In July 2021, Extreme Kr Automobile was established in Zhejiang. Discussions about Extreme Kr 001 have been on the market since the beginning of the market.
Although the delivery of the Krypton 001 has been around since October, and the visibility of the actual cars on the road is getting higher and higher, the test drive is still very attractive. Not only because the positioning of the extreme krypton hunting car in the new energy market is really rare, I am more curious about what kind of answer can a car brand that has been established for half a year be able to deliver?
The event was the first large-scale media test drive of the mass production version of The Kr 001, and The Krypton also confidently arranged the track, Kinkana and road test drives. Can the expected comfortable krypton 001 track exceed expectations?
Curious, I walked into the Xiamen International Circuit.
01
The track performance is slightly less passionate
Xiamen International Circuit is 1.81 km long. Although the field is not large, the height difference is 11 meters, including 11 curves such as U-bend and S-shaped bend, and the driving rhythm will be very tight.
The large height drop will test the vehicle's mid-course acceleration ability and extreme braking performance, while the extremely dense corners will test the dynamic performance of the vehicle during a sudden shift in center of gravity. The track experience consists of 4 laps, divided into a teaching lap on the first lap, a flying lap in the middle two laps and a cooling lap on the last lap.
The model test drive on the track is the ultra-long endurance YOU version priced at 368,000, with dual motors in front and rear to form a four-wheel drive, with a maximum power of 400 kW and a maximum torque of 768 N·m. In terms of absolute acceleration braking performance, the 3.8-second acceleration of 3.8 seconds of Extreme Kr 001 and the zero-hundred braking distance of 34.5 meters are very eye-catching. But keep in mind that this top-of-the-line version is equipped with a 100 kWh battery pack and a curb weight of nearly 2.4 tons. Driving such a big guy on the track, my heart is still a little nervous, after all, the huge body is not a small test for brakes and suspension in the track.
To make matters worse, I was placed in the third group, which had been ravaged by other media for two rounds before leaving. Accelerating, the sudden acceleration of the electric car is expected, but due to the comfortable suspension of the extreme Kr 001, although the car is equipped with air suspension and the height is reduced to a minimum, the vehicle will still rush out like a ground gun when accelerating at full speed, which is more obvious outside the car.
Flashing around in the undulating track, the krypton 001 biased to the comfort of the chassis tuning certainly can not maintain the stable posture of the performance car like a "rail car". Roll can be clearly felt in the corners, and the dynamic response of the body in the face of continuous corners is not sensitive enough, and it takes a long time to complete the load transfer, which is the negative effect of the calibration of the suspension bias towards comfort.
However, the suspension structure of the front double wishbone and the layout of the dual motor four-wheel drive allow the vehicle to keep the tires on the ground in the corners, and once the body enters the bend and completes the center of gravity transfer, the sufficient power and rapid recovery of grip can make people feel at ease to step on the throttle. In addition, the Bosch ESP 9.3 equipped with the Kr 001 is conservatively tuned, and the bending oil will cut off the power output, but it is understandable from a safety point of view.
The Kr 001 is equipped with a variable steering ratio that provides a small steering ratio to improve passability when the steering angle is large, and a large steering ratio to improve stability when the steering angle is small. Brake into the corner, hold the steering wheel in a 3- or 9-point grip, and turn it small to get enough steering angle.
After crossing the U-shaped bend to the high straight, the 400 kW dual motors easily push the vehicle to 130 km/h. I stomped heavily on the brakes just after the brake cue point at the front of the car, and the optional front 4-piston caliper released enough force to have a small front void. At the same time, the front section of the brakes did not feel soft due to the integrated kinetic energy recovery.
Unfortunately, before the second lap of the flight lap was over, the dashboard had a brake overheat alarm. But after a few laps of the track, the expected battery and motor system overheating alarm did not appear once, and the extreme krypton temperature control system contributed to it.
The track experience ends with a kinkana race on the track. In the Kinkana project, the driving section placed by the pile bucket is more extreme than the track, not only with narrow 360-degree roundabouts, but also with snake-like detours and simulated elk tests, with each pile bucket being overwhelmed by 3 seconds.
Since the length and width of the krypton 001 reach 4,970 mm and 1,999 mm respectively, it is necessary to drive close to the outer ring in the 360 degree roundabout project to avoid knocking down the pile barrel. In the serpentine bending and simulating the elk test, the orientation of suspension comfort still makes the dynamic response of the vehicle slower by half a beat, and all the feedback is like being isolated by a thick latex pad and then transmitted to the car.
Overall, the performance of the Krypton 001 on the track and in The Kinkana can be summed up as a slight lack of passion and comfort. Even if I threw it into the corner, the feedback was always flat. Although the dual-motor version is powerful, the sense of movement is definitely not something that can be created with strong acceleration. However, the racing track is clearly not the place where the Krypton 001 should be, and the daily road performance is the most concerned place for its consumers.
02
The city is more than comfortable to drive
At the end of the racetrack wrestling with the corners, I drove the Krypton 001 to the outskirts of Xiamen. The temperature is 20 degrees, the sea breeze is mild, and the palms are shady, which is very pleasant.
