Written by | Eldon's Ring of Law
Edit | Routing Agency
"This is the best era of electric smart cars."
In a press release sent to the media yesterday (April 17), Zhiji Automobile opened with such a sentence.
On the same day, the Zhiji L7 Dynamic Edition model announced the price: 368,800 yuan.
At this point, zhiji automobile's first mass production model officially completed the launch of the new car 26 months after the establishment of the project.
The arrival of L7 Dynamic is another "self-profiling" of Zhiji Auto in terms of market positioning since the L7 Pro version was announced on March 29.
If the 408,800 yuan Zhiji L7 Pro version of the model locks in a relatively small customer group for the brand, but the demand is more extreme, then the Dynamic version of the model indicates who are the core customers of Zhiji Automobile at this stage? Where will the brand's sales base fall before the next model arrives?
The core mission of L7
Obviously, for the above series of questions, the high-end intelligent electric vehicle manufacturer, which is incubated by SAIC, hopes to give a direct answer through its products.
In the framework of zero-carbon travel, users who have a strict pursuit of car performance will be cherished by Zhizhi automobiles.
Regarding this judgment, Zhiji gave a basis with the help of a piece of information disclosed at the scene of the new car listing conference.
Recently, with 1 hour and 6 minutes, 258 laps, and 43.646 kilometers of continuous drift, Zhiji L7 successfully broke the Guinness World Record for the "longest drift distance" for electric vehicles.
Prior to this, the world record, which considered the comprehensive performance of the car's handling, was set by the Porsche Taycan in August 2020 at the Porsche Experience Center (PEC) in Hockenheim, Germany.
Behind the performance performance that broke the world record, zhiji L7 fully appealed to the power of today's technology.
For example, in the underlying architecture, Zhiji L7 adopts a new top-of-the-line performance pure electric architecture.
Based on the industry's rare 400V voltage platform, the straight waterfall oil-cooled motor equipped with the new car has the highest power density in the world, and the power output is more than twice that of the luxury fuel vehicle of the same class.
The use of high-density energy batteries makes it easy for its four-wheel drive model to achieve a CLTC range of 615 kilometers.
For example, a reasonable aerodynamic design brings a drag coefficient as low as 0.21Cd, surpassing the Porsche Taycan (0.22Cd) and ranking third in the world after the Mercedes-Benz EQS (0.20Cd) and Tesla Model S (0.208Cd).
In addition, the lightweight all-aluminum chassis structure with a perfect shaft-to-load ratio of 50:50, the ultra-low center of gravity of 490 mm based on the industry's first mass-produced horizontal cell solution, and master chassis tuning from WAE Williams' forward-looking engineering team all laid the foundation for the Zhiji L7 to achieve stable driving control in the limit state.
As a result of the accumulation of such cutting-edge technologies, the Zhiji L7 has created some performance parameters based on the same cost that are difficult to obtain in the era of fuel vehicles.
Through the electrified four-wheel vector drive technology, the Zhiji L7 realizes a large steering angle of 12° in both directions at the rear wheel, a 3.87 seconds acceleration time of 100 kilometers and a braking distance of 32.69 meters of 100 kilometers, and a vehicle length of more than 5 meters and a wheelbase of 3.1 meters, but can control the turning radius in a flexible control of 5.4 meters ultra-small range.
"This is not only the strength verification of the world-class performance level of a new model, but also the era when China's high-end smart electric vehicles rely on electrification technology to subvert the technical barriers and rules of the game of traditional luxury vehicles."
While making a "self-evaluation" of the L7 model, Zhiji Automobile also said the core task of this product - that is, based on electrification technology, to "calibrate a new value benchmark" for luxury cars.
≈ luxury technology?
Yes, as the only private luxury brand under SAIC Motor, Zhiji Automobile has set its sights on the high-end intelligent electric vehicle market dominated by Tesla, Weilai and other brands for a long time since the establishment of the brand.
This is not difficult to glimpse from the price range of 368,800 yuan to 408,800 yuan of the Zhiji L7 model.
"Compared with the price of the same configuration, the price provided by the Zhiji L7 Pro is at least about 100,000 yuan lower than that of the competitors." Liu Tao, co-CEO of Zhiji Automobile, has recently made an anonymous comparison, which has led to unlimited associations with the outside world about the competitive relationship between Zhiji L7 and NIO ET7.
Some of his other remarks have put the competition between Zhiji and traditional luxury car brands in the clear.
"There are still some young people who continue to be immersed in the traditional value system built by the BBA... For users who spend 400,000 yuan to buy fuel vehicles, in fact, I think they are very helpless, or to say too much, it is very tragic. He said.
In addition to strengthening the high-end attributes of products from the "traditional perspective" of NVH performance, cabin tranquility, odor control, driving comfort, etc., Zhiji Automobile is more trying to establish an internal strong relationship between "technology" and "luxury".
In this regard, brands such as Apple and Tesla seem to have succeeded.
In 2021, Apple and Tesla ranked first in the global smartphone and electric vehicle markets with market shares of 22% and 14.4%, respectively – and these two companies are often used as cases, and are constantly cited by Liu Tao in early media interviews.
It is precisely because of this logic that we can contact the "huge immersive smart scene screen" that can be automatically lifted and lowered on the Zhiji L7, the high-reduction stereo field created by the 1120W super power amplifier, and the full-channel condition electronic control intelligent damping suspension that can complete 5 times the soft and hard adjustment within 10 milliseconds.
