Because of my wife’s Wuhan background, I have to visit Wuhan several times every year.

This time, it has been the longest interval, around 8 months. After having a bowl of hot dry noodles, I feel both familiar and unfamiliar. The city seems unchanged, the streets and alleyways filled with enthusiastic people, a city full of vitality. But while chatting with some friends, the shadow of the epidemic can be seen between the lines.

Everyone is exploring for change, trying out new things, and craving new hope.

As Wuhan’s auto industry business card, Dongfeng Motor, with a history of 50 years, stands at a historical node and needs to start again, whether for internal needs or external expectations.

Voyah Automobile, emerged under such a background.

On July 29th, at the HAN XIU Theater in Wuhan, Dongfeng Motor announced its Voyah automobile brand strategy, and its debut vehicle, the VOYAH i-Land concept car, had a global premiere. Voyah is positioned as an anxiety-free high-end smart electric brand.

The importance of Voyah to the city of Wuhan is obvious. On the day of the press conference, Wang Zhonglin, member of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee and Wuhan Municipal Party Secretary, Cao Guangjing, Deputy Governor of Hubei Province, Zhou Xianwang, Mayor of Wuhan, and related leaders, as well as Dongfeng Motor Group Chairman and Party Secretary Zhu Yandong, all appeared on site, with thousands of people attending the event.

So how is the highly anticipated Voyah?

1. Time window

After Voyah’s debut, the most common feedback I heard was “they are too late.”

On the surface, it seems to be the case. Whether it is a new car company or a traditional carmaker, either self-owned or imported, they have completed the initial layout in the field of intelligent electric vehicles in the past few years, and most have mature products as well. Overnight, the blue ocean became a red ocean, and the watershed began to emerge.

Tesla Model 3 sold over ten thousand units in a month, NIO was out of the quagmire, and the product power of the XPeng P7 evolved. The day after the Voyah debut, Ideal Auto also successfully landed on Nasdaq, with a market value approaching NIO. Among traditional carmakers, BYD brand is gradually climbing, the Wang Chao series puzzle is completed, and GAC New Energy Aion series’ latest monthly sales have exceeded 4,000.

It will indeed be difficult for Voyah to catch up with these leaders. But there are certain factors that cannot be ignored.

# First: National Brand

In July, General Secretary Xi Jinping visited the First Automotive Works Group and emphasized the importance of improving national automobile brands. This statement not only boosted confidence but also indicated a trend. Although late to the game, as observed, Voyah is the first high-end electric brand among the three state-owned automakers, with the experience of Hongqi’s successful revival. Its significance and opportunities are self-evident.

Second: Avoid detours

Although Voyah’s arrival was comparatively late, it can learn from the experiences of success and failure in the industry to avoid detours. For instance, the concept of “building the brand first” proved essential for the success of new automakers like NIO, and start-ups within traditional automakers like Aiways. Conversely, SAIC Roewe’s sales failure of the Marvel X, which had no problem with the product itself, was mainly due to the lack of independent and distinct branding image apart from Roewe. As a result, Roewe released a new dual-label strategy for its brand, introducing the brand new “R” logo.

Third: Time Span

Compared to the voices emphasizing time windows, prioritizing the polishing of the brand and product is undoubtedly more critical. The transformation of automotive brands and products has only just begun, and looking back in ten to twenty years, the gap of 1-2 years would be negligible. Thus the core value lies in the final ability to provide users and society what is needed.

Two: Three Opportunities

In the eyes of Dongfeng Automobile Group Chairman Zhu Yanfeng, Voyah is not a “new force in car manufacturing” but a “new strength.”

After the press conference, I talked to some Voyah friends. Zhu Yanfeng’s interpretation of the “new strength” is not just an empty statement. Voyah did indeed have a relatively advantageous position right from the beginning, possessing at least three significant opportunities.

Firstly: Positioning

Voyah’s English name is VOYAH, which means Voyage, representing the perfect integration of technology and nature and promoting the concept of a high-end intelligent lifestyle brand.

In terms of brand positioning, Voyah is positioned as a zero-anxiety, high-end intelligent electric brand. Here, “zero anxiety” does not simply refer to the range anxiety, but also encompasses “product quality anxiety, safety anxiety, mileage anxiety, delivery anxiety, service anxiety, and brand sustainable development anxiety.”

They also have a clear target audience: the “new middle force”. This group of people has a good education background, a spirit of innovation, a yearning for freedom and self-realization. They pursue a more quality and tasteful car life.

Currently, Voyah has developed the ESSA native intelligent electric architecture, where “E” represents electric, meaning native electric, the two “S” respectively representing smart and secure, meaning intelligent and safe, and “A” represents architecture, meaning structure, which will meet users’ needs for security, comfort, respect, pleasure and taste.

In the field of design, Voyah takes “calm, quiet, and elegant” as its design concept, hoping to create a calm, elegant, and serene space. Not noisy, not flashy, not impetuous; with vision, broad-mindedness, and taste, it can be said that this design concept fits the taste of the target users. Judging from the design of the first concept car VOYAH i-Land, the whole design is elegant and grand, with gullwing doors and an interior that shows an extended spatial pattern, conveying the concept of “calm, quiet, and elegant” to every detail of the car.

