Author | editorial board
Edited by | Wang Xin
Source | Car Prophet
If you had a budget of $150,000, what kind of car would you buy?
If this problem had been more than a decade ago, I believe that many people invariably tended to joint venture brands, and even preferred to increase the price to choose joint venture brands. The same question is asked again by consumers at the moment, and many people have begun to focus on Chinese cars, which have begun to catch up with joint venture cars and become the new favorite of the market.
According to data released by the China Automobile Association, the sales volume of Chinese brand passenger cars in the first quarter reached 2.547 million units, an increase of 21% year-on-year, and the market share accounted for 45.8%, an increase of 4.6 percentage points year-on-year.
From the data level, Chinese cars show a rising trend, and at the field level, Chinese cars are even more so.
As an important force in China's automotive industry, Changan Automobile's newly launched UNI-V is one of the typical representatives of the rise of Chinese cars. Through visiting the Changan Automobile 4S store, the car prophet learned that there have been significantly more cars and online consultations in the store recently, including many car owners converted from the joint venture brand.
The reason for this change is not unrelated to the "drainage" effect of UNI-V.
Changan UNI-V was launched on March 21, with four new models launched and an official price of 108,900-131,900 yuan. The car is the first car model of UNI, Changan's high-end product sequence, and the first car based on the Changan Ark architecture. It is worth mentioning that within 24 hours after the first booking of the car on January 10 this year to the pre-sale on February 21, its order volume has exceeded 16,000 units, and this is only the achievement after the release of the top version of the smart pilot.
It can be said that from Changan UNI-V, we not only see the trust and love of consumers for Chinese cars, but also see the new path and breakthrough of Chinese cars to break through the encirclement and suppression of joint venture brands.
| Changan UNI-V will take on the heavy responsibility of breaking through the Chinese series
Combing the history of China's automobile development, at first, the development of China's passenger car market took the road of "market for technology", which is one of the reasons why joint venture brands have dominated the Chinese automobile market for a long time, especially in the field of cars, Chinese cars have been in a weak position for a long time.
It is worth mentioning that The Chinese car has partially caught up with the SUV, and even many car companies have eaten the four sides with the SUV model, but the Chinese SUV at that time was based on the ultra-high cost performance, that is, consumers can solve the "practicality" demand with very little money, so it does not really represent the improvement of the quality of the Chinese car.
The industry generally believes that the rise of Chinese cars still depends on the performance of Chinese cars. That's because the sedan emphasizes not only comfort, power, handling, and configuration. In the design is more elaborate, more technical content.
In the history of the development of domestic cars in the Chinese market, the joint venture brands represented by the Japanese German system have built a "seemingly insurmountable high wall" through the first-mover advantage, but at present, this high wall has been cracked and loosened.
According to the latest data, Changan Automobile's wholesale sales of narrow passenger cars in March reached 133,000 units, up 20% year-on-year and winning the monthly sales championship. Behind this is the overall improvement of the technical quality of Chinese cars, and even has the strength to compete with joint venture brands in the market.
For example, Chang'an UNI-V is built based on the Chang'an Ark architecture!
| Ark architecture enables Changan UNI-V to cut through the pain points of user consumption
Changan UNI-V can be loved by consumers, not a rootless wood!
In addition to the strength of the appearance and configuration, which are floating on the surface, it is more important that UNI-V is not much better in terms of quality and performance, even compared with the joint venture brand of the same class.
The strong product strength of Changan UNI-V is naturally inseparable from the technical blessing of Changan Ark architecture.
Ark architecture is relying on Changan Automobile's global R&D system, to create an "evolving intelligent architecture", representing the new car-making concept of Changan Automobile R&D 4.0 era, is the evolutionary carrier of Changan's new car-making technology strength, and integrates the layout of high-end automatic driving technology that constantly adapts to changes in the future environment, the intelligent growth electronic and electrical architecture, the continuous improvement of the basic platform architecture and the complete system guarantee, which will redefine automobile manufacturing, continuous self-evolution, self-breakthrough, Continue to evolve a more future and more intimate travel experience for users.
For consumers, wondering how strong the Ark architecture really is? Just look at UNI-V.
First of all, in terms of user-focused design, Changan UNI-V is based on the flexible ductility of the Ark architecture, with a length of 4680mm and a wheelbase of 2750mm, achieving an industry-leading aspect ratio of 0.78 aspect ratio and 0.59 shaft length ratio. At the same time, the inclination angle of the power arrangement of Changan UNI-V is optimized from 7.5 ° forward to 10 ° backward, and the center of the engine crankshaft drops by 12mm, which can not underestimate this improvement, which is the key to achieving the lowering of the hood, and greatly increases the driving stability and comfort, and the visual effect is also full of low lying motion.
It is worth mentioning that Changan UNI-V also has a rare hidden door handle and slipback shape in the same class, and is also the only product in the same class equipped with an electric lifting tail, and can provide a maximum of 25kg downforce. In addition, the bilateral double-out exhaust layout adopted by the UNI-V Sport edition will often only appear in luxury brand cars with more than 300,000.
In addition, for the intelligent experience pursued by current consumers, Changan UNI-V is also industry-leading. Specifically, Changan UNI-V is equipped with imS intelligent cockpit interaction system, and the driver can realize rich functions such as song switching and navigation home according to commands such as voice and gestures.
