2021 has been a tough and extremely challenging year for most automotive industry people. However, to some extent, this year is a year of self-reinvention of the automotive industry, including technological innovation, consumption trends, etc. are becoming clearer, of which the development of new energy vehicles has been accelerated again. Regarding the development of the new energy vehicle market, we can find that the products of the new energy vehicle market need to be improved after comparing the fuel vehicle market, for example, in the fuel vehicle market, in addition to the A, B, C, and D class automobile markets, there are products focusing on A+, B+ and other market segments.
In contrast, in the new energy vehicle market, major car companies not only do not have models that focus on market segments, but also the ratio of pure electric car products to SUV products has not yet reached the 1:1 ratio of traditional fuel vehicle products. Therefore, Brother Cylinder believes that with the continuous development of the new energy vehicle market, the next major car companies will not only release related car products, but also make efforts to market segments. In the view of cylinder brother, the main model of GAC Aion, AION S PLUS, is a model that impacts the market segment.
Add plus, what's the change?
According to the consistent "operation" of electronic consumer goods, products with the "PLUS" suffix are basically larger in size on the original product, but this inertial thinking seems to be unworkable in automotive products. When it comes to AION S PLUS, most people think of "AION S" and "ride-hailing". Although the overall design of the AION S PLUS has not changed compared to the AION S, in terms of details, the new car has been optimized in many places, such as the grille is not only better looking, but also the overall feeling is very good.
According to the official introduction, the AION S PLUS grille adopts the modeling concept of "wind up the galaxy", drawing on the design elements of the ENO.146 concept car, and the lines of the fenders and headlight angle area are very smooth.
Many readers may be curious about the AION S PLUS's intake grille, because under normal circumstances, the active variable intake grille only appears on conventional fuel vehicles. So as a pure electric sedan, why should the AION S PLUS be equipped with an active variable intake grille?
According to engineers, by equipping the active variable intake grille, the AION S PLUS can be opened or closed according to different car usage scenarios, ensuring minimal air resistance and achieving more efficient energy consumption management. According to official data, the active grille can increase the cruising range of 5 to 20km for the AION S PLUS.
The test drive of AION S PLUS, the deepest impression on the cylinder brother is that in addition to providing ordinary car paint, the new car also provides two special body colors of holographic silver and ice rose powder. It is worth mentioning that these two new body colors can be optional for free. I remember that when I was test driving the Porsche Taycan before, the cylinder brother had asked its sales and learned that taycan was one of the main body colors of "iceberry powder", and the later selection required 10200 yuan.
The new car has not changed much in the interior, it is still a combination of suspension center console + integrated central channel, supplemented by a large number of leather wrapping and soft materials, both in terms of touch and appearance are ahead of the same level of models. AION SPlus eliminated the dual screen design of the old model and replaced it with two separate screens, and the size of the central control screen was further enlarged.
At the same time, AION S PLUS integrates the air conditioning control partition into the car machine, making the central control design more concise. However, after test driving AION S PLUS, the cylinder brother found that the minimalist style of AION S PLUS has obvious differences with Tesla's style, not as extremely minimalist as Tesla, and many commonly used functions are retained in the form of physical buttons, including frontshield defogging, driving mode selection, etc.
Although the interior of the AION S PLUS has been greatly improved, the cylinder brother's colleagues have found a slot point - the steering wheel only supports up and down adjustment, not front and rear adjustment. In fact, this is not a slot point, because we can find the right seat angle by adjusting the seat. It is worth mentioning that AION S PLUS also adopts a panoramic sky canopy, with an area of 1.9 square meters. It is understood that this is the largest panoramic color-changing canopy among all automotive products in the world. The highlight is that the canopy also features a double silver coating + LOW-E insulated glass, which is able to isolate 99% of ultraviolet rays. In general, AION S PLUS meets the aesthetics of current consumers in both appearance and interior design.
Redefining "leapfrog comfort"!
For the riding comfort of AION S, the cylinder brother has felt it in the online ride-hailing car for a long time, because the unique heavy and tough filtering style of AION S has left a deep impression on the cylinder brother. In this regard, we have high expectations for the riding comfort of the AION S PLUS. From the perspective of riding experience alone, AION S PLUS can filter out the vibration when passing through bumpy roads, especially when driving through the fine potholes, the occupants can hardly feel any vibration in the car.
Of course, the unique tuning style of AION S PLUS still has a lot of distance for those who pursue extreme handling. Although the AION S PLUS struggles to combine ultimate comfort and sport, thanks to the vehicle's suspension's good toughness, the vehicle's body remains stable even in the event of a quick corner.
In addition to the comfortable adjustment of the chassis, the spatial performance of the AION S PLUS is also remarkable. According to the data, the body size of the AION S PLUS is 4810mm× 1880mm× 1515mm, and the wheelbase is 2750mm. Although the new car does not show its cross-level space performance in appearance, thanks to the GEP2.0 pure electric exclusive platform, the interior space of the AION S PLUS has been better utilized, which is not inferior to most B-class sedan products.
Powerful power, real endurance!
AION S PLUS is mainly divided into 70 and 80 versions, with a maximum power of 150kW and 165kW respectively. Like most electric models currently on the market, the AION S PLUS offers three driving modes, namely Sport, ECO and Normal. In sport mode, after we press the accelerator pedal deeply, we can clearly feel that the vehicle's power response is very fast, giving people a brisk feeling. However, perhaps due to product positioning problems, the acceleration performance of the vehicle began to flatten out after reaching a speed of 60km/h. Of course, this is not to say that the acceleration performance of the vehicle is not good, but because after tuning, the acceleration performance of the vehicle can avoid making the driver feel uncomfortable.
Combined with the user group, the cylinder brother got a set of data after understanding with the relevant staff, and the reason for most AION S PLUS owners to buy a car is mainly to facilitate family travel. In this case, we would recommend ECO mode, because in ECO mode, the power response is still smooth and energy savings.
As a pure electric sedan product, the mileage of AION S PLUS is also the focus of everyone's attention. The new NEDC has a range of 510 km and 602 km respectively. In the process of test driving, we can clearly find that the mileage of the vehicle is not much different from the officially marked data. It should be noted that the AION S PLUS is the second model in the GAC Aean family to carry a magazine battery, which is not only guaranteed in terms of battery life, but also has excellent performance in safety.
summary
Previously, when discussing Sagitar, Sagitar mentioned that Sagitar successfully opened up the market segment of China's A+ class sedans, and continued to cultivate in this market. To some extent, GAC Aion S PLUS undoubtedly opened up the A+ pure electric car market in the pure electric vehicle market, laying a solid foundation for GAC AE's product matrix, and also boosting GAC Aion's sales to a new peak.