At the first Lantu User Night on October 16 last year, Lantu Automobile released the Lantu FREE Vehicle OTA Plan and promised to carry it out within the year. By December 27, Lantu fulfilled its original promise and officially launched the first vehicle OTA upgrade service (version number v1.1.0).
The OTA involves multiple dimensions such as in-car entertainment systems, driving, intelligence and safety, totaling more than 60 items. So how does the upgraded Landu FREE perform, and do these new or optimized features meet user expectations?
This time I came to Wuhan Lantu Factory to find the answer.
" Intelligent Configuration Upgrade "
These more than 60 upgrades, I divide it into two categories: intelligent configuration upgrade and comfort configuration upgrade. In actual experience, I found that the voice system is the highlight of the intelligent configuration upgrade.
The first is speech recognition, with the addition of a "visible and speakable" voice assistant.
Lantu FREE supports four-tone area speech recognition capability, through the sound source positioning technology can confirm the position of the person issuing the voice command, even if multiple instructions are issued continuously, it can also efficiently identify and execute the instruction. At present, the voice system has opened up functions including vehicle control/ audio-visual entertainment/game interaction/application ecology.
This upgrade adds the "visible can speak" voice assistant, through the voice command can cover more scenes, I give a simple example, in the past we can only start the music player through voice, but now you can "click" through the voice in the corresponding tag in the player, such as "today's recommended song list". As long as it appears on the screen, it can be selected by voice, which is very convenient.
"At present, Lantu is jointly developed with partners in terms of voice and map, and with the third car entering development, Lantu is opening up the voice platform, and the access platform supports diversification, but the cloud is completed by Lantu itself." Zhang Guihai, head of the intelligent cockpit of Lantu Automobile, said. In the future, "visible and speakable" will also open up more third-party programs.
Interestingly, the voice assistant has no recognition time limit, and field engineers said that as long as the system can read your instructions, then you can always say "talk". In addition, the wake-up speed of voice is also faster, the previous response speed is 800ms, and now it is only 300ms after the upgrade, but the actual experience is still occasionally stuck, and some driving-related modules still cannot be set through voice.
In this regard, Peng Shidi, head of lantu automobile function development, believes that the concept of electric vehicle brands and new car-making forces incubated in traditional car companies will be slightly different, and Lantu's primary concern is driving safety, so the voice authority will not be too high. The process of automobiles facing intelligent transformation must also meet individual needs under the premise of safety.
In addition to the voice upgrade, the OTA has also added a new car machine function, and the HMI has also made a lot of optimizations.
First of all, K songs, Lantu FREE built-in Thunderstone KTV, through the optional dual microphone can support double duet, and the competition model is different is that Landu FREE has purchased a member of Thunderstone KTV for users, users do not need to spend money to buy songs during use.
In addition, in order to solve the problem that users reflect that the co-driver entertainment system affects driving navigation, the OTA has added a bluetooth headset connection function for the co-driver screen, and the media sound of the co-driver screen can be played independently through the Bluetooth headset.
In the HMI section, the car machine has adjusted the layout of the media application and added a shortcut menu, which is as follows:
1. The card page of the first screen is classified by function, the logic is much clearer than the old version, and the commonly used functions such as the music player have been pinned to the top, which is more convenient to operate.
2. New quick operation for the main screen negative one screen and negative screen for the second screen: the main screen negative one screen has added fuel priority, pure electricity priority and intelligent mode three energy mode switching functions, added ventilation, heating, massage three kinds of seat comfort adjustment, added convenient on/off/ off, sky curtain brightness adjustment. At the same time, the negative screen of the second screen has added three new seat comfort adjustments: ventilation, heating and massage.
3. When looking for nearby charging stations in the map, the free charging stations cooperated with Lantu will be listed first.
4. After the user parks the car to hang the P gear, the left side of the main screen will automatically display the prompt to open the fuel tank port cover and open the charging port cover.
「 Comfort Configuration Upgrade"
In addition to the main upgrade of the car, the OTA has also adjusted for air suspension and automatic near/high beam lights.
The first is to optimize the air suspension welcome logic, from the current Bluetooth key into the welcome circle trigger, adjusted to the outside unlock trigger. When the user unlocks the vehicle to get on the bus, the vehicle suspension height is automatically reduced to the welcome height, making it easier for passengers to get on the bus. This air suspension also automatically adjusts the height according to the driving mode and vehicle speed to balance comfort and driving stability.
