Three years after the split of the new energy business, the "Deep Blue Brand" Changan Automobile "Wuzi Dengke" challenges the sales target of 4 million vehicles.

The long-rumored Changan new energy pure electricity brand has finally come to light.

On April 13, 2022, Changan Automobile Global Partnership Conference, Changan Automobile officially named Changan New Energy Pure Electric Brand "Changan Deep Blue". After Avita, this brand has become another market layout for Changan Automobile to diversify its shareholding in Changan New Energy.

"by 2025, Changan Automobile will launch 21 products for the mainstream passenger car market, including 5 dark blue brands, and the deep blue brand C385EV and C673EV will be launched in 2022." Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, said.

Compared with Avita, which faces the high school market and takes on the upward task of the brand, the Deep Blue brand facing the "mainstream passenger car market" will obviously take on more "volume" tasks of Changan new energy in the future. At this point, Changan Automobile's Avita, Deep Blue, UNI, Auchan and Mini car series have their own new energy businesses.

Facing the mainstream electric vehicle market

As early as the Changan Automobile Technology Day held in August 2021, two new models, the Avita E11 and the Changan New Energy C385, were unveiled on the same stage, and the Changan New Energy C385 was just a code name at that time.

In November 2021, Changan New Energy applied for the trademark of "Qiyuan Automobile". In January this year, Changan New Energy registered the official account of "Qiyuan Automobile user Service" as the main account. This action also directly triggered speculation that Changan Automobile brand will be named "Qiyuan Automobile". However, on March 14, the name of the account was changed to "Changan Deep Blue".

During this period, news about the cross-border SUV codenamed C673 and the national boutique scooter codenamed A158 also flooded the market.

At this partner meeting, Changan Automobile made its name correct one by one. According to Zhu Huarong, the C385EV and C673EV under the Deep Blue brand will be based on the EPA platform, as well as the upcoming Changan LUMIN mini electric car brand. "the EPA architecture is a platform architecture for the mainstream electric vehicle market." Zhu Huarong said.

"the EPA platform will be mainly committed to opening up the territory for Changan New Energy. Under the platform intensive production, the Deep Blue brand can achieve large-scale benefits." An industry personage said to this analysis.

It is reported that in addition to the newly released Deep Blue brand, Changan Automobile also plans to promote UNI brand operation to achieve electrification of all products. According to the plan, Changan's new energy products this year also include UNI-branded UNI-KPHEV and UNI-V PHEV, while Auchan will also launch Auchan Z6-PHEV.

From the current brand planning, we can see the general layout of Changan Automobile in the field of new energy-Avita focuses on the middle and high end, Deep Blue faces the mainstream market, LUMIN positioning minicar, while UNI and Auchan prefer the hybrid market. In addition, there is no specific brand of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to be released this year.

Identify investment and sales KPI

In 2018, Changan New Energy was established, and the A round financing plan of Changan New Energy was completed in 2019, becoming the first central automobile enterprise in China to spin off the new energy business and realize the reform of mixed ownership. On January 24 this year, Changan New Energy announced at the signing ceremony of round B financing that it had finally raised 4.9773 billion yuan, exceeding the planned financing of nearly 2 billion yuan.

However, although the new energy business has been split independently for three years, Changan Automobile has always lacked "popular models" in the field of new energy vehicles. At present, Changan Automobile has four series of complete vehicle products, such as the A00-class car Mercedes-Benz EV and Yitou EV460, and the sales of new energy exceeded 100000 for the first time in 2021. By contrast, the Great Wall Euler brand, which also focuses on small cars, sold 137000 vehicles in 2021, while Wuling's GSEV products sold more than 450000.

With the arrival of new brands and clearer market division, Changan Automobile has also announced medium-and long-term sales targets, including new energy vehicles. According to the plan, Changan Automobile will launch 36 new products throughout the year, with 19 new products of its own brand. Among them, 9 are brand-new products and 10 are modified products. Among the 19 new products, new energy products account for 8.

By 2025, the total sales of Changan Automobile is planned to reach 4 million, of which 3 million are Changan brand and 1.05 million are new energy, accounting for 35%. In 2030, Changan automobile sales will reach 5.5 million, of which Changan brand is 4.5 million. New energy sales reached 2.7 million, accounting for 60%, and overseas sales accounted for 30%.

At this global partnership conference, Zhu Huarong revealed that by 2025, Changan Automobile is expected to invest more than 80 billion yuan in key areas such as new energy, intelligence, scientific and technological innovation, and digital transformation to speed up the construction of core competencies in the field of transformation. It is also reported that Changan New Energy plans to IPO in Science and Technology Innovation Board around 2025.