Test Drive AION S Plus: "National Car" in Electric Vehicles

2022-01-25 16:32:59

The national car should be all-encompassing.

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A "national-level" car suitable for most people is not necessarily because it is expensive, luxurious, beautiful, fast, and advanced, but it is a good fit for the multiple needs of users, resulting in just the right feeling.

This GAC AION S Plus is such a car, in the price range of 150,000 yuan, it has excellent performance in multiple dimensions such as design, configuration, endurance, comfort, etc., and it can even be said that there is no short board, which can be called the "national car" in electric vehicles.

First look at a new car

The test drive I got was a top model that used "ice rose powder", the color was a bit commotionous, the little sisters definitely liked it, and the return rate was indeed good. If you can't hold pink, there are also holographic silver, extreme silver, night shadow black, polar white, black/quantum red and other colors to choose from.

From the appearance point of view, AION S Plus still inherits the family-style mecha style, the new car has taken a lot of inspiration from the previously released ENO.146 concept car, and adopted a new "wind galaxy" design language, the wedge-shaped front and the large mouth grille below are very futuristic, and the shape of the daytime running lights is also very sharp.

Test Drive AION S Plus: "National Car" in Electric Vehicles

It is worth mentioning that the intake grille of AION S Plus adopts adaptive opening and closing technology, which closes the grille to reduce wind resistance at ordinary times, and opens the grille when heat dissipation is required to provide more cooling airflow. The active grille opening of the AION S Plus is divided into 6 levels (0°/10°/25°/30°/45°/90°). There are drag-reducing designs throughout the car, and it is this attention to detail that makes the drag coefficient of the AION S Plus only 0.211Cd.

GAC Aeon AION S Plus is still based on the GEP2.0 pure electric exclusive platform, its side profile is basically the same as the AION S, and the wheelbase is also maintained at 2750mm like the latter. As for the body size, the AION S Plus has a length, width and height of 4810/1880/1515mm, although it is not visually large, but it is indeed half a foot into the ranks of the B-class car.

The tail contour of AION S Plus is relatively simple, and several straight lines add a little layering, and also use the popular through taillights, which are very recognizable after lighting at night, and the narrow light strips and horizontal lines make the rear of the car have a stronger horizontal stretch visual feeling.

In the shaping of the external image, AION S Plus relies on the mecha style and the new "wind up the galaxy" design language, basically grasping the aesthetic points of young people, compared with other slightly mediocre "oil car" shapes of the same level, this car can fully stimulate the interest of potential consumers to take a look and take a look.

Get in the car

Sitting in the car, the first feeling is simple and generous. The door panels, seats, and central armrests are all coated with soft leather, and the center console adopts a layered design, and the soft-lined, leather, and piano paint style trim panels are layered in turn, and the material is not luxurious, but the visual effect is still quite grade.

Compared with AION S, AION S Plus did not continue the dual screen design, but adopted a combination of large LCD dashboard + large size floating central control LCD screen. AION S Plus's central control screen size reached 14.6 inches, the display effect is also relatively clear, the UI interface of the car system adopts a card layout, users can add and delete functional cards by themselves.

In addition, the physical buttons in the AION S Plus car are minimized, and most of the function switches can be found in the vehicle setting interface, such as the driving mode switching button and the switch for common functions such as ADAS. These buttons are very large, allowing the driver to click easily and accurately while the vehicle is moving. The adjustment of the interior design makes the interior of the AION S Plus not only more technological, but also more youthful.

By the way, AION S Plus also canceled the start button, realizing that the car is powered on and the gear is used to drive.

It is worth mentioning that the panoramic canopy of AION S Plus covers almost the entire roof of the car, with an area of 1.9 square meters, which is said to be the world's largest panoramic color-changing canopy among cars, allowing you to sit in the car and look up at the stars. More importantly, its sunscreen effect is also very good, using double silver coating + Low-E insulated glass, which can isolate 99% of ultraviolet rays. (Of course, since the test drive date is in the winter, this I have not felt)

As for the space that Chinese consumers are more concerned about, although this AION S Plus is positioned as a compact electric vehicle, its wheelbase has reached 2750mm, which is longer than the sagittarius of the so-called A+ class sedan, plus the rear row floor is completely flat, and the sense of space and comfort of the entire carriage are guaranteed. Even as a means of transportation for the whole family, AION S Plus is fully able to meet the needs of most families.

Drive on the road

Driving the AION S Plus onto the road, the biggest feeling is invigorating and light.