The adaptive near/high beam switching has also become a criterion for speed in addition to the road conditions (vehicles in front, pedestrians). The opening mode of the tailgate has also been adjusted, and the remote control key is adjusted to double-click by pressing and pressing to open the tailgate to avoid misoperation caused by key squeezing.
In addition, there are some small details that have been optimized, and this article will not elaborate on them.
" Listen to the user "
The race to change lanes in the era of intelligent cars makes traditional car companies and new forces stand on the same starting line, for the latter without baggage, they are more likely to be "user-oriented", traditional car companies because they have a complex background, so it is difficult to quickly complete the transformation between "production-oriented enterprises" and "user-oriented enterprises".
And as "Wei Xiaoli" gained a firm foothold and stepped on the step of 100,000 vehicles one by one, they began to realize that it was possible to build a car with the user's thinking.
As a new brand independent of Dongfeng, Lantu has drawn on the business philosophy of the new forces from the beginning of its creation, putting "everything from the user" in front of the eyes, so that users can participate in the car-making process. For a simple example, the OTA content has a "increase in the range extender, vehicle health section, can remind the owner of the maintenance interval of the range extender", this demand comes from the Owner of Lantu.
At last year's Lantu User Night, Lantu officially launched the second global test peer 2.0 plan, after Lantu has held 7 global test peer activities, collecting more than 200 suggestions from it and improving and optimizing more than 130 items.
Engineers say there is currently a dedicated working group within the company to collect koc needs from real users, which are evaluated and then made a quarterly lead-up margin. There are scheduled to be 4 major OTA upgrades a year, and the OTA content for the first three quarters of 2022 has been determined.
The benefit of approaching users, in addition to being able to quickly improve the product and earn word of mouth, can also get a high referral rate. It is understood that the current referral rate of Weilai has exceeded 60%, that is, for every 10 new owners of Weilai, 6 of them are "planted" by the old owners.
The success of Weilai has also made it a learning object for Lantu, and from the perspective of delivery data, Lantu's "pet powder" has indeed achieved initial results. Since its delivery in August 2021, Landu FREE has achieved month-on-month growth for five consecutive months, with a cumulative delivery of 6,791 units, with an average transaction price of more than 338,000 yuan, second only to Weilai.
Lu Fang, CEO of Lantu, once said that as a user-oriented, service-oriented, and technology-based innovation enterprise, Lantu Automobile always starts from the user's point of view and truly considers the user's demand for a car.
In Lantu, you can see practices for the sake of users everywhere.
For example, the shape of the first model, Lantu FREE, integrates the opinions of employees and partners within Dongfeng Group;
In order to solve the user's concerns about "electric vehicles are not antifreeze", Lantu developed the "amber" and "mica" battery system, which can adjust the battery temperature according to the ambient temperature and improve the stability of the battery;
In order to ensure the safety of passengers, Landu FREE has laid a heavy investment in the steel and structure parts of the body, which also makes it a Chinese brand new energy vehicle with a scoring rate of 92.3% of the C-NCAP;
In order to solve the anxiety of battery life, Lantu FREE brought VOYAH POWER, which is a complete product system around user replenishment like NIO POWER;
The most important part, in order to collect opinions and listen to the voice of users, Lantu set up a "listen to the voice of users" project, Lu Fang, who coordinated the overall situation of Lantu, Lei Xin, the CBO responsible for marketing, and Jiang Tao, coO in charge of production and quality, were all participants in the project...
(Landu FREE C-NCAP collides with 5 stars)
"This is an era when people are more important than commodities. Lantu is not a manufacturer who sells a product to a stranger, but an organization that strives to serve people who like themselves and trust themselves. ”
(Lantu CEO Lu Fang)
"Lantu will always put the user's trust in the first place, with the continuous expansion of the scale of Lantu users, Lantu will increase innovation in products and services, and accelerate the construction of service networks, bringing users a better intelligent electric vehicle travel experience."
In addition, the layout of offline channels is also continuing to exert efforts, as of 2021, Lantu Automobile has opened 43 Lantu spaces across the country, covering 24 cities, and it is expected to increase to 105 and 48 cities in 2022.
2022 is coming as scheduled, and I hope that every down-to-earth car company can win the market.