The second China Automotive Awards came to an end, with 9 sedans, 19 SUVs and 3 MPVs among the 31 shortlisted models, covering gasoline, pure electric and hybrid power modes. From November 1, 2020 to December 31, 2021, each car company selected its own excellent models from nearly 1,000 new cars listed on the market, and after passing the expert vote, selected 31 shortlisted models.
At the same time, in the special award of the jury, Bai automobile's Beijing Rubik's Cube and SAIC-GM-Wuling Hongguang MINI EV models were shortlisted. At the same time, there are also Great Wall Motors' intelligent wire-controlled chassis, Dongfeng's Mach-powered MHD light mix system, GAC Aean Power Battery Technology Group, Geely's methanol vehicle R&D and application, Chery's Kunpeng Power CHERY POWER and SAIC's Xiangdao Robotaxi and other technologies at the same time. Let's take a look at what makes these two models and these shortlisted technologies stand out.
Beijing Rubik's Cube
The shortlisting of the Beijing Rubik's Cube can be said to have made BAIC really on fire, and the Beijing Rubik's Cube is the pioneering work of the 3.0 era of Beijing Automotive Group, and the new car innovates in the overall design. And the Rubik's Cube after innovation can be described as a dark horse in the same class of models. When all new energy vehicle companies are using the shape of new energy vehicles to build cars, Rubik's Cube has also begun to follow the trend. It not only adopts a trend-fits-through LED light cluster, but also adopts an enclosed front grille, and a black front lip is added to the front surround to make it look quite sporty. Although it is a new energy model, it has some taste of fuel vehicles in appearance.
Beijing Rubik's Cube also introduced the Hongmeng OS system in the interior intelligent system, which also further enhanced the functions of the car, while the Rubik's Cube also adopted a car-grade Kirin 990A chip, with a computing power of 3.5TOPs, even if it is placed in the traditional fuel model configuration, it is also one of the best.
Beijing Rubik's Cube is equipped with a 1.5T engine rated as the "Heart of China", with a maximum power of 138 kW, a peak torque of 305N·m, and a thermal efficiency of up to 39.2%. All three excellent stats make it stand out in its class.
Wuling Hongguang MINI EV
The Hongguang MINI EV sold more than 680,000 units with its ultra-low price and more recognizable appearance. And the Hongguang MINI EV is also an improvement over the time when it was first launched. It has not only been enhanced in terms of quality, added the configuration of airbags, but also improved in terms of endurance, truly achieving what users think and improving its own product strength. It is precisely because of the improvement of product strength that it has also won the first place in China's new energy sales for 19 consecutive months, and has topped the global sales volume for 5 times. Such sales figures and excellent retention rates also made it a special jury prize for this automotive festival.
Great Wall Motors - intelligent wire control chassis
The smart wire control chassis is a new technology under the new coffee intelligence 2.0 newly developed by Great Wall, and the smart wire control chassis plays the role of executor in automatic driving. The smart wire control chassis can achieve safety measures such as wire control steering and line control movement. But on the whole, in fact, steer-by-wire is not a new technology, the technology has been applied as early as the aircraft, but it has not been widely used in automobiles. The wire control will be more flexible, and the information control and sensing will be more timely. With this set of intelligent remote control chassis, the vehicle will also have better reaction ability in automatic driving, ensuring the safety of the owner's driving and making the vehicle more flexible.
Dongfeng Company - Mach Power MHD Light Mixing System
The Mach-powered MHD mixing system developed by Dongfeng has been awarded the title of iel's "China's New" Top Ten Engines. Therefore, it is not too surprising that it was awarded the special prize of the jury this time. The Mach-powered MHD hybrid system is composed of a Mach-powered 1.5T high-efficiency hybrid special engine with an HD120 hybrid electric drive assembly, which has significantly improved fuel economy. Even this light mixing system can be compared to the existence of "two fields" to some extent. This light mixing system will continue to be developed in the future and will also bring Chinese manufacturing to the peak.
GAC Aeon - power battery technology group
GAC Aean's recent move can be described as very large, it not only achieved results at this China Automobile Festival, but also recently launched the first "supercharge capital" activity to build Guangzhou into the country's first "supercharge capital". And these activities come from Aean's power battery technology group.
At present, the most concerned place of new energy models is its "three electric system", and in 2021, Aian has developed a magazine battery, which fully solves the problem of battery life of new energy models. At the same time, Aeon also has two generations of industry-leading pure electricity exclusive platform GEP2.0 and other technologies. And these are combined into a power battery technology group. That is to say, the power battery technology group is named after all the technologies of Aeon, and since Aeon has obvious advantages in the new energy battery industry, why not award it?
Geely - methanol vehicle research and development and application
In recent years, Geely has been developing vehicles with methanol as the driving force, and the research and development of this technology will also comprehensively reduce the oil burden on the mainland. Methanol has also been vigorously promoted as a clean energy, Geely is not only the enterprise with the largest number of methanol vehicles in the market, but also the automobile manufacturer with the most vehicles in the pilot operation of methanol vehicles. Thanks to the technology developed by the company, methanol can also be officially applied to cars as fuel. The emergence of methanol energy models is also a contribution to carbon neutrality and carbon peaking for society.
Chery - Kunpeng Power CHERRY POWER
Chery's Kunpeng Power can be said to be a major blockbuster technology under Chery. What is Kunpeng Power? Simply put, Kunpeng Power is the first hybrid system that uses the fusion of the motor and the gearbox. At the same time, the Kunpeng power system is also equipped with the Tiggo 8PRO Kunpeng Version, and the Tiggo 8PRO Kunpeng Version is also shortlisted as one of the 31 models. The application of Kunpeng Power has reduced the energy consumption of the vehicle and improved the performance of NVH, which is outstanding in terms of synthesis.
SAIC Motor - Xiangdao Robotaxi
Xiangdao Robotaxi is the first L4-level car enterprise autonomous driving operation platform in China created by integrating the advantages of multiple resources. The birth of the platform also marks the beginning of the era of unmanned operating vehicles, and unmanned operating vehicles will also provide users with better safety protection. Although driverless technology is not widely used now, in 2025, SAIC motor group will soon organize the Robotaxi fleet to serve users, and the future development prospects are very promising.
Summary: The models and technologies of the above shortlisted judges' special awards have a good strength no matter which one is presented. And China's auto industry has developed to this day, there have been more and more new car-making forces, China's intelligent car and new energy development needs a leader, and these selected car companies will also bear heavier responsibilities and move forward.