In 1983, Eiji Toyota, then chairman of Toyota's board of directors, asked top executives, designers, engineers and corporate strategy experts: Can we create a luxury car to challenge the top market?
What I didn't expect was that everyone's answer was the same – "yes".
And this "can", after bringing together Toyota's decades of experience in automobile research and development and all advanced technologies, successfully created a high-end brand called "Lexus", and in 1989 brought a well-known flagship product to the market - LS.
In 2000, 11 years after the brand and flagship debut, Lexus successfully usurped Cadillac's throne as the best-selling luxury car in North America. And since that year, with the most ingenious spirit and the ultimate pursuit of technology, Lexus has never left this position.
The market pattern of high-end brands takes time to practice. Mercedes-Benz BMW is like this, Lexus is no exception; a good product, need consumers for a long time to be consistent in the word of mouth to finally be recognized by the market, and based on the product's brand tone to establish, is also on the long-term consistent word of mouth.
The road to high-end Of China's own brands started late. In 2016, Great Wall Motors officially announced its entry into high-end brands, WEY Weipai was officially born, and in 2017, it released its flagship model VV7. Shortly thereafter, in 2017, Lynk & Co, a high-end brand cooperated by Geely and Volvo, was officially released, and in the same year, the flagship model under the CMA platform, Lynk & Co 01, was brought.
After that, it is the Xingtu brand with the latest arrival time. It is chery Automobile's high-end masterpiece, but compared with the first two, its establishment is the end of 2018, and the arrival of the flagship model "Lanyue" is even later than March 2021.
The low level of awareness caused by the later arrival, coupled with the double impact of the epidemic, has seriously limited the sound volume of Xingtu in the independent high-end market in the past two years, compared with the market volume of Lynk & Co and Weipai, Xingtu is obviously still in its infancy.
But just as Lexus also reached the top 11 years after its release, the author is actually full of expectations for the future development space of Xingtu. In theory, as long as Xingtu can insist on doing a good job in technology and good reputation, success is only a rose of time that will bloom sooner or later.
Because just as Toyota's ingenuity is to Lexus, Chery Automobile behind Xingtu is also the most famous "technical house" and "science and engineering man" in the autonomous automobile industry circle, they have enough technology and ability to create a good enough product.
Standing on the basis of technology is the foundation of success
In the first Lexus LS, the sense of quality brought by technology is the most attractive part. The 4.0L V8 naturally aspirated engine, with its super-powerful tranquility, smoothness and durability, compares to any competitor of the same level, almost labeling opponents as "barbaric".
Whether it is the sense of running quality or the parameters, the engine with the model 1UZ-FE is the best performance of the year, and from 1998 to 2000, it won the Ward Top Ten Engines of the Year Award for three consecutive years, which is the best proof.
The "Kunpeng" F4J20 of Xingtu Lanyue is reproducing the story of Lexus that year. In 2021, the Kunpeng 2.0T won the title of "China Heart" Annual Top 10 Engine without any accident; previously, the Chery 1.6TGDI and 1.5TGDI engines that are directly related to it have won this award seven times.
With a maximum of 261 hp and a peak torque of 400 Nm, the maximum torque platform starts at 1750 rpm and can be maintained until 4000 rpm. This parameter performance is difficult to imagine is the level of 2.0T mass production of the original factory, even if it is a high-end brand "net red" model that was previously known for its "performance steel cannon", the high-power 2.0T supported by its international technology is only 254 horses.
In order to achieve this world-leading parameter advantage, Chery can be said to have infused its best engine technology into it. Compared with the ordinary turbine engine less than 200 Bar, or about 200 bar injection pressure, in the moon, up to 350 Bar pressure of high pressure direct injection nozzle is even just a conventional weapon; in order to further increase the fuel mixture combustion speed, as much as possible to squeeze every energy, this 2.0T engine continues Chery's unique secret "fish belly" intake tract design, this special shape allows air to enter the cylinder more smoothly, and brings a good rolling effect. Coupled with the exclusive design of the mask combustion chamber and the roller-holding piston, the combustion speed of the fuel mixture is directly increased by 20% compared with the ordinary design.
Parametric advantages are part of it, and better power is only the basis for high-end luxury brand models. Consumers who really need high-end models are more concerned about the quality of the powertrain - not only to be energetic, but also quiet and smooth enough.
In order to achieve absolute tranquility and not let the moon produce the annoying "click" sound of the competitor high-pressure direct injection turbine, Xingtu did a full range of parcel processing in the engine compartment of the moon, and the material can be described as the best of the same level; in addition, based on the continuation of the "science and engineering" similar to the spirit of "ingenuity", Xingtu also started from the noise source of the high-pressure injection, and the world's rare direct direct cover of the high-pressure fuel pump with foam cotton, directly do NVH work from the source.
