In 2021, the hottest topic in the automotive industry is inseparable from new energy vehicles. Whether it is the booming sales of new car-making forces or the electrification transformation of traditional car companies, every move has attracted people's attention. 2021 is also regarded as the first year of the acceleration of electrification of traditional car companies, from the Shanghai Auto Show at the beginning of the year to the Munich Motor Show in September, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi and other traditional car giants have left the most central booth to their new electric vehicles.
In the past year, we have seen that Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda and other traditional car companies have all launched a variety of electric vehicles, and gradually found their place in the new energy vehicle market that they ignored in the past. Entering the new year, it is expected that the focus of these traditional car companies will undoubtedly be electric vehicles.
Sure enough, on the first day of work in the new year, the Mercedes-Benz VISION EQXX concept car ushered in the world premiere. Futuristic styling, a range of more than 1,000 kilometers on a single charge, and a record-breaking resistance coefficient of 0.17 – these seem to announce to the world the determination of the "inventors of the car" to build the world's most desirable electric vehicle.
The exterior and interior design are very futuristic
As a concept car, the exterior design of the Mercedes-Benz VISION EQXX is very avant-garde, the body adopts the eye-catching Alabeam silver appearance, overlooking, the roof is just like a smooth greenhouse dome, flowing gracefully to the rear like water droplets; the front face of the bright black closed grille with rose gold decoration, looks very exquisite atmosphere; the light strip and headlights above the grille naturally blend, and the entire front of the car is full of technology and futurism. The taillights are very sci-fi, using the popular through-type taillights, which are super recognizable. The retractable rear diffuser retracts and blends into the body, ensuring balance, proportion and lightweight aesthetics at the rear.
The design and development team gave the VISION EQXX Concept an ultra-smooth exterior design, combined with tires with ultra-low rolling resistance and aerodynamic optimization, giving it an impressive wind resistance coefficient of 0.17.
Vision EQXX's interior design also reveals an extremely pure design style, unlike the general concept car only stays in the concept stage of the interior, EQXX's cabin design is closer to reality, very clear interior elements and configurations allow people to get a glimpse of what the future Mercedes-Benz new car looks like.
The most eye-catching is Mercedes-Benz's first completely seamless 47.5-inch ultra-thin integrated screen, which includes many functions such as dashboard, multimedia navigation and co-driver display, and the on-demand partition backlight formed by 3000 LEDs can automatically extinguish the backlight in areas that do not need to be lit to greatly reduce the power.
A single charge has an endurance of more than 1,000 kilometers
Mercedes-AMG HPP has developed a new battery pack specifically for the VISION EQXX concept car, which achieves an astonishing energy density of nearly 400 Wh/L through advanced anode chemistry and a highly integrated battery pack, with a nearly 100 kWh battery volume of only 50% of the new EQS and a 30% lighter weight.
At the same time, the VISION EQXX concept car is equipped with a new electric drive system independently developed by Mercedes-Benz, which can directly transfer up to 95% of the battery energy to the wheels.
Thanks to a new battery pack, cutting-edge electric drive system, lightweight engineering technology and an amazing drag coefficient of 0.17, the VISION EQXX concept car has an amazing low energy consumption performance, and its energy consumption per 100 km is less than 10 kWh – equivalent to 100 hours of 50-inch LED TV operation. Based on digital simulations of real-world road conditions, the car has a range of more than 1,000 kilometers on a single charge – roughly equivalent to driving from Beijing to Nanjing. Such excellent results make this concept the most energy efficient model ever produced by Mercedes-Benz.
At the same time, a large number of lightweight technologies and sustainable materials are applied throughout the vehicle, such as the biodegradable pure plant silk for the door handles; the seats are made of two outstanding leather alternatives – made of cactus raw material and mycelium, respectively, and its carpets are woven with 100% bamboo fiber. The application of these high-performance biotechnology materials in the automotive field demonstrates the "automotive inventor's" strength in achieving a future luxury design that balances man and nature.
Forward-looking digital experiences
It is worth noting that the development process of the VISION EQXX concept car also broke the previous record. Thanks to the extensive use of cutting-edge digital tools such as virtual reality and augmented reality, it took only 18 months from scratch to the ground of the vehicle.
In terms of digital experience, the VISION EQXX concept car also brings a lot of highlights. It is reported that since the beginning of the development of this car, it has attracted professionals in the field of Formula 1 racing, and even brought together start-ups, partners and institutions from all over the world to form a cross-departmental multidisciplinary team to develop an advanced and efficient solution with great future business potential driven by software.
In addition to the 47.5-inch ultra-thin all-in-one screen, the vehicle's UI interactive interface draws on the graphic design concepts of the game industry, introducing images and multi-dimensional modeling tools used in Hollywood animation and large-scale 3D games, truly bringing an immersive interactive experience. The R&D team's cross-border joint 3D real-time navigation system can enlarge the satellite screen to a height of 10 meters, bringing users a new visual experience.
The concept car also uses a number of digital technologies for the user interface and experience. The engineers used an innovative information processing method called neuromorphic computing, which effectively reduced energy consumption by several orders of magnitude and increased the "Hello, Mercedes-Benz" wake-up speed by 5 to 10 times compared with the current level.
This year, traditional car companies are expected to accelerate their counterattack
Although the VISION EQXX is only a concept car, Mercedes-Benz emphasizes that many of the functions applied in this concept car have been applied to the production car, and more advanced technology will be installed in the subsequent mass production Mercedes-Benz models. For this reason, Conlinson, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz, said: "The VISION EQXX concept car perfectly explains our vision for the future of electric vehicles. ”
Choosing to launch this concept car on the first working day of the new year, presumably Mercedes-Benz also hopes to use this concept car to show people the forward-looking design of Mercedes-Benz for electric mobility, and will continue to show its strength on the road of electrification.
Looking back at the car market in 2021, although the new forces of car manufacturing have made remarkable achievements, looking forward to the future, they will not only face the pressure of competition from traditional car companies, but also face problems such as declining car purchase subsidies, increasing raw material costs, and chip shortages. According to the sales ranking of new energy passenger cars released by the Federation of Passenger Vehicles, there are 14 companies with wholesale sales of more than 10,000 units in November, and the number has increased significantly compared with the previous period, and traditional car companies have gradually returned to the forefront. Compared with the new car manufacturing forces, traditional car companies have obvious advantages in terms of capital investment, research and development capabilities, sales networks and base disk users, which provides strong support for the future development.
In 2022, the competition in the new energy vehicle market is destined to become more intense. Today, the release of the Mercedes-Benz VISION EQXX concept car may be a signal.