Dongfeng launched a commercial-vehicle platform it calls natively engineered

Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle launched a platform it calls Lvzhi, also designated D600, at an event in Wuhan on October 10. The company published the announcement on October 12 and said the platform covers five energy routes — diesel, gas, electric, hydrogen and ammonia.

Dongfeng described five years of development validated through eleven parallel projects, on what it called a native forward-engineering route that defines the underlying hardware architecture and scenario requirements up front. It said the platform’s physical architecture and control architecture were both native rather than adapted, and put energy consumption about 8 percent below comparable models built by converting a diesel platform to electric drive. The company said the platform addresses 34 market segments and 143 typical transport scenarios, and is compatible with five regulatory systems and the standards of 28 countries.

The release gave no software stack, no supplier and no controller count, and the architecture claims, the 8 percent figure and the regulatory-compatibility figures are the company’s own. Dongfeng said it signed letters of intent for 8,700 units with ten customers at the event, which are intentions rather than orders, and showed hydrogen and battery-electric tractors alongside eighteen display vehicles.

Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle is not listed. The Shanghai-listed Dongfeng Motor filed three documents in the window covering a related-party transaction forecast, September production and sales, and an independent-director opinion, none of them about the platform.