(Yicai) Aug. 17 -- China's Dongfeng Motor will start managing its three self-owned new energy vehicle brands Aeolus, Dongfeng eπ, and Dongfeng Nami together to enhance decision-making.

The state-owned carmaker will form Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle Sales and Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle Manufacturing Headquarters to oversee the manufacturing and marketing of the three marques, the Wuhan-based firm announced yesterday. The new hub will plan products and manage projects.

Dongfeng will integrate resources, cut layers of management, and improve decision-making efficiency to grasp opportunities arising in the NEV industry, it said.

The firm plans to invest CNY50 billion (USD6.9 billion) in the next three years to have all of its major self-developed passenger car brands only make NEVs next year and sell over one million NEVs by 2025.

The three brands are not alike. Aeolus, also known as Dongfeng Fengshen, will speed up its transition from gas-powered vehicles to electric vehicles. Dongfeng eπ targets the mainstream market whereas Dongfeng Nami, which will be launched on Aug. 23, will make small-sized electric cars.

The company has not appointed a new chairperson after Zhu Yanfeng retired in March. An insider said that usually, firms do not start major adjustments of management systems without a chairperson so this shows how urgently Dongfeng needs to reform.

Dongfeng has been hiking its investments in NEVs since 2021 to become more high-tech. It sold 470,000 NEVs last year, up almost three times from a year ago, but many of them were low-price items and the company has not fully charmed the mainstream passenger vehicle market.

In the first half, the automaker sold 945,500 vehicles, down 23 percent from a year earlier because the firm's joint-venture brands for non-luxury cars explored lower-tier markets. Net profit is expected to have slumped by 75 to 80 percent in the same time period.

Shares of Dongfeng Motor [SHA: 600006] were 1.1 percent up at CNY5.74 (US 80 cents) as of 11.30 a.m. in Shanghai and its Hong Kong-listed equity [HKG: 0489] rose by 3 percent to HKD3.09 (US 40 cents).

Editor: Emmi Laine