When we look back at the past 2021, we will find that the biggest change in the auto market is the speed at which major car companies launch new products. For the new forces, in the face of such a high-speed development of the electrification industry change period, the launch of a new product in the previous year has obviously been unable to keep up with the fast-paced market changes, which also allows the market and consumers to see that many new forces car companies can launch 3-4 new models, new platforms, and new technologies in one year, which is unimaginable under the previous car-making thinking.
But when we calm down, we will have questions, does the high-speed iteration of new products mean that the new power car companies have successfully broken through? We may be able to find the answer to this point in the continuous hot selling of Xiaopeng Motors.
| Empower diversified needs with products
If you want to take stock of the new force car companies that have released the most new products in 2021, Xiaopeng is definitely in the first echelon.
In March 2021, the Xiaopeng P7 Pengyi Edition was officially delivered, which not only brought users a highly personalized new choice, but also further helped the Xiaopeng P7 to continue to become the best-selling model in the market segment.
In July 2021, the G3i, a modified model of Xiaopeng Automobile's compact SUV model G3, was officially launched, and the price of the new car was 149,800-185,800 yuan after subsidies. As a mid-term modification model, the biggest change of the Xiaopeng G3i is to follow the same family-oriented front face design as the Xiaopeng P7, and the shape is more stylish. In addition, the Xiaopeng G3i is equipped with three sets of millimeter wave radars as well as 12 ultrasonic radars and 5 high-definition cameras, and comes with xpilot 2.5 autopilot assistance system. In terms of cruising range, the long-endurance version of the Xiaopeng G3i model NEDC has a cruising range of up to 520 kilometers.
Previously, Xiaopeng G3 as Xiaopeng's first intelligent car, since its listing in 2018, sales have been in the leading position of A-class pure electric SUVs, and even with the design and highly intelligent configuration loved by young people, once became a representative model of new forces, with the listing of Xiaopeng G3i, Xiaopeng not only showed its new proposition for rejuvenation, but also once again made Xiaopeng G3 one of the new energy models that attracted much attention in the market.
In September 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile's third model, the P5, was officially launched, and the price after subsidy was 157,900-223,900 yuan. The car is positioned as a compact sedan and is the second sedan launched by Xiaopeng Motors after the Xiaopeng P7. In terms of appearance, Xiaopeng P5 is relatively conservative compared to P7.
As a brand new model, the biggest highlight of the Xiaopeng P5 is that in addition to the richer technology configuration than the P7, it also has an excellent cost performance. In addition, the Xiaopeng P5 is also the first model of Xiaopeng Automobile to be equipped with the XPILOT 3.5 version, which can realize urban (NGP) autonomous navigation driving with the assistance of two lidars. It is worth mentioning that xiaopeng P5 is also equipped with Xmart OS 3.0 system with Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8155P chip core, making Xiaopeng P5 have the industry's first "full-scene voice", supporting continuous dialogue, visible can be said, dual-tone area recognition and other high-level functions.
In November 2021, the smart flagship SUV Xiaopeng G9 debuted. Prior to this, Xiaopeng Motors had only one compact SUV model before, and it had not made any achievements in medium and large SUV models. With the debut of Xiaopeng Automobile's first medium- and large-sized SUV model, the G9, Xiaopeng officially made up for the gap in medium- and large-sized SUVs.
It is reported that the Xiaopeng G9 is developed in accordance with the Chinese and EU vehicle double certification standards and follows the C-NCAP and E-NCAP double five-star safety standards design. In addition, it can also meet the stringent EU WVTA full-model type certification standards; its vehicle environmental protection can meet the high standards of EU 3R certification.
In addition, the Xiaopeng G9 will also be equipped with the latest generation of X-EEA3.0 electrical and electronic architecture. Since the X-EEA 3.0 electrical and electronic architecture adopts a highly converged hardware architecture of central supercomputing + area control, it can be equipped with a higher performance chip to support higher level intelligent assisted driving and a more powerful intelligent cockpit. The Xiaopeng G9 will be the first mass production car to support the XPILOID 4.0 intelligent driver assistance system.
