The national automotive team fights a desperate battle

Dongfeng Motor Group's some brands have welcomed a rare good start.

Data from February 1 shows that Dongfeng Yipai's monthly deliveries exceeded 21,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 145%; Voyah delivered 10,515 units in January, a year-on-year increase of 31%; Dongfeng Fengshen also achieved a year-on-year growth of 37%.

However, beneath the bright red posters celebrating the good start, there is not only joy in celebration. According to the internal targets set by Dongfeng Motor Group, the overall sales target for this year is to challenge 3.25 million units, a year-on-year increase of about 30%. Among them, new energy vehicle sales are targeted at 1.7 million units, and exports at 600,000 units.

In the context of rising raw material prices and the decline of subsidy policies this year, achieving this target is not an easy task, and this state-owned automobile group is determined to fight back.

Wall Street Journal learned from informed sources that some brands within Dongfeng Motor Group have already set specific targets for this year. Specifically, Dongfeng Yipai's sales target this year is to strive for 180,000 units, Dongfeng Fengshen aims for 220,000 units, and Dongfeng Liuzhou Automobile will aim for a scale of 250,000 units in the passenger car sector, striving to rank second in the independent MPV market. The target for Dongfeng Commercial Vehicles is to achieve sales of over 176,000 units by 2026, supporting Dongfeng Group's commercial vehicle business to regain the industry's top position.

Yang Yanding, general manager of Dongfeng Motor's Strategic Planning Department, told Wall Street Journal, "Building cars is not 'playing with Lego'; it's not just about buying good components and piecing them together to succeed. True competitiveness comes from the accumulation of underlying technology and the ability to control the entire stack independently."

Dongfeng has defined 2026 as the year of technology realization. This means that past technological investments and achievements must be transformed into tangible products and converted into market share.

Data shows that Dongfeng Group's R&D investment will reach 7.9% by 2025. With the mass production of the independently developed DF30 chip, the domestic chip localization rate for the entire series will rise to 67%. In 2026, Dongfeng's new generation of high thermal efficiency Mach engines will be equipped in new products; the "Tianyuan Smart Driving" system will achieve large-scale deployment on T200 and application on T500.

In this fight to the death, the most intriguing aspect is Dongfeng's deep binding with Huawei. Yu Yuefeng, general manager of Dongfeng Yipai's marketing division, revealed that this year Dongfeng Yipai will fully integrate Huawei's entire suite, including Huawei QianKun Smart Driving ADS Pro, HarmonyOS cockpit HarmonySpace5, Huawei QianKun vehicle control, and Huawei QianKun vehicle cloud.

The Mengshi will launch three new products in 2026, and the collaboration with Huawei is both deep and comprehensive.

However, critically speaking, when Voyah, Yipai, Mengshi, and even joint venture brands are leveraging Huawei's strength, where is Dongfeng's brand uniqueness? This is precisely the deep meaning of Yang Yanding's emphasis on "not playing with Lego." Dongfeng must prove by 2026 that it is not only a carrier of Huawei's smart driving but also a controller that can achieve dimensional compensation for smart driving systems in heavy asset manufacturing and chassis tuning.

The difficulty of a giant turning around does not lie in the intelligence of its brain, but in the slow transmission of its nerves.

Yang Yanding stated that as reforms deepen, those who can hear the sound of gunfire should command the battle, granting frontline business units greater autonomy. Dongfeng intends to address the long decision-making chain issues of large state-owned enterprises Wall Street Journal also learned that in joint ventures, Dongfeng Motor Group is no longer just maintaining the status quo but is exploring a new model of "Chinese customers, Chinese standards, Chinese components, and Chinese speed." This marks Dongfeng's attempt to transform joint venture brands from mere profit centers into reverse output centers for technology and standards, in order to maintain competitiveness in an increasingly competitive market.

Currently, the first-mover advantage in intelligence has been diluted. As the industry adopts similar intelligent driving solutions, the sluggish performance observed in January indicates that users are no longer willing to pay for illusory intelligent premiums. For users, the stability of cost and quality will become more attractive factors.

In addition, Chinese car companies are also facing a shift from selling globally to producing globally, which raises higher requirements for the granularity of multinational operations.

For Dongfeng Motor, there is no turning back; it can only forge ahead in the increasingly fierce elimination rounds of the automotive industry. By refining technology, products, and channel marketing, it aims to redefine the survival rules for the next decade