Compared with the 5 series control, and the E-class than luxury, Weilai ET7 uses strength to argue that Li Bin is not arrogant?
"I can't understand why anyone still buys a gas truck? How nostalgic is this to buy a gas car", at the 2021 Weilai ET5 conference, Li Bin's remarks caused great controversy in the industry, and the media generally believed that this was a wild speech for Bo to get out.
Three months later, when WEIO's new C-class luxury car ET7 ushered in its first media test drive, a number of independent car critics directly called out: "ET7 has surpassed Mercedes-Benz E, BMW 5 Series, Audi A6 (commonly known as 56E, the benchmark for luxury large cars)".
ET7 positioning is C-class luxury cars, the main sales price range is locked at 400,000-500,000 yuan, the product power is indeed as many car critics said, that Li Bin's original "wild talk", but it has become a big truth.
How can it win? Let the president take a look at it together.
(1) The BBA that is difficult to shake, and the track that has been changed
In the domestic auto market, there has always been a strange phenomenon. That is, how fierce the market competition below 300,000 is, how many flowers bloom, once it enters more than 300,000, it becomes the world of BBA. Whether it is the Light of Japan Lexus, or the American luxury Cadillac, Lincoln, or the Nordic national treasure Volvo, in the head-to-head confrontation with the BBA, it must avoid its sharp edge.
Let's take a look at the sales ranking of high-end cars in January and February this year, and the first 6 BBA models are all the same. The 5, 6 and E in the 400,000-500,000 class are even stronger, and countless models that look better than their "cost performance" have lost in the competition. Because for their target users, since they choose luxury brands, they value the luxury enjoyment they bring, and "cost performance" is not so important.
Although the 5, 6, and E are not the same as each other, such as the 5 Series has better control, the A6L has a higher technology configuration, and the E-class luxury is better, but overall, their performance is completely enough. The space is big enough, the power is strong enough, the sense of luxury is prominent enough, whether it is brand, technology, or practicality, they have definitely met the needs of daily use.
Therefore, for consumers in the 400,000-500,000 level, in fact, 5, 6, E choose which one is correct. But if you want them to choose another brand, the difficulty factor is quite high.
Many second-tier luxury brands have launched an impact on 5, 6, E, they all have a good cost performance, and even claim that as long as more than 300,000 can provide product strength that does not lose 5, 6, E at all.
But judging from the results, the C-class cars of these second-tier luxury brands have failed, as can be seen from the sales list. Because users who pay so much money to buy a car don't actually want a lower price, or a longer body, they need enough points to impress them, and at the same time disgusted with being compared.
That didn't change until an electric brand called Tesla came out. In the original fuel car track, the BBA not only has a very strong accumulation of technology, such as a variety of high-power engines, a silky matching ZF 8AT gearbox, and excellent chassis texture tuning. In addition, there is excellent luxury creation, creating a world of freedom between square inches.
These have strong technical barriers, the key is that even if other manufacturers catch up, just one brand recognition, you can easily beat other brands.
The emergence of Tesla has changed this situation. It is based on high performance and advocates intelligence, which not only makes people more cool to drive, but also elevates human-computer interaction to a new dimension, cutting from another track and catching BBA by surprise.
Back to ET7, nio's smartest thing is that it never listed Tesla as a rival, but instead said that it wanted to challenge the BBA's position in the luxury car market. Weilai's killer skill is to change a track, electric brings stronger performance, and the shape and interior are more luxurious.
Taking ET7 as an example, although it is based on a market of 400,000-500,000, its product strength has come to a new dimension through the advantages of full electrification. Because what it wants is not to compare with 5, 6, E, but to do everything better, and then "happens" to fall to the level of 400,000-500,000, this way undoubtedly gives it a better chance to break through than those traditional brands.
(2) The performance is comparable to the M series, et7 has a surging heart
Although it is a rival to the 5 Series in terms of price and size, the performance of the ET7 is actually benchmarked against the BMW M Series. Probably a lot of people don't have this concept, because the ET7 never seems to show off its speed.
In fact, the ET7 adopts a high-strength steel and aluminum hybrid body design, and the torsional stiffness of the whole vehicle reaches an astonishing 37100N.m/deg, which makes it have a very high handling limit. The streamlined body design allows it to achieve an ultra-low drag coefficient of 0.208cd, which is also the lowest wind resistance model of the same level at the same price. Even if the standard is relaxed to all production cars, it seems that only the Porsche Taycan and Lucid Air can slightly outperform it.