As the first model of Xiaopeng Automobile that is truly based on internationalization, Xiaopeng G9 shows the subversive product charm with its comprehensive leading intelligent genes and many pioneering technologies, and truly opens a new journey for Xiaopeng Automobile to compete in the international market.
In the eyes of the industry, Xiaopeng Automobile can launch four products in a year and receive widespread attention, which is a thing worth showing off for any car company, behind which it represents that Xiaopeng Automobile has a relatively deep technical reserve after several years of development, and clearly recognizes the changing user needs of the new automobile era.
However, in the view of Xiaopeng Motors, the fast-paced product iteration speed is obviously not enough, and being able to differentiate in product verification manufacturing and product quality on top of this is the foundation of Xiaopeng's establishment in the face of the gradual homogenization of the future market environment.
| Extreme test challenges witness quality strength
It can be said that the so-called "test" has become strange for many consumers, and most of them are car companies that use seemingly exaggerated but low actual standards to attract attention. But for Xiaopeng, a real extreme test obviously has to carry more significance, the most important of which is nothing more than to enable users to bring users a more reassuring, worry-free and quality car experience in a more extreme car environment.
In November last year, Xiaopeng Automobile set up a platform of 200 square meters in Beijing 751 Square, using more than 30 high-pressure sprinklers, and continued to spray the body of a Xiaopeng P7 with seawater, without stopping for 550 hours. After the end, please ask the China Automobile Center to conduct an inspection, found that this body has no foaming, no edge corrosion, and no weld corrosion - the front cover, the front wall, the front wheel package lower part, the left and right fenders, the left and right front doors, the left and right rear doors, the left and right side doors, and the rear tail door surface corrosion grade are all 0 grade 0 without corrosion; only the front cabin components, the surface of the floor components after the trunk reaches 1 level of micro-corrosion, and the corrosion area < 0.05%.
It is worth noting that compared with the pure water used by other car companies in the spray experiment, seawater, as a natural electrolyte, will produce serious corrosion on all metal parts, and the same is true for cars. The seawater used by Xiaopeng this time obviously puts forward higher requirements for the corrosion resistance of the body in white. It is said that the electrolyte sprayed on the body of the car in one day is equivalent to the electrolyte content that the car can be exposed to during normal one-year use.
The body that Xiaopeng showed was an ordinary body pulled out of the painting workshop of Zhaoqing Factory, which can explain the authenticity and applicability of the test results, which means that the Xiaopeng obtained by the user also has such corrosion resistance.
If the seawater spray test has established a high-quality image for Xiaopeng in the market, then the Extreme Low Temperature Test of Xiaopeng P5 carried out in December is really a reassuring pill for northern users to use their cars in winter.
It is reported that Xiaopeng P5 extreme low temperature test was held in China Automotive Technology and Research Center, during the test process, Xiaopeng adjusted the test temperature to be lower than the national standard test temperature (national standard test requirements -18 °C, this experiment -23 °C), and finally Xiaopeng P5 with a lower temperature, faster start and defrosting speed, successfully passed the test.
In order to be closer to the real extremely cold car environment, the experiment began with a professional experimental cabin of Xiaopeng P5 for up to 8 hours of extreme cold "soaking", until the temperature inside and outside the car dropped to -23 ° C, and then after the frost of professional and technical personnel, the entire body and windshield of Xiaopeng P5 have been covered with frost.
After that, the staff of China Automobile Research Institute officially began the test, first of all, the remote low temperature start test, when the staff pressed the remote start button on the mobile phone, Xiaopeng P5 started successfully in an instant, far faster than the national standard required within 7 seconds to start.