At the same time, in order to make this 2.0T four-cylinder turbine also have no less than the smooth operation of the traditional large-displacement engine, Xingtu also added a double balance shaft to it, which reduces the vibration by 85% on the basis of the ordinary 2.0T four-cylinder engine, and the running feeling is enough to hold the 6-cylinder or even 8-cylinder engine.
Similar details include the inverted design of the high-pressure fuel pump, improving the buffer gap between the canopy and the engine, improving safety in the event of a pedestrian collision, etc., and countless details are stacked in order to directly show the final perfect effect at the moment when consumers need it.
Before that, these technical details that could not be configured on the configuration table and could not directly show the effect could only be paid in obscurity. Of course, this is also a compulsory course for all high-end first-class models – consumers can not know, but must have, and must be able to perceive.
With all this, coupled with chery Automobile's unparalleled core technology independent research and development strength in the power field behind Xingtu, today and tomorrow's Xingtu, especially the flagship Moon, has a successful foundation.
Word of mouth is king, and user recognition is the best marketing
If we look directly at the real owner's reputation of the star through the Internet platform, we will find that it is really excellent and unexpected. Although the sales at this stage are not so explosive, under the blessing of the good reputation of one pass ten or ten pass hundred, it seems that it is not difficult for the sales volume to directly cross one or two steps in the next one or two years.
Low fuel consumption, strong power and strong acceleration are the most intuitive word-of-mouth impressions left by Xingtu Lanyue to consumers; thanks to the power advantage we said in the previous paragraph, the real 100-kilometer fuel consumption of Xingtu Lanyue is only about 10 liters, ranking 100th in the real SUV fuel consumption in 2021. Considering that this is a medium-sized SUV with a volume of nearly 5 meters, this almost means that if it is slightly smaller, it will not even be able to enter the top 100 of fuel consumption, and even compete with new energy hybrid models for the bottom place in the fuel consumption ranking.
But these are still not the whole of consumers' good feelings for Xingtu.
193,900, which is the starting price of the 2022 Starway Lanyue. Below this price, the same as the independent new high-end Lynk & Co 01 is a compact SUV, and the Weipai Mocha is a medium-sized SUV.
However, The Starway Moon is a medium and large SUV, the body length is close to 5 meters, the width is more than 1 meter 94, coupled with the wheelbase of 2 meters 9 and the height of nearly 1 meter 8, the visual volume of the "big car" and the actual sense of space spaciousness are very satisfied, and its standard three rows of seven seats is extremely confident in its own space.
In the real car owner reputation area, we have seen consumers more than once in the crazy praise of the advantages of its space, especially now that more and more families have opened the second and third child plans, the high-end product power of Xingtu Lanyue will inevitably be recognized and appreciated by more consumers.
Also highly recognized by consumers is the foundation of all high-end luxury - security. In the real owner's word-of-mouth area, more than one car owner has repeatedly mentioned the sincerity of his active safety configuration.
Taking the 2022 model on sale today as an example, 193,900 entry points have a full set of active safety configurations, from lane keeping to active braking, from 360-degree panoramic images to road traffic sign recognition, the StarWay Moon Entry is standard, and "safety is the greatest luxury" with strength.
And in the invisible place, Xingtu Lanyue did not forget to cultivate its own high-end quality. Based on the M3X Mars architecture, 85% of the steel in the whole vehicle of Xingtu Lanyue is used as high-strength steel, and unlike other models that only strengthen the A-pillar steel, Xingtu even makes the B-pillar of the Moon-Catching moon also use thermoformed steel, with a tensile strength of more than 1500Mpa; this directly brings more than 28000Nm/deg of body torsional stiffness, and the torsional stiffness opening deformation is <0.5mm.
The improvement of body rigidity not only increases safety, but also reduces the body shape change caused by long-term use, in other words, there are fewer noises, fewer failures, and the future retention rate will slowly become better.
Of course, the security rhetoric is unfounded. In the previous C-NCAP crash test, Xingtu Lanyue successfully hit a super high score of 92.4%, which was the highest score for all domestic autonomous models participating in the test at that time.
Such strength, coupled with the continuous dissemination of consumers' excellent reputation, the road to the advancement of Xingtu Lanyue, the future is unlimited.
Write at the end:
Every successful high-end brand has been proven by time. Xingtu, which has not been established until now, has strength, technology, and enough product configuration and pricing sincerity.
It is foreseeable that in the future, under the leadership of a large number of high-end models represented by the moon, Xingtu will most likely stage a successful development story. Of course, we may need to be a little more patient with it, after all, two or three years, really just the beginning.