"December 2021 medium and large SUV sales champion", "2021 medium and large SUV sales first place", "China's new forces first bicycle sales more than 10,000 models", this is only one configuration of the ideal ONE in 2021 to hand over the report card.
According to the retail data of China Automobile Data Terminal, in December 2021, the ideal ONE sold 14,112 vehicles, more than double the second place, while overpowering ultra-luxury or luxury brand models. In the whole year of 2021, the ideal ONE also overpowered a number of medium and large SUVs, with annual sales of 91,310 vehicles, leading the domestic market segment.
The popularity of the ideal ONE is not a day's work, but the long-term insight of the ideal car on the needs of users, and the continuous polishing of the vehicle product force. This ultimately makes the ideal ONE a "playable" star product.
"I'm not making this car for investors, I'm going to make a car that a Chinese family user group needs." In the view of Li Xiang, founder, chairman and CEO of Ideal Auto, the original intention of Ideal ONE is to create products needed by Chinese family user groups, and the driving force behind the ideal car brand concept is to meet the needs of users.
The world's only three self-developed car brands
In fact, behind the ideal car can continuously optimize the user experience, the first thing is that it will master some core technologies in its own hands, and then polish the product. Taking the driving assistance function as an example, in December 2021, Ideal ONE delivered the NOA navigation assist function and the complete AEB function, thus leaping to become the only three brands in the world with complete NOA and AEB full-stack self-development capabilities.
Generally speaking, some car companies will use the mature perception scheme packaged by the supplier when choosing the assisted driving function, which can shorten the development time and reduce the development cost, such as the assisted driving solution provided by Mobileye. However, such a solution is also a closed system, perception algorithm, and data is not provided to car companies, without data car companies is difficult to do rapid iteration of the system.
Ideal Car firmly chose the self-developed road, and chose the Horizon J3 chip that allows car companies to independently develop perception and control algorithms, and finally realized the NOA navigation assisted driving function. It is understood that the NOA navigation assisted driving function covers the links of the whole technology chain such as visual perception, sensor fusion, decision-making, planning and control system, which is also a concrete embodiment of the self-research ability of the ideal car full stack.
In terms of AEB functions, the functions equipped with the models on the market also come mostly from the packaging schemes of suppliers, some using millimeter-wave radar for detection, and some using a combination of millimeter-wave + visual fusion. At present, not only are there very few car companies that develop AEB functions by themselves, but there are even fewer car companies that use visual integration solutions to develop AEB functions.
It is understood that the AEB function introduces vision, which can better realize the detection of pedestrians and cyclists and ensure the safety of pedestrians. As the only AEB function in China with visual blessing, the self-developed algorithm Ideal ONE can already identify highway traffic accident scenes and road construction sites, and give users tips in advance to avoid and reduce the occurrence of major traffic accidents, and greatly improve the safety of family travel.
On January 11, 2022, "Understand The Emperor" released the AEB test results of hundreds of models, and the ideal ONE overpowered many models and won the excellent result of the first place. At the same time, the Ideal ONE is also the only model in the final group that has the ability to accurately identify transverse vehicles and two-wheelers.
Some people believe that the launch of the NOA navigation assisted driving function and the AEB function marks that the ideal car has opened up the full-link self-research ability from the perception algorithm to the decision control algorithm, and gradually replaced it with the self-developed algorithm in the product assisted driving system, and the function iteration is done through data feeding.
At present, the activation and use of noa navigation assistance driving function exceeds 60,000 vehicles, more than the sum of other domestic brands of navigation assistance. Through the massive real driving data generated by these 60,000 and subsequent users of ideal car products, it will feed back the algorithm of the auxiliary driving function, and the optimized algorithm will serve the auxiliary driving function and continuously improve the user experience.
Absolute attention to user safety
It is worth noting that behind the exquisite craftsmanship of the ideal car to the assisted driving technology, it is the absolute attention to user safety, which is also the embodiment of the strong product strength of the ideal ONE. "The ideal car will have NOA navigation assist as standard for a long time." In Li Xiang's view, the safety of the user's family is only standard, not optional.
In addition, the absolute emphasis on user safety of the ideal car is also reflected in all aspects of vehicle production and delivery. For example, before leaving the factory, the ideal ONE should carry out 25 major dynamic performance tests, including driving comfort, vehicle stability, vehicle ultimate acceleration and braking ability, NVH performance, and wading test.
In addition, the ideal ONE for all plant roll-offs must also undergo long-distance in-plant road test tests covering 12 extreme road conditions, and pass the industry's deepest and longest vehicle dynamic wading test. At the same time, in the crash test of C-NCAP and the test of China's automobile health index, ideal ONE has achieved excellent results, which all reflect the consideration of user safety of ideal cars.
Before the vehicle can be delivered to the user, the ideal ONE also needs to undergo a very rigorous and systematic quality inspection process. Each vehicle needs to be inspected by more than 100 professional quality inspection employees, covering 2741 new car inspection items, and 13 process special inspections (NVH, vehicle EMC, HMI full function, ADAS full function, vehicle odor, etc.), and the quality control of each vehicle takes more than 10000 seconds (about 2.78 hours, 167 minutes).
In addition to safety, Ideal Car is constantly optimizing the user's experience in other aspects. In 2021, Ideal ONE has undergone a total of 6 OTA upgrades, with more than 100 upgrade functions and a 15% increase in energy efficiency of the range extended system. Among them, nearly 20 functions were optimized or added in an update at the end of 2021 alone, not only the NOA navigation assist driving function was launched, but also the functions such as ideal classmates were also optimized.
Under the continuous polishing of the vehicle, the ideal ONE has also won the favor of more and more users, including many users of luxury brands. Official data show that in the top ten old car brands that replaced the ideal ONE, the luxury brand share reached 30%, while the characteristics of Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi's replacement of the ideal ONE were obvious, with a share of 7.6%, 7.7%, and 6.7%, respectively, reaching 22% of all brands.
In order for users to experience the ideal ONE more and faster, ideal car continues to expand the layout of the retail center and improve the delivery speed of the vehicle. It is understood that in 2021, Ideal Auto will deliver a car every 80 seconds, while the layout of its domestic retail center will be as far north as Daqing, Heilongjiang, as far south as Haikou, Hainan, as west as Urumqi in Xinjiang, as far east as Weihai, Shandong, and the highest store in Lhasa, Tibet.
In terms of the number of retail centers, as of December 31, 2021, Ideal Auto has opened 206 retail centers nationwide, covering 102 cities, and 278 after-sales maintenance centers and authorized sheet metal spray centers, covering 204 cities. With the continuous optimization of products and the broadening of sales and delivery channels, it is believed that the products of the ideal car will enter more and more families in the future.