The second is to detect the defrosting speed of the vehicle, after the vehicle starts, Xiaopeng P5 immediately enters the defrosting working state, and after 20 minutes, the front window defrosting reaches 99.8% (80% of the 20-minute defrosting required by the national standard); within 40 minutes, the defrosting has reached 100% (90% of the 40-minute defrosting above the national standard requirement). In the end, Xiaopeng P5 successfully passed these two tests with a number of indicators higher than the requirements of the national standard.
| Differentiate quality with high standards
Whether it is a seawater spray experiment or an extremely low temperature test, Xiaopeng Automobile has set a new standard for the new force car companies in 2021, so that consumers can see that the quality of the new force can be so good, and it turns out that not all electric vehicles will reduce the car experience in severe cold weather. However, behind the recognition of the market and users, Xiaopeng pays precisely the high-quality car-making standards that are more differentiated from other car companies.
For example, in order to resist corrosion, the body of Xiaopeng P7 is made of anti-corrosion materials, including aluminum cover, cast aluminum shock absorption tower seat and many other aluminum parts, more than 90% of the body uses double-layer galvanized steel plate, galvanized thickness of 7-12μm super-program specifications, coating matching BASF's latest generation of CG800 ultra-high penetration cathodic electrophoretic paint technology, the cost is relatively high.
Sheet metal welding seams, sheet metal lap edges to sheet metal inner cavity openings, have been strictly sealed, closed treatment, the depths of the inner cavity are also sprayed with anti-rust wax, the bottom of the car is also sprayed with anti-stone hit PVC coating. It is these details that achieve the corrosion-free results mentioned above.
The second is to establish super-standards. A car, from the product development stage to develop rigorous strengthening tests, such as only anti-corrosion engineering, to carry out 100 national standard cycle corrosion tests and 120 European standard cycle corrosion tests in Hainan, simulating the whole vehicle under the working conditions through muddy waterways, washboard roads, brine roads and other harsh environments, assessing and avoiding the risk of surface rust, perforated rust and structural rust. This is followed by cyclic testing, periodic corrosion resistance monitoring, and regular body-in-white electrophoresis dismantling.
Perhaps for many users, these are all things that a business should do, but the reality is harsh. For a small business, they may be able to do a lot of work for a car, but they don't have a strong supply chain and resources to support it to be fine and refined. For many larger car companies, in the case of having a sufficient user base, most of them will take the dialectical relationship with profit margins.
For the quality of a car, it does not have obvious differentiated characteristics, and it is not easy to be perceived by consumers at the first time, and it is not easy for enterprises to see short-term returns.
For example, Xiaopeng P5 is equipped with heat pump air conditioning as standard, and the advantage is that its energy efficiency ratio is greater than 1 above -10 °C, that is to say, 1Kw electric power can produce heat production greater than 1Kw, which can greatly reduce energy consumption compared to traditional PTC heating, and it is said that it can correspondingly increase the endurance by about 15%.
But higher costs are also a challenge for businesses. At present, the value of the spare parts of the heat pump system is 1200-1500 yuan on average than the ordinary air conditioning system - almost the profit of a traditional compact car, so the installed rate of heat pump air conditioning in the domestic electric vehicle sold in China last year was less than 5%. As a pure tram of 200,000 yuan, the Xiaopeng P5 is the first in the same level to be equipped with it is really unexpected; at the same time, it also retains another set of traditional water heater air conditioners to cope with the extremely low temperature environment below -10 °C, and ensure rapid heating through high power output.
Obviously, for car companies, such costs may only be benefited by 30% or less of the "Pengyou" living in the north, but this is also a pioneer company that must bear the responsibility when facing the grand challenges of electric vehicle consumption popularization and intelligent industry transformation. If we only make simple choices that are in the best interest of the present, there is no spare energy to go to the future.
At this point, XiaoPeng just did it.
Conclusion: In the view of "Auto Business Daily", Xiaopeng Automobile has gained far more than other car companies in 2021. On the product side, Xiaopeng Automobile has not only enriched its product matrix through the release of more than one year of products, but also met the diversified car needs of "Pengyou". In addition, through extreme quality experiments, Xiaopeng Motors has a differentiated performance in the current new era of homogenization, and also allows Xiaopeng Motors to have a "foothold" on the road of future automobile development.