As consumers' demand for automotive products becomes more and more diverse, car companies need to consider more abundant and complex dimensions when developing new models, it seems that the visual perception of both inside and outside, unique driving experience, comfortable riding experience, rich active and passive safety configuration, excellent fuel economy, intelligent software and hardware support, excellent materials and workmanship, etc. can not fully meet the consumer's picky tastes, the inevitable result is that the pace of automotive product update iteration is accelerated, and the replacement cycle is shortened as a whole. Small changes are more frequent.
However, my old friend today made me look forward to it for 9 years before I waited for this meeting, and the interval between generations was really too long, and even we almost forgot that there was such a friend. When I tried to find a feeling that was once familiar, ta only made me feel familiar. Who is a TA? What kind of story happened to him? Is there a new skill? Please don't stop turning your pages and read on.
This old friend, who is familiar and unfamiliar to me, is Changan Ford's new Mondeo. Since the realization of domestic production of the second generation of Mondeo in 2004, Mondeo has been associated with the Chinese market for nearly 20 years, the second generation of Mondeo's 2.5L V6 engine, the third generation of Mondeo's winning breakthrough appearance, the fourth generation of Mondeo's Martin face, have become the reason for Ford fans and Mondeo owners to love. Both Mondeo and Fox have made a contribution to the Expansion of the Ford brand in the Chinese market.
Now in front of my eyes is the fifth generation of Mondeo, is the change in appearance very huge? If you have accepted and become accustomed to the exterior design of the Changan Ford EVOS, then there may be a new Mondeo that can hit your aesthetic point. The design concept called "potential energy aesthetics", in addition to the EVOS just mentioned, has once again appeared on the new Mondeo, which is also the first time that the design language of "potential energy aesthetics" has been applied to cars. The design and development of the new Mondeo, led by the Ford China team, shows the importance of the Chinese market for Ford, although in the North American and European markets, the Mondeo model has been discontinued, but in the future if the market still has demand, perhaps the new Mondeo from Changan Ford can be sold back to the European and American markets.
The new Mondeo is still a mid-size sedan, but with a wheelbase of 2945mm and a body size of 4935/1875/1500mm. The test drive I got was the top ST-Line, the black ST-Line kit and the red body looked really good, exaggerated avant-garde front face shape, narrow light set, a bad look. The middle mesh, called the 3D parametric scale armor grille, in addition to the active opening and closing function, also has unexpected surprises when unlocking the vehicle.
The combination of the suspension roof and the two-color exterior mirrors, the new Mondeo has a strong sporty style in the appearance, the whole series is equipped with hidden door handles, plus some other aerodynamic design details, such as vents on the front bumper, Fastback slipback shape, ducktail spoiler tail fin, etc., making the new Mondeo's vehicle wind resistance coefficient reach 0.293Cd.
The most striking feature of the new Mondeo's rear is the use of Mustang-style three-bar taillights and the letter logo on the tailgate, which is a great improvement in the sense of sportiness compared to the previous generation model. But to be honest, I always feel that the design of the rear of the car can be further optimized, if the position of the license plate frame is lowered, will it look better? The biggest question is that since the ST-Line's sporty look kit has been adopted, why not display the exhaust pipe in a high profile on the rear bumper? There is no exhaust pipe at the rear of the car, the sports aura really made a fierce fold, such a discount, definitely not through 4 235/45 R19 tires can be found to make up.
The interior design of the new Mondeo car is probably the most controversial place. A piece of "fish screen" with a length of 1.1 meters has attracted 100% of the attention at the moment of sitting in the car, directly ignoring other details of the design. Everything on the center console seems to give way to this impressive size of the screen, a large number of flat lines increase the visual width of the car, but also make the center console a lot of regular, but the biggest disadvantage, is that the center console has fewer physical buttons, almost all the functions must be through this screen to achieve.
The shape of the steering wheel from a certain point of view, quite like the 80s Ford model of the last century, a little retro style, but I still think the size of the steering wheel is a little bigger, if it is more refined. The 12.3-inch LCD dashboard in front of the main driver is a modern technology style, and there is no longer a beautiful double ring display mode.
The central control screen is equipped with Ford's latest SYNC+2.0 zhixing interconnection system, which supports multi-touch, speech recognition, facial recognition, gesture recognition control and other functions, through two-finger sliding, the content on the central control screen can be displayed to the main driver or co-pilot, and can achieve the function of split screen display. On the side of the B&O letter logo above the center console, the probe with functions such as driver fatigue monitoring is hidden, and when using the driver assistance function based on the new generation of Co-Pilot360, the line of sight will be reminded through the dashboard for a long time, and if the system recognizes that the driver has not yet responded, what awaits you will be a series of brakes.
The most direct benefit of a large enough wheelbase is that the interior space is spacious enough, the interior space of the new Mondeo has obvious advantages in the same class of models, the leg space in the rear has been close to the higher-level models, and the lateral space performance is also good enough, but the rear seat back angle cannot be adjusted, which is a small regret.
The new Mondeo is equipped with the latest EcoBoost engine, which is the same as the engine equipped with EVOS, with a maximum power of 175 kW, a maximum torque of 376 Nm, and the same parameters, usually add 92 # gasoline. Matched with the 2.0T engine with Ford's 8AT transmission.
The new Mondeo's 2.0T engine belongs to the EcoBoost camp, maturity and reliability do not need to worry too much, and with the update of technology, fuel economy compared to the previous engine has also improved, coupled with more 8AT transmissions, high-speed endurance engine speed is easier to maintain in the economic range. Daily road conditions driving, the power of this engine is enough to cope with the city, high-speed road conditions, after a day of test drive, the biggest feeling is smooth, 8AT transmission gear ratio is fine enough, the shift gap is almost imperceptible. However, the transmission still has some room for optimization in the shift logic, and the response to the downshift command is not fast enough.
The new Mondeo adopts the front McPherson + rear multi-link suspension combination, adjusting more biased comfort, the filtering of road information is too clean, the road information transmitted to the driver from the steering wheel or seat is very limited, although a lot of aluminum alloy material is used in the suspension linkage, swing arm and other positions to reduce the quality of the spring, but in fact, in the multi-curve road conditions, the driving pleasure can be provided is not as sporty as the appearance, the comfort is enough, and even too comfortable, which greatly sacrifices the driving pleasure.
In fact, in the current launch of the 4 configurations, the top model is ST-Line, for the model with a sporty appearance suite, in the chassis adjustment may wish to be bold, for the ST-Line model to make a separate calibration and adjustment, to meet those who have a higher pursuit of driving pleasure or sports texture of consumers, and several other configurations, for ordinary family consumers or prefer comfortable people, will it be better?
summary:
After a long 9 years, Mondeo has finally ushered in a replacement, the model developed by Ford China, it is easier to fully realize the demands of Chinese consumers in the model, with the Mondeo in the North American and European markets discontinued production, the new Mondeo may appear in overseas markets in the future.
In terms of pricing, the pricing of the new Mondeo can be described as extremely aggressive, and even will seize the market, configuration and power of some compact models, including the current mainstream intelligent driving assistance system, are easy to attract attention, such pricing, very characteristic appearance, will you become the next Changan Ford new Mondeo owner?