Shanghai (ZXZC)- At the 2018 China EV100 Forum, Dong Haiyang, assistant general-manager of FAW Group Corporation (FAW), made a speech about FAW's status quo and strategic planning in new energy vehicle (NEV) and intelligent driving area.

According to Dong, FAW is the first Chinese auto enterprise who promoted NEV. It had launched a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) under Hongqi brand as early as 1998. However, 20 years passed, only 1250 NEVs have been produced by the group.

Under such pressure, FAW will make great efforts to develop its NEV business. According to the speaker, FAW set a target to become one of top 5 NEV sellers in China by the end of 2021. Besides, in the next five years, FAW will build a pure-electric vehicle platform focusing on A00-class, A-class and B-class vehicles.

On January 8, Xu Liuping, chairman of FAW Group released the all-new brand strategy of Hongqi, a storied high-end vehicle brand owned by FAW. According to this strategy, by the end of 2023, the vehicles under Hongqi brand will all be electric-driven. Before 2029, all FAW's vehicles should be powered by electricity. For this purpose, the group plans to build 3 major electric vehicle (EV) platforms, including hybrid vehicles, pure EVs and plug-in EVs. Besides, the automaker will set up an industrial park to research and develop 5 types of vehicle power batteries.

Dong also added that Hongqi will launch a pure EV platform to produce vehicles with a battery range of around 310 km in October this year. Moreover, the brand plans to roll out hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (HFCV) in October next year and 15 EV models in 2025.

Dong Haiyang also revealed FAW's planning in intelligent driving area. In accordance with his speech, the group plans to introduce driverless technologies from other providers and then fuse them into its vehicles. After that, the automaker will develop its own driverless system. This process is called “CFD” (carry, fusion and development).

In addition, based on Hongqi's new brand strategy mentioned above, the vehicles under this brand will be equipped with L5 autonomous driving function by the end of 2025.