东风猛士的“华为药方”：一场没有退路的自我革命与生死突围

This article outlines the development trajectory, current challenges and turnaround plans of Dongfeng Mengshi following its partnership with Huawei, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Development history: Dongfeng Mengshi is Dongfeng Motor's premium electric off-road brand. It sold over 10,000 units in 2025, representing a 387% year-on-year increase. However, its sales plummeted in early 2026, with a 66.4% month-on-month drop in January, exposing multiple problems including widespread channel losses, frequent quality control issues, and chaotic internal management.

2. Current turnaround efforts: Dongfeng Mengshi has launched its "Climb to the Peak" initiative, deepening its partnership with Huawei by introducing Huawei's Integrated Product Development (IPD) management system, equipping all models with Huawei's full-stack intelligent driving and cabin technologies, adjusting its product portfolio, building an off-road lifestyle ecosystem, and opening new flagship flagship stores to rebuild consumer confidence.

3. Car-buying guidance: Mengshi is still in the painful transition period, and its brand reputation has not yet stabilized. Prospective buyers are advised to wait and see the results of its transformation before making a purchase decision.

This article offers a wealth of actionable lessons for traditional automakers pursuing premium and intelligent transformation, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Lessons for brand building: New premium brands cannot over-rely on external brand cachet; they must build their own internal momentum and solidify user reputation from the ground up. Dongfeng Mengshi has over-relied on Huawei's reputation and its own military gene for brand endorsement, yet still faces weak brand foundations that prevent it from gaining stable market recognition.

2. Lessons for product pricing: A premium positioning must be matched with equivalent quality control and service capabilities. Blindly setting high initial prices followed by cuts will blur the premium brand image and push the brand into a passive position in a crowded red ocean market. After dropping its price range from 600,000-1,000,000 yuan to the 300,000 yuan range, Mengshi now faces intense competition from BYD Fangchengbao and Great Wall Tank.

3. Reference transformation path: Traditional automakers can adopt the HI PLUS joint co-creation model with tech companies, introduce mature management systems to restructure internal processes, adjust product portfolios to cover different user groups, and build scenario-based ecosystems to boost user stickiness.

This article sorts out Dongfeng Mengshi's current development status and industry risks, providing multi-dimensional insights for auto sellers, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Risk warning: Agents of emerging premium new energy brands should be alert to inventory pressure-driven losses. Currently, nearly all of Dongfeng Mengshi's direct-operated stores and partner dealers are operating at a loss. Many stores in Beijing have sublet two-thirds of their showroom space to offset costs, highlighting the sharp contradiction between high store construction and operating costs and low sales volume.

2. Opportunity observation: The luxury intelligent off-road track still has room for growth, and consumers have clear demand for low-barrier intelligent off-road products. The segment has not yet been fully monopolized by leading players. If Dongfeng Mengshi successfully completes its transformation, channel partners will still be able to capture growth dividends.

3. Cooperation guidance: When selecting partner brands, sellers should prioritize evaluating the brand's management stability and quality control capabilities. Internal personnel turmoil and chaotic management processes will directly trickle down to terminal dealers and hurt sales performance, so cooperation risks should be assessed in advance.

This article provides multiple insights for traditional automaker factories advancing intelligent transformation, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Product development and production requirements: The core reason premium off-road users are willing to pay a price premium is product reliability. Production operations must prioritize quality control above all else. Dongfeng Mengshi has repeatedly experienced safety and quality issues, including rear doors failing to open after a ADAS-assisted collision on the highway and cracked B-pillars, which have severely eroded brand trust. This proves that quality control is the core lifeline of premium products.

2. Business cooperation opportunities: Traditional automaker factories looking to弥补 their intelligent technology gaps can pursue deep co-creation cooperation with tech companies and introduce mature integrated product development management systems. This model not only provides access to full-stack intelligent technology support, but also improves the factory's own R&D and management efficiency.

3. Insights for digital transformation: The intelligent transformation of traditional automakers cannot rely solely on external technology input. Companies must cultivate their own core R&D capabilities to avoid over-reliance on external partners that erodes brand independence, while adjusting product layouts aligned with market demand to cover user groups across different price points.

This article sorts out current pain points in the premium new energy vehicle industry, providing clear directional guidance for automotive industry service providers, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Industry development trend: Traditional hard-core off-road vehicles are rapidly transforming toward luxury intelligence, and deep involvement of tech companies in the full development process of automakers has become a new industry norm. The HI PLUS joint co-creation model, which sits between the Harmony Intelligent Mobility (HIM) model and the HI (Huawei Inside) model, will become the preferred transformation path for more traditional automakers.

2. Core client pain points: Most emerging premium new energy brands suffer from incomplete R&D processes, chaotic internal management, insufficient channel operation capabilities, and unstable quality control systems. Many brands cannot solve these problems on their own, creating large unmet demand for third-party services.

3. Solution direction: Service providers can develop targeted offerings around automakers' transformation needs, including process building, quality control system establishment, supplier management, and channel operation services. They can also develop supporting services such as scenario operation and user operation to match automakers' off-road ecosystem layout strategies, unlocking new business growth points.

This article exposes multiple pain points in the development of emerging premium new energy brands, providing reference for auto platform operators' recruitment and operation strategies, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Core brand-side demands: Emerging premium automotive brands in transition need platforms to provide scenario-based retail support and user operation support to help them complete their growth from zero to market breakthrough. Flexible supporting operation policies are particularly popular with brands and their dealers.

2. Investment and recruitment risk warning: When onboarding new brands, platforms should not only focus on short-term pre-order data and traffic popularity. They should prioritize evaluating a brand's quality control capabilities, management stability and internal growth momentum, guard against traffic bubbles caused by inflated data, and avoid subsequent sales collapses that damage the platform's own reputation.

3. Operation optimization direction: To address the widespread dealer losses faced by transforming brands, platforms can roll out supporting services such as flexible space sharing and cost sharing to help dealers reduce operational pressure. Platforms can also improve their authentic reputation display mechanisms to help consumers make more rational purchasing decisions.

This article presents a vivid, typical case study of the premium intelligent transformation of traditional automakers, with high sample value for industry research, with key content as follows:

1. New industry trends: Cooperation models between traditional automakers and tech companies are continuously evolving, giving rise to the new HI PLUS joint co-creation model that sits between the Harmony Intelligent Mobility (HIM) model and the Huawei Inside (HI) model. In this model, tech companies provide full-stack intelligent technology and management systems and embed themselves deeply into the entire development process, but do not lead product definition and complete vehicle design. This is a new business model worthy of further research.

2. New industry pain points: This article reflects typical pain points of the Chinese auto industry during its current elimination phase. Many traditional automakers pursuing premium transformation over-rely on external technology and brand dividends while neglecting the building of internal capabilities, eventually leading to systemic problems including inflated data, channel collapse, and quality control failures. The transformation pain experienced by Dongfeng Mengshi is broadly representative of the wider industry.

3. Recommended research directions: Future research can further compare the advantages and disadvantages of different tech company empowerment models for traditional automakers, explore how traditional automakers can balance external empowerment with maintaining brand independence, and summarize the success rules for the premium intelligent transformation of traditional automakers.