Among them, Changan UNI-V has gesture control, facial recognition, automatic parking, electric induction trunk, 540 ° high-definition panoramic image (including transparent chassis) and other equipment, which are not reflected in the same level of joint venture models Civic. It can be said that Changan UNI-V has thrown off the joint venture brand several streets in the intelligent experience.
At present, Changan UNI-V has increased the generalization rate of parts and components to more than 70% through the Ark architecture, and the generalization rate of parts standards of international multinational car companies is also about 70%.
For Changan UNI-V, the higher the generalization rate of parts, the more design and processing workload can be reduced, thereby shortening the production technology preparation cycle. In the end, consumers can spend the same price to get more value feedback, accurately hitting the user's needs. This is also the reason why Changan UNI-V can also provide users with a cross-level rich configuration in the case of a top configuration of 131,900 yuan.
| Changan UNI-V high-strength steel accounts for more than 70% of the same grade of the joint venture
Safety is always the core value of automotive products, there is no "one", in the past there was such a saying that "driving a domestic car must have a spirit of not being afraid of suffering and not being afraid of death". Although the words are not good, it also reflects that in the past, domestic cars could not satisfy users in terms of comfort and safety.
But now, the situation has been completely reversed, take Changan UNI-V, its body uses the "Ark Cage" body, the body of ultra-high-strength steel and high-strength steel accounted for more than 70%, A-pillar, B-pillar and other key parts are used in ultra-high-strength steel of more than 1500Mpa, and the same level of joint venture models in the Civic high-strength steel accounted for less than 70%, in terms of safety, Changan UNI-V is better.
In addition, it is worth paying attention to the fact that engineers also use topology optimization technology to find out the relatively weak areas of the body structure, and at the same time analyze the working conditions such as bending stiffness, torsional stiffness, torsional mode, collision and strength, etc., to obtain the targets that need to be strengthened, and the body is strengthened in a targeted manner. In layman's terms, it is to use good steel on the blade.
In addition, Changan UNI-V realizes active/passive safety configurations such as 540° panoramic imagery, integrated body stability system, and 6 airbags to meet the needs of users.
Under the empowerment of the Ark architecture, Changan UNI-V was successfully selected into the list of "2021 China's Top Ten Car Bodies". Changan UNI-V achieves sincerity and friendliness to consumers at the safety level, whether it is visible or invisible to consumers, it is solid and reliable, and redefines the safety standards of Chinese vehicles.
| special blue whale enhances the Changan UNI-V control experience
In addition to the appearance, intelligent configuration, and security level of Changan UNI-V surpassing its peers, its control performance is also impressive. Changan UNI-V matches Blue Whale's new generation NE1.5T high-pressure direct injection engine, which has a maximum power of 138 kW and can output 300 N·m peak torque at 1500 rpm. Compared with the same level of joint venture competitor Civic, the Top Edition of the Civic is equipped with a 1.5T engine, with a maximum power of 95kW and a peak torque of 180N·m. In terms of power experience, Changan UNI-V is better than Civic.
Changan UNI-V is also matched with the Blue Whale 7-speed wet dual-clutch transmission, which can actively control the transient transmission torque of the clutch, absorb the impact of the engine on the transmission system during acceleration, and improve the acceleration linearity and transient response. More importantly, Changan UNI-V also adopts DTV dynamic torque vector control technology, when cornering, the controller can intelligently distribute the driving force of the inner and outer wheels through the control of the size of the braking force, which can realize the precise control of the driving trajectory according to the driver's intention, so as to provide a guarantee for driving accuracy and safety.
In addition, Changan UNI-V matches five driving modes, in addition to the three driving modes of "Sport, Standard and Energy Saving", two modes of SUPER RACE and SMART have also been added.
Among them, smart mode can be automatically adjusted according to different driving conditions, such as when you commute in the city, the system defaults to ECO mode; when the vehicle senses that you are stepping on the accelerator deeply, the system automatically switches to SPORT mode. This mode gives users a smarter and more convenient driving experience.
In order to bring users a more extreme driving experience, UNI-V is even equipped with SUPER RACE mode, when the user presses the "SUPER RACE" button, the vehicle enters the track mode, at this time the electric rear wing rises, the catapult start function is on standby, the LCD screen in the car switches to the exclusive UI interface, and the sport version of the model also supports the exhaust valve sound, which greatly enhances the user's driving pleasure.
| Chang'an technical system upwards UNI-V is just the beginning
As one of the earliest car companies to lay out Chinese cars, Changan Automobile has experienced three entrepreneurial operations since it began to "turn from military to civilian" in 1984. Compared with the previous heavy scale, Changan Automobile focused on the innovation of its own technology research and development system on the third entrepreneurial road.
The Ark architecture, which represents the new car-making concept of Changan Automobile's R&D 4.0 era, can not only make the product obtain more extreme mechanical quality, but also better adapt to the future development trend of intelligence and electrification, respond faster to the increasing travel needs of consumers, and let more people enjoy future technology.
Changan UNI-V, which is built based on the Ark architecture, marks that Chinese car brands have entered a new era of intelligent cars, and also allows the driving experience and lean manufacturing level of Chinese brand cars to stand on the same level line as the world's mainstream car companies, truly face international competition and realize the rise of Chinese cars.
Undoubtedly, Changan UNI-V is just the beginning, in the future, as more models based on the Ark architecture are put on the market, the overall image of Chinese cars and even the Chinese automotive industry will also usher in a complete transformation.