According to Voyah’s planning, in the next 3-5 years, it will accurately lay out based on user needs and cover various sub-segments of the market such as passenger cars, SUVs, MPVs, cross-border vehicles, and high-performance cars. Starting from 2021, Voyah will launch no less than one new model to the market every year.

Compared with the case of Roewe Marvel X mentioned earlier, it is obvious that Voyah has been very mature in its brand and product positioning, which is a prerequisite for its ultimate success.

Secondly: background.

After having a clear positioning, what is needed more is execution. This is where Voyah’s second opportunity, background, is mentioned.

In the beginning of the launch of many new brands, some key words are always listed, including “quality, safety, manufacturing, supply chain, technology, funds, qualifications, sustainability,” etc. Each keyword is an invisible threshold. It is difficult to break through if one fails to do so.

Interestingly, relying on Dongfeng’s 50-year experience in car manufacturing and the support of a Fortune 500 company, after analyzing these key words one by one, we will find that they are answered smoothly in Voyah.For example, at the launch event of the supply chain end, we saw the attendance of Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, and Wang Jun, president of Huawei’s Intelligent Automotive Solutions Business Unit. Their presence is symbolic, as the former’s battery products are the most basic and important traditional components in the supply chain of electric vehicles, while the latter occupies an important position in the emerging automotive industry supply chain in areas such as human-machine interaction and intelligent driving. Zeng Yuqun and Wang Jun appearing together at the Wuhan launch event is enough to reflect the Voyah’s ability in supply chain coordination.

As for technology, Dongfeng has a 50-year history in car manufacturing and a 19-year history in new energy vehicle research and development. It has accumulated technology in areas such as motors and electronic control systems. For example, the Fengshen E series and Yixuan EV both use Dongfeng’s self-developed electric drive system. Moreover, benefiting from cooperation with Nissan and Xiaokang Holdings, Dongfeng’s reserve of electrification technology can also be well supplemented externally. The Nissan Leaf was introduced to the market as early as 2010, and its global sales now exceed nearly 500,000 units. In addition, Dongfeng and Xiaokang Holdings have also identified the Jinkang New Energy as a cooperation platform for the two parties in the mid-to-high-end new energy vehicle segment.

Finally, let’s talk about funding. It is well known that funding has always been the Achilles’ heel of most new brands, and NIO’s life hung by a thread last year, with tight funding being the core reason. From Voyah’s perspective, on the one hand, Dongfeng Group’s sales exceeded 500 billion yuan in 2019, and these internal resources will become Voyah’s backing; on the other hand, Dongfeng recently announced its plans to list on the ChiNext board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. This part of the funds raised will also be mainly used for Voyah’s related development.

Based on these backgrounds, Voyah is not starting from scratch, but standing on the shoulders of predecessors and backed by ample strategic reserves, it is a brand that starts from “1”.

Third, organization.

This point is very crucial. The main reasons for the failure of many state-owned enterprise reforms in the past were that their internal cores were difficult to change, the burden was heavy, and the efficiency was low, and it was difficult to move forward in big strides.

In this regard, Voyah has some differences.

In terms of team structure, Voyah’s core management mainly comes from the Dongfeng system. CEO and CTO Lu Fang was formerly the special technical director of Dongfeng’s Strategic Planning Department; Chief Brand Officer Ye Xin was formerly the executive deputy general manager of Dongfeng Infiniti; Chief Operating Officer Jiang Tao was previously the general manager of Dongfeng Nissan Dalian Branch; and Shen Jun, the former manager of Dongfeng’s financial reporting division, is now the Chief Financial Officer at Voyah.

It’s interesting that, in addition to employees from the Dongfeng series, a group of electric vehicle companies and IT talents have also been introduced into the Voyah internal. An image found online shows that the license plates of the cars parked in the Voyah company parking lot come from all over the country.

It is worth noting that, in order to optimize the organizational structure, Voyah has specially established an independent Voyah Automotive Technology Company that is not affiliated with any subsidiary of the Dongfeng Group. It adopts the OKR goal management widely used by technology companies and advocates flat and efficient management. The determination to make changes cannot be more determined.

III. A Beginning

Undoubtedly, the curtain of transformation in China’s and even the global automotive industry has been lifted.

Looking at the three major central enterprises in China, FAW has gradually emerged from the predicament in the independent field. The Hongqi brand has been successfully reshaped, with sales increasing for 28 consecutive months. In the first half of this year, sales broke through 70,000, a year-on-year increase of 110.7%. Changan experienced difficulties last year, but this year it achieved a counterattack by creating the “PLUS Advanced Edition”. In June, which has just passed, sales exceeded 140,000, a year-on-year increase of 39.1%.

In contrast, although Dongfeng has continued to make efforts in the independent brand field, the sales of the Yixuan, Fengshen AX7, and Fengshen E70 models are not very satisfactory. In addition, the sudden outbreak of the epidemic in the first half of the year led to a year-on-year decrease of more than 30% in the overall sales of independent brands. In the past process of competing for the high-end market, Dongfeng has suffered losses, such as the Dongfeng A9 launched in 2015, which took a whole 4 years from project approval in 2012 to formal launch in 2016, with ultimately unsatisfactory market performance.

However, these are all in the past.

Standing at the node of Wuhan’s restart and recovery, the Voyah that emerged in adversity has visibly combined the “soft power” of new carmaking and the “hard power” of traditional automakers, getting off to a good start.

In two years’ time, this new brand may exceed expectations.

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.