The ET7 uses a new generation of high-efficiency electric drive platforms, and the Silicon Carbide power module achieves the ultimate performance. The front and rear dual motors drive up to 480 kW, which means a maximum horsepower of 653 hp and a maximum torque of 850 Nm. In contrast, the maximum horsepower of the BMW 5 Series is only 252 horses, and it is clear that the power reserves of the two are not in the same dimension.
The official 0-100km/h acceleration time of WEILAI ET7 is 3.8 seconds, and the "strange" thing is that almost all media measurements are faster than this data, but Weilai does not even list speed as the focus of publicity, because in the case of completely crushing strength, there is no need to do too much text entanglement.
In addition to moving enough to be windy, the ET7 can also be "quiet" at any time. The new model comes standard with Brembo's high-performance four-piston front brake calipers, which gives it a braking distance of only 33.5 meters at 100km/h-0, which is also the level of performance cars.
The new car also comes standard with intelligent air suspension and dynamic damping control, and its chassis can be adjusted in three gears of -10/0/+40mm, while also being able to fine-tune the suspension damping 500 times per second to ensure sufficient comfort when driving.
Weilai's official statement is that ET7 can meet all driving needs from the track to the road, not only continuing the high-performance gene of the high-end series, but also meeting the low energy consumption of daily driving.
(3) 1 meter rear row, it is more "excessive" than the E class?
The body size of the ET7 is 5101*1987*1509mm, and the wheelbase is 3060mm, which can be seen that as a C-class luxury car, Weilai still does some "hands and feet". After all, the width of 1987mm is not what a car of this class should have, and the width of the S-class is only 1921mm.
Thanks to the all-electric platform, the ET7's interior space is outstanding, with a staggering 1007mm of rear legroom. This legroom of more than 1 meter allows passengers to easily achieve "Ge You Lie". After putting on the child seat, the child sitting on it can't even step on the back of the front seat, which can be said to be extremely luxurious. Coupled with its unbeatable width, it can sit in an adult after two child seats on the rear.
In terms of comfort configuration, the ET7 is also extremely prominent. The new car is equipped with the Air Cushion back soothing system as standard, that is, the seat can be linked with the internal air bag, and the three airbags are deflated and the seat heating and massage functions are combined, which is absolutely a luxurious enjoyment.
ET7 is not equipped with brand audio such as Baohua Weijian or The Voice of Berlin, but it is not to reduce costs, but because these brands are unwilling to do in-depth joint commissioning services, Weilai chose itself as the main development. With 23 speakers plus Dolby Atoms Dolby Atmos, the listening effect is quite overbearing, which is definitely a concert-level enjoyment.
ET7 has also made further improvements, such as adding a remote airbag between the main driver and the co-driver, and also adding a car refrigerator interface, and the dashboard and rear screen are All Mini LED HDR screens, making it more convenient to use.
In terms of intelligent configuration, ET7 also chose "stud". It has the most comprehensive car-machine interconnection function at present, supporting 5G, supporting Wi-Fi 6, supporting Bluetooth 5.2, and also supporting UWB digital key connection, users can realize car-machine interconnection at any time according to their own needs. NOMI Voice Assistant has also been updated to the latest generation, its comprehension ability is very good, support fuzzy speech recognition, also support multi-round voice dialogue, and has a self-learning function, which can be used as much as possible.
In terms of intelligent driving, ET7 not only supports high-precision maps, but also equipped with lidar, and can also observe the surroundings through 11 on-board cameras, which is equivalent to using Tesla and Xiaopeng's solutions, coupled with the latest NVIDIA Drive Orin autopilot chip, as well as the latest generation of assisted driving NOP sets, its technology does not need to be doubted.
(4) Summary of the president
Compared with the 5, 6 and E classes, the ACCELERATION and handling performance of the ET7 is undoubtedly much stronger, and the braking performance and body limits are also higher. Coupled with excellent space and super intelligent configuration, it can be said that its strength is still quite prominent at this level, which is basically equivalent to the performance of bmw M series plus the luxury configuration of Mercedes-Benz S-class.
Compared with those pioneers who also launched an impact on 5, 6, and E, ET7 never pursued "no loss" or "cost performance", but a full range of crushing, and then let consumers make a choice. Since the BBA is difficult to shake on the same track, let's change the track to "overtake in the corner".
How much market can ET7 nibble on? Let's wait and see.