In the auto market in 2021, the hottest keyword must be MPV, a series of new products are listed together, so that the entire market instantly becomes hot. This means that China's private car consumption market is about to enter a new era - the segmentation of family cars has entered a new stage.
On December 30, the new Dongfeng Honda Alexandria was officially launched, and a total of four models equipped with hybrids were launched, with prices ranging from 279,800 yuan to 331,800 yuan. Compared with the old models, the new Alexand has focused on the exterior and interior upgrades.
What has changed about the new Alexand?
As a facelift, the changes in the new Alexand mainly focus on the details of the front and rear of the car. The change in the front of the car is the most obvious, and the new car has a hexagonal grille and headlights that open the corner of the eye, forming a patterned design body of the front of the car as a whole. Different from the positioning of the old model, which is relatively more exaggerated and exploded, the new Alexand compresses the size of the headlights, and at the same time further weakens the visual concentration inside the headlights with an array of light group structures, so that the overall sense of the front of the car can be improved, and the whole vehicle has become more beautiful.
The internal structure of the hexagonal grille is very cleverly designed, and its main structure is still a horizontal spoke, but a high-gloss silver ornament is embedded in the middle of the spoke. Through the clever use of color matching, the new Airson's intake grille presents a visual sense of dot matrix intake grille, while greatly reducing the manufacturing cost of the intake grille and the cost of later maintenance. This has always been the most worthwhile place for the global automotive industry to learn from Japanese cars.
The rear of the new Alexand as an echo with the front of the car, also compresses the visual size of the taillights, with a blackened color and a concave lampshade, the layering of the tail of the Alexand is refined, and like the front, the tail of the new Alexand is indeed more beautiful than the old model.
In general, in terms of appearance, the keyword of this series of changes of the new Alexand is to become more holistic.
The changes to the interior of the new Alexand mainly focus on the upgrade of the upper part of the instrument panel, and the center console replaces the embedded design of the old model with a 10-inch floating LCD display, which has a larger display area and greater display independence. In line with the change in the layout area of the LCD display, the surface of the new Alexand center console has also lowered the height of the profile. In addition, the gear shift handle has also become a button type.
To put it simply, the interior design of the new Alexand has greatly weakened the elements with a sense of space intrusion, so that the sense of seating space and the sense of space transparency in the interior have been greatly improved.
The key to these changes lies in differentiation
Several MPV on the market in 2021 are obviously to bring the concept of American MPV into the domestic market, whether it is Kia Jawa or Toyota Xena, under the influence of american full-size MPV, to build a big MPV that has some style integration with SUVs. This concept of American MPV tends to emphasize more powerful long-haul cruising performance and the sense of large space built under the large body size. In Honda's product lineup, this style of model is the American version of the Odyssey.
There is no doubt that the new Alexand is not an MPV of this category. From the perspective of stylistic attributes, Alexand is the positioning of the standard Japanese home MPV. Compared with the American MPV, the Japanese MPV is first of all more exquisite in positioning, and it is more suitable for traveling between cities. At the same time, under the influence of the space utilization rate of the Japanese K-Car, the Japanese MPV can often build a larger internal space and a more diversified scene adaptability under a certain body size. This is also the basis for Honda Ellison to be able to form a significant differentiation from the Buick GL8 in the past few years.
This exquisite and diversified attribute of Japanese MPV allows the new Alexand to accurately lock in the market segment of home MPV in the MPV market with strong hands. This can be seen from the new Ai Lishen's removal of exaggerated details in the shape. Household will be the key to the next Ai Lishen.
For the demand for family cars, The advantages of Alisson are obvious
Low flooring, full hybrid, reasonable size, are the three keywords used by AliShen.
In the domestic MPV market, the floor height of Alexandre and his brother Odyssey is the lowest. This is thanks to Honda's exquisite flooring design, and it is no exaggeration to say that Honda has designed a dedicated MPV floor for Alexand and Odyssey almost exclusively. Unlike the traditional models, which use the central passage of the floor as the axis, the flooring functional parts are arranged on both sides, and the floors of Alexand and Odyssey are arranged according to the horizontal layer structure. After the engine transmission, under the front seats is the hybrid battery compartment, and then behind it is the fuel tank, rear axle, and the storage compartment for the third row of seats. This arrangement places the main components underneath, and the floor is completely flat and greatly reduces the height of the floor.
Low flooring is extremely necessary for a household MPV. First, the convenience of getting on and off the bus has been greatly improved, which is a major benefit for the elderly and children in family members. The second is that under the limited body height, the longitudinal height of the body interior can be maximized. So we can see that the internal longitudinal space and head space of Alexand are not inferior to large-size American MPV.
Since a few years ago, Honda Alissen has realized the hybridization of the whole series, which is the beginning of the domestic MPV hybrid tide. Honda's i-MMD hybrid is an extremely efficient hybrid system, compared to Toyota's THS hybrid system, Honda's i-MMD motor has a higher ability to drive the vehicle alone, and the structure of the entire system is simpler. The standard configuration of the whole series of hybrid systems has brought at least two major benefits to the household use of Alexand, the first is more smooth and linear, which is in line with the comfort needs of family cars, and the second is a significant increase in economy, especially for family users who drive in the city for a long time, which will reduce a large amount of fuel costs.
Compared with Xena and Jawa, the size of the new Alexand is smaller, although the body length is close to five meters, but the body width and body height will be much smaller. Moreover, the length of the body will be much smaller than that of the American MPV. This is small and is small.
The small Alexand does not give people the sense of the driver being a full-time driver, even if the commuting in the case of no load is not too illegal. For other family crews, the tiny Alexand will also make it incredibly harmonious for a mother to drive to pick up the child.
Write at the end:
As one of the pioneers in China's MPV market, Alexand was positioned as IKEA in the early years, but now with the arrival of more competitors, the new Alexand is also clearly working in the direction of IKEA. This differentiated rhythm is enough for this generation of Alexand to avoid the inner volume of the business MPV market and gallop in the market for several more years.