The road test drive model is the we version of the ultra-long endurance single motor WE with a maximum power of 200 kW, a maximum torque of 384 N·m, and an acceleration of 6.9 seconds per 100 kilometers. This version of the power performance is not as explosive as the top version, but it can be said to be able to drive in the city. After stepping on the accelerator pedal, the power release is brisk, and the steering feel is delicate and linear, with a good sense of superiority.
Although the Kr 001 features a frameless door design, the front double-glazed soundproof glass that comes standard throughout the series does play a big role. At 100 km/h, the noise in the car is still very small, there is no electric current sound of the motor, and there is no annoying wind cutting sound. The noise coming from all sides is evenly distributed, which is obviously the result of careful design.
Models that are open to road test drive do not have an optional air suspension, but tuning is still comfortable. On elevated roads and urban expressways in good condition, even if the speed reaches 80-100 km/h, the sense of isolation in the car is still very strong, and most of the trivial vibrations on the road surface are filtered out. During the race track test drive, I complained that the chassis and suspension were like a latex mattress, lowering the vehicle's handling limits. At this point this disadvantage becomes an advantage, and the cruising on the road is as comfortable and comfortable as floating on the surface of the water.
But The Extreme Kr 001 is less at ease in dealing with big bumps. During the test drive, there was a section of the road that was being repaired, the suspension performance was somewhat stiff when running over the large pit, and the jumping in the vertical direction of the car became obvious, which may be related to the different adjustments between the front and rear sections of the suspension. In order to support the more than 2 tons of bodywork, the suspension was soft at the front and hard in the rear, which caused the vehicle to be somewhat split when dealing with fine vibrations and handling large bumps.
The HUD of The Kr 001 works well, it can display navigation and vehicle speed at the same time, brightness and font size make the information clear and easy to read, and Extreme Kr has also added the function of adjusting the air conditioning temperature and adjusting the multimedia for this HUD. But the paradox is that it is inconvenient to use the touch area on the steering wheel to manipulate the HUD when driving, and the focus point of the eye when adjusting the air conditioning temperature and multimedia information requires 2-3 seconds to shift, at which point the road condition information is ignored and may be dangerous. If it is a parking state, why don't I directly use the central control screen to control it?
Although the HUD of the Krypton 001 performed well, the dashboard did not show me satisfactorily. Leaving aside the thick black edge, a 8.8-inch screen is divided into three parts, the energy consumption information on the left is down and the font is very small, the information cannot be read intuitively during driving, and the middle area gives a meaningless vehicle logo a lot of space, but the mileage is crowded aside, and the same font is small. In addition, the energy bar for power output and kinetic energy recovery cannot display real-time power.
The seats of the Extreme Kr 001 are made of leather materials, and the visual experience is very advanced. But the interior padding and headrests of the seats are hard, but fortunately the wrapping is good. In addition, due to the placement of batteries under the chassis, you can feel that the floor is high and there is a slight feeling of suspension in the legs.
Flawed, the mechanical quality of Extreme Kr 001 can be regarded as the first echelon of the new forces. Linear throttle brake tuning, isolated chassis, and excellent NVH performance make the hardware section of the Kr 001 extremely mature. The stiffness of the chassis in the face of big bumps, the unintuitive design of the dashboard UI, and the stiff seat filling are all flaws that need to be solved.
03
"Shooting Break", an elegant appearance
Parking in the park, it's hard not to be drawn to the exterior design of the Krypton 001 hunting car. The Chambers Dictionary of 2006 defines a hunting cart: "a hunting cart, the archaic term for a station wagon." It can be seen from this that the station wagon and the hunting car are basically the same in terms of functionality, but the hunting car emphasizes more on the strong power and elegant body lines.
Extreme Kr 001 is positioned as a "hunting coupe", which is a pioneering move in the current new energy market. The front face of the Krypton 001 is similar to the design of the Lynk & Co model, and some lack freshness. Alternative split-type near and far lights have been accepted by the public, and even formed a personalized style of its own.
The body lines of the Krypton 001 are excellently designed. The roof line continues to slide behind the C-pillar, making the side lines of the Extreme Kr 001 more capable and sporty than the bloated wagon. The taillights also extended partly to the side of the body, not monotonous.
The combination of the three-dimensional polyline design on the side of the car and the good paint process makes the silver-gray body look transparent and shiny in the sun, and can show different effects of light and shadow changes from different angles.
The lighting design of the rear of the car can also faintly see the shadow of Lynk & Co. An LED taillight runs through the middle, and an independent light emitting strip is used inside the light group on both sides, making the car very recognizable. The spoiler at the rear of the roof is very designed, and the concave design of the convex middle on both sides makes the tail look like a spaceship, which solves the problem of visual monotony in the rear of the hunting car.
In addition, the rear of the extreme krypton 001 also has a rich polyline design, which flows in the same light and shadow as the side of the car, with the silver gray paint, the grade feels in place. However, due to the high ground clearance and the narrow upper and lower width of the design, the rear part will feel a little bloated from the rear view.