Zhiji Auto believes that the organic integration of a series of cutting-edge technologies into a smart pure electric car will add new value to it. The latter will also benefit from industry competition.
The hardest time for smart electric vehicles?
In fact, this belief in zhiji cars is also regarded by most of today's emerging electric vehicle brands as a methodology for exploring the market.
In the product configuration table, the proportion of high-tech configuration has been sharply increased, and it has almost become a conventional means for major new car brands to enhance product competitiveness and compete for users.
Perhaps, this is also related to the current competitive landscape of China's electric vehicle market.
In 2021 alone, new brands, including Zhiji Auto, Avita Technology, Feifan Auto, and Sharon Auto, have joined the competition in the smart electric vehicle market. Within one year, the number of new brands reached 10.
Just a year ago, new brands such as Lantu and Jihu have emerged. During the period, there were also rumors that Baidu, Xiaomi, Xiaoniu and other technology companies would cross-border car manufacturing.
On the one hand, the number of new brands entering the market with smart electric vehicles is increasing; on the other hand, the leading position and main share of the market are occupied by a few strong brands such as Tesla and "Wei Xiaoli".
Last year, China's total retail sales of new energy passenger cars totaled 2.989 million units, of which sales of pure electric passenger cars reached 2.3611 million units.
Among them, Tesla, Weilai, Xiaopeng, Ideal and other 4 companies have accumulated product sales of 600,000 vehicles, with a market share of more than 20%. In the sales of pure electric vehicles, Tesla, Weilai and Xiaopeng accounted for 21.6% of sales.
Image source: Multiplying Association
In a sense, for these new players who have broken into the market after Tesla and Wei Xiaoli, this is both the best era for smart electric vehicles and the most difficult era.
The limited brand influence is the first challenge they face.
Take Zhiji Automobile as an example.
Although it has been 16 months since the brand was officially founded, and a large number of brand promotion activities have been interspersed during the period, when overseas media mention Zhiji Automobile, it is still referred to as "a brand supported by SAIC Motor and Alibaba".
On the contrary, for China's emerging car brands such as Weilai and Xiaopeng, overseas media can accurately spell out their names.
Because of this, emerging car brands are competing to upgrade product specifications and configurations to the forefront of the industry, in order to quickly create topics and make "big moves" in the market.
Extreme Krypton 001 is a typical example.
With its unique hunting coupe positioning, 3.8s 100 km/h acceleration performance, cruising range of more than 700 km/ 700 km, and a wealth of technology features, the model "murdered" many auto media points when it was released in April last year.
For end users, configuring "inner volumes" that exceed their actual needs or affordability can in turn hinder their consumption.
As a result, The Extreme Krypton side has innovatively launched a user co-creation model - users who pre-order their products are allowed to participate in the formulation of model configurations.
However, as a mass production product, Extreme Kr 001 also had to take into account manufacturing costs.
In the case of user opinions that are difficult to unify, a contradiction between respecting the co-creation of users who "thousands of faces" and "large-scale industrial production" that pursues economies of scale has formed a more difficult to reconcile.
In the end, the Extreme Kr 001 was accused of quietly "reducing the allocation" and incurring the evaluation of "it is very Porsche to drive and very popular to use".
"Buying a car is like opening a blind box, not knowing what will be reduced tomorrow." After a sad owner of the Krypton 001 issued such a lament, he transferred the Dading in his hand.
The phenomenon of Transfer of Dading, a scheduled customer of Extreme Kr 001, was once quite serious
The official explanation of Kr is that "after investigating the user's usage needs", the configuration was adjusted accordingly.
However, such operations have actually placed the co-creation model designed for the user on the opposite side of the user, and ultimately the brand reputation has been damaged.
In this regard, although there are significant differences between Zhiji Automobile and Extreme Kr in terms of brand positioning, similar ideas and strategies are used in the product development and promotion stages: the same configuration is crushed, and the same user co-creation is used.
This also means that the promises made in front of users today must be fulfilled one by one even if they cry in the coming days. Otherwise, this wave of user complaints and public relations crises encountered by Extreme Kr will most likely be staged.
Perhaps, Zhiji Car is ready. As the press release said, emerging automakers need to "rush out" and "brake firmly.". In the future, when the brand faces and deals with these problems that are common to the industry, it cannot be taken lightly.
Write at the end
According to the original plan, the delivery of the Zhiji L7 will start in April. However, Liu Tao previously told the media that the recent work rhythm of the Zhiji Automobile team has been disrupted by the epidemic in Shanghai.
Judging from the current situation, the production of new cars may still be limited by the epidemic and supply chain logistics problems.
However, on the night of the launch of the new car, there was good news. According to the "Guidelines for the Prevention and Control of the Epidemic in Shanghai Industrial Enterprises Resuming Work and Production (First Edition)" issued by the Shanghai Economic and Information Commission, 231 automobile industry enterprises, including SAIC Motor and Tesla, will be prioritized to ensure that production resumes.
SAIC Motor also previously disclosed that it plans to resume production on April 18 and has now started stress testing.
At present, the inflection point of the current round of the epidemic in Shanghai has not yet appeared, and it is hoped that delivery on schedule will not become another challenge for Zhiji L7.
-END-