planning for users, partners, and channel construction, we can see that Lantu Auto, as a "new brand", has a very mature "mind" and thinking. With a clear model and brand plan, we have reason to believe that Lantu can grow healthily and provide us with better products and services.