04
The car lag has improved significantly
In recent times, no matter what news we post about extreme krypton, someone in the comments section will definitely ask, "Is the extremely kryptonian car still stuck?"
Stuttering, green screen, navigation failure... It is not without reason that the extreme krypton car machine has changed from the attention of the public when it was listed to the criticism of everyone. As a brand that emphasizes "technology sense" and "futurism", a problem-ridden car system seems out of place, which also makes many intended car owners change their car purchase goals.
In December 2021, Extreme Kr 001 updated the 1.0.4 car system, and the latest iteration is 1.0.4f, which requires users to upgrade in stores. After a short experience today, I found that the 1.0.4f version of the car and the 1.0.2 system, which was extremely low-completion at the time, were very different in experience.
The main menu interface has no obvious stuttering for air conditioning, multimedia, and seat control, but the switching and up and down dragging between the interfaces still cannot be "smooth and followed". But the performance of the Kr 001 car can now catch up with other brands that also use Qualcomm 820A car chip, and the problem of serious stuttering during the initial voice control navigation has also been solved, and the speed and accuracy of the four-zone microphone to wake up the voice assistant are also good.
But the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820A was released in 2016, and the use of the 820A on a 2021 model that is mainly technology and smart is a bit unsatisfactory. At present, Geely Xingyue, Roewe RX5, Zero Run C11, etc. have been replaced by Qualcomm's latest car chip 8155, and its 3.6 million times / s hash rate is also three times that of 820A.
The computing power of the chip determines the upper limit of future upgrades, and the tuning optimization determines the lower limit of the experience. Extreme Kr was forced to lower the upper limit due to the lack of 8155 chips when planning the SEA Haohan architecture, but it is gratifying that the current performance of extreme krypton vehicles has finally caught up with mainstream competitors.
But it has to be mentioned that there are still flaws in the car machine of The Krypton 001. For example, seat memory can only remember one driver, the 4G network connection in the car is unstable, online music only cooperates with Cool Me Music, reversing radar delay alarm and reversing image performance in low light environments and other issues, these should be the next step of extreme Krypton to optimize the direction.
Extreme Kr official said that the 2.0 car machine will be launched in February-March, and the new version of the car will optimize the response speed, fix bugs and improve the user experience.
05
Krypton's "stepping stones" and "stumbling blocks"
On February 24, Li Shufu said at an internal meeting that Geely would form a new brand to participate in the competition in the pure electric vehicle market. An Conghui served as the CEO of Extreme Kr and Li Shufu served as the chairman of Extreme Kr. The "number one" of the fuel vehicle business personally led the team can also see the resoluteness of the transformation of extreme Kr.
Entering 2021, Geely has let go of its hands and feet in the field of intelligence: signed a strategic agreement with Tencent, established "Jidu" with Baidu, established "Fujikang" with Foxconn, and established "Smart Motor" with Mercedes-Benz. Between light and dark, Geely has expanded the territory of digital marketing, intelligent cockpit, user ecology, powertrain, three-electric technology, and autonomous driving solutions, which are all "stepping stones" for the rapid growth of Extreme Kr.
Although the entry time is not early, but backed by the related layout of Geely and Volvo, Extreme Kr can also be regarded as "born with a golden spoon". The benefits are obvious: the workmanship, driving quality and mechanical quality of the Kr 001 have crossed the line at this price point, and the maturity of the exterior design and the luxury of the interior are good enough.
However, after the release of Extreme Kr 001, there was constant turmoil. First, the rear privacy glass, the canopy, the ventilation of the passenger seat, etc. were questioned due to publicity problems, the 800 V charge in the SEA architecture promotion became 400 V on the extreme krypton 001, and then the motor torque did not match the actual situation, and the motor supplier changed from Nidec to Nidec and Viroy Motors.
Some of these problems are misunderstandings of users, and some are extremely kryptonian overall publicity problems. JiKr calls itself a "user-type car company", but from these problems, it can be seen that Geely, as a traditional car company, has not fully adapted to the rules and changes of the new energy market in terms of user operation and marketing strategy.
In addition, at present, the auxiliary driving function of Extreme Kr 001 has not been pushed, and even the most basic ACC and cruise control functions are absent, and Extreme Kr official has not given a specific push time. The previously advertised goal of "individual vehicles based on the SEA architecture will achieve highly autonomous driving on structural roads by 2021" was not achieved on schedule.
And limited by production capacity, the delivery volume of Extreme Kr in December 2021 was 3,796 vehicles, according to the feedback of some booking users, the delivery time of The current Dading owners has been scheduled to May 2022, and the long delivery waiting time is also an important factor affecting the car purchase decision of the owner.
The domestic new energy market is becoming more and more inward-looking, and the luxurious interior and exterior decoration and excellent mechanical quality are not enough to constitute absolute competitiveness, and the focus of consumers has also begun to change to auxiliary driving ability and cockpit intelligence. Standing at the current time node, the shortcomings of Extreme Kr in intelligence may be the biggest obstacle to its "upward breakthrough" road.
Author: Mingming
Edit: Reinhardt
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