Recently, Hongqi LS7 announced the opening of pre-sale, which is currently the flagship SUV of Hongqi. It has a very large body size. With a length, width and height of 5695/2095/1985mm and a wheelbase of 3309mm, this size exceeds Cullinan and looks like a giant in the automotive world at first glance.
In the independent brand is a car that has never been seen before, and it is estimated that there will be no one after it. But it's such a flagship SUV that I think has three major hard wounds in the design.
[1] Power hard injury
The Hongqi LS7 is powered by a 4.0T turbocharged V8 engine mated to an 8-speed automatic transmission with a maximum power of 360 hp and a maximum torque of 500 Nm.
Although from the power parameters, the performance has been relatively strong, but driving such a large body size, such a heavy car, you will not feel any power in abundance. It should be known that its curb weight has reached 3.5 tons.
Why is it said that its power has a hard wound? The reason is because its dynamic parameters can actually be better. If we compare the 3.0T V6 engine developed by Great Wall Motor horizontally, you can find that it has 354 horsepower and 500 Nm. The power parameters of the 4.0T V8 engine independently developed by The Hongqi LS7 are almost the same. Therefore, I think this 4.0T V8 engine, in fact, the power tuning can be more fierce.
[2] The chassis is hard
A car of such a large size as the Hongqi LS7 requires a very high-strength body structure to support it. Therefore, the LS7 adopts a non-load-bearing body structure. Usually such a body structure is used on hardcore off-road vehicles. The advantage is that the strength is very high, but the disadvantage is also obvious, which will cause the quality of the maintenance to be very large, and the comfort is not as good as the load-bearing body.
Of course, such a large body size, there are also many car brands, using non-load-bearing body. Take, for example, lincoln navigator, Cadillac Kered. But in fact, the real top SUV will still choose the load-bearing body, such as Cullinan.
And The Hongqi L9 is said to be a non-bearing body, which actually reflects from the side that the Hongqi brand has not mastered, and the technology of the super-large car in terms of body strength and lightweight. Non-load-bearing body had to be used to ensure body strength.
[3] Ride hard injury
Hongqi LS7 is an SUV with a body length of nearly 5.7 meters, it is reasonable to say that such a large size car, the space in the car is certainly not small, but the truth is not so. The LS7 does have more space in the first two rows, but the space in the 3rd row is a hard injury. There are now some media, static experience of this car, through the above picture can see a normal man, sitting in the third row, the legs are actually topped to the back of the 2nd row of seats.
Therefore, there is still a lot of room for optimization in the LS7's 3rd row seat space, at least there is no need to leave so much trunk space. Perhaps the positioning of LS7 is not prepared for multi-person rides.
Although LS7 has opened pre-sale, it has not announced the pre-sale price. My personal guess is that its price must be over 1 million. And its audience is relatively small. It may be used as a courtesy car in the future. This also greatly limits the sales of LS7 as a civilian car.