The power unit, AION S Plus, is equipped with a drive motor, available in 70 and 80 versions, with a maximum power of 150 kW (204 hp) and 165 kW (224 hp). NEDC's cruising range is divided into 510km and 602km. The officially announced 165kW (224 hp) powered version of the model accelerates in 0-50 km/h in just 3.3 seconds and 0-100 km/h in 6.8 seconds. The top match of our test drive is the 80 version of Zero Hundred Acceleration 6.8 seconds.

In addition, the AION S Plus is also the second model in the GAC Aeon family to be equipped with a magazine battery, with better batteries and better thermal management technology, which can pass the needle prick test.

The AION S Plus has four energy recovery levels (Off, Low, Medium, High) and three driving modes (ECO, NORMAL, SPORT), where the driving mode can be adjusted by the buttons behind the gear change knob, while the energy recovery level can only be adjusted in the "Driving and Energy Consumption" interface in the car system.

Because there is no transmission in the traditional sense, so the AION S Plus is very smooth to drive, the power response is almost "step and go", from the beginning, any slight movement on your toes will be transmitted to the wheel; and when you come to a foot of "floor oil", the motor will not have any setbacks and lags, and the maximum torque will soon be released, giving people a driving feeling of extremely fast response.

In the author's opinion, the ECO mode AION S Plus is very suitable for traveling through the city, and the electric door is brisk but does not jump. In NORMAL mode, the electric door response should be more sensitive, and there is enough power reserve for acceleration, overtaking and other actions, which should be more than enough for most use cases.

SPORT mode is radical, 100 km/h acceleration of only 6.8 seconds, but this acceleration does not give people a strong "sense of hitting the wall" and vertigo, its speed comes a little briskly, normal overtaking line change is absolutely handy, because it does not require the gearbox to think too much, and when you are in the traffic jam of the city, then the sensitive electric door will effectively prevent other cars from congestion, simply put, AION S Plus's advantages are very prominent - fast power response.

As for the texture of the chassis, the AION S Plus we test drove adopted the front McPherson independent suspension and the rear torque beam non-independent suspension, the driving experience is softer, and the suspension is also more comfortable and light, which is more in line with the characteristics of this car.

In terms of battery life, the 80 version we tested has a range of 602km, the rated battery capacity is 69.9kWh, and the fast charging time is 45 minutes (80% of the power). Of course, in order to achieve the official mileage in the actual driving, it is not very realistic, as far as the author's test drive in the past few days, the average power consumption is about 15kWh/100km, if it is only used in the usual commuting, a weekly charge is completely enough.

Smart technology

Next, let's talk about the AION S Plus technology experience.

First of all, the car machine, the car system supports QQ music, cool music, iQiyi video, Tencent video and other rich online video and audio resources, in addition to it also has a system called "volcano car entertainment", integrated with today's headlines, vibrato, watermelon video and other headline applications of the content, and support through the camera inside and outside the car for "5G shake", that is, after shooting through the 5G network from the vibrato to meet the needs of young people's play.

AION S Plus also supports intelligent perception in the car, through camera monitoring, when the driver yawns, looks off the road, calls, the system will issue a safe driving reminder, such as air conditioning blowing cold air, playing more exciting music, etc., if not needed, you can also turn off manually.

In terms of voice interaction, AION S Plus supports up to 90 seconds of continuous dialogue, and through voice commands, you can control regular functions such as window, navigation, air conditioning, multimedia and so on. As for the composite language order, it, like most models, does not support cross-functional compound instructions such as "turn down the temperature and open the window". And when the language control car is started, the volume of the entertainment system will not be reduced, which is also worth optimizing.

Overall, the AION S Plus car machine system still has room for improvement in terms of fluency and ease of use, but the functions currently carried can already adapt to most car scenes.

In the driver assistance section, AION S Plus can currently achieve the more mainstream L2 level, which is probably adaptive cruise + lane keep + automatic braking, and does not currently support automatic lane change with turn signals. In actual experience, the author feels that this driving assistance system is still very comfortable, especially in driving on high speeds, after opening adaptive cruise, lane keeping, you only need to gently hold the steering wheel, more importantly, its throttle and brakes when following the car are also relatively linear, like a skilled old driver.

Acclaim is the 360-degree panoramic imagery and transparent chassis, which are all standard, and the clarity and integrity are of a very high standard, which is very helpful for narrow roads and garage parking.

Write at the end

For potential consumers of 150,000 family cars, the products that really impress them must be all-encompassing – beautiful shapes, exquisite interiors, rich configurations and a comfortable driving experience... Therefore, when an electric vehicle such as the AION S Plus, which is very good in all aspects and has a high cost performance, appears in the field of vision, it is difficult for them to look away.

Test Drive AION S Plus: "National Car" in Electric Vehicles

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