A decade ago, Chinese auto brands could only survive in the low-end market. Even 5 years ago, it was difficult to find a Chinese self-owned brand car that cost more than 300,000 yuan. Obviously, the previous Chinese independent car brands lacked the layout of the high-end market, or lacked a high-end model that could be based on the price segment of more than 300,000 yuan.
As cars enter the new energy era, Chinese auto brands have finally found a great opportunity to impact the high-end market. Nowadays, China's high-end new energy vehicle market does not lack the figure of independent brands. Among them, Lantu Automobile can definitely be regarded as the vanguard of the impact on the high-end new energy vehicle market, and Lantu FREE shoulders the mission of impacting the high-end market in the price segment of more than 300,000.
As early as June 2021, Lantu Automobile released its first mass production car, a medium and large SUV with a high-end positioning and a price of 313,600-363,600 yuan. Of course, not a car can sell for more than 300,000, it must be a good car.
I think that to define whether a car is worth the price, at least it needs to be considered in combination with its car use scene, actual experience, and horizontal comparison. Next, let's take a look at the strength of this model that is a milestone for Dongfeng Motor to impact the high-end market.
Stacking materials and stacking configurations have always been the usual routines of independent brands, and independent brand users have also benefited a lot in this regard. I think That Landu FREE can be said to have taken the word "pile" to the extreme, at least in the price segment of 300,000, it has no opponents.
Driving experience: A medium and large SUV with a multi-faceted personality
From the perspective of the difference in powertrain, the pure electric version of the Landu FREE has a total of two different model versions of single motor rear drive and dual motor four-wheel drive, 3 models, and I test drive the Lando FREE 2021 four-wheel drive pure electric version exclusive luxury set (hereinafter referred to as "Landu FREE").
Lantu FREE has an AC asynchronous motor with a maximum power of 255kw and a maximum torque of 520N·m in the front and rear axles, with a system comprehensive power of up to 510kw and a system comprehensive torque of 1040N·m. From the perspective of test drive experience, Lantu FREE is not a paper tiger who only knows how to "brush parameters".
Thanks to the strong power reserve, the 0-100km/h acceleration time of the LandoFREE only takes 4.7 seconds. In sport mode, its instantaneous burst of thousands of Nm of torque can easily make people feel dizzy. For consumers who rarely have access to high-performance electric vehicles, the direct, rough performance of Lantu FREE can be uncomfortable.
Of course, as a medium-sized SUV positioned as a high-end, "high performance" is not its only label. In the economical, comfortable mode, its power output is not so "touch-trigger", and the overall tuning is relatively softer and more linear.
To be honest, as a car editor, I am certainly an avid car enthusiast, and although I like the kind of blood that comes with the performance of the car, during the 4-day test drive, I used comfort mode most of the time to drive this high-performance SUV with a strong power reserve.
The main reason for this is two main points: First, in a large city with dense traffic in Guangzhou, the somatosensory effect that more than 1000 N·m of torque can bring in addition to the blood veins, there are nerves that are tense all the time.
You know, The Landu FREE is a medium-sized SUV with a body size of more than 4.9 meters, and its field of vision in the car is not as impressive as that of a real performance car. So the car doesn't stimulate my adrenaline in most cases, allowing me to drive it faster.
Second, in order to be able to hold the body while the powerful power burst, the air suspension of the Landu FREE is adjusted quite stiffly in sport mode. I don't need such a tough suspension support setting when I don't want to drive a fast car, and the suspension setting that is soft in Comfort mode is just right.
It is worth mentioning that the air suspension of Lantu FREE can not only be soft and hard adjusted according to different modes, but also adjust the ground clearance of the chassis. It is understood that in different modes, its air suspension can raise the body by up to 100mm, which brings unlimited imagination space to the use scenario of this model.
In addition to the hardcore configuration, the high-end atmosphere of the Lando FREE in the car was also full.
The interior design of the car shows the high-end heritage
The center console of Landu FREE adopts a liftable triple screen design, and the size of the three screens is 12.3 inches, and the clarity and fluency are also at the mainstream level of the same level. In the era when car companies generally like to pile up large screens, the large screen on the center console has been difficult to attract the attention of consumers, but the design of the lifting center console is rare.
You know, as the core component of the intelligent car, the center console is even as important as the power system. Therefore, the lifting center console tests not only the design ability of a car company, but also its ability to control product quality.
If there is no strong enough confidence in quality control, car companies dare not use such a complex lifting mechanism for its products. In my opinion, although the lifting center console looks a bit fancy, it is also a manifestation of the muscles of The Lantu Car Show.
In the creation of the overall atmosphere, the liftable triple screen center console gives FREE a sufficient sense of science and technology and a sense of ceremony, but Lantu Automobile is backed by a traditional car company with a deep car manufacturing heritage, and the traditional car company also has its own understanding of high-end and luxury.
The center console of Landu FREE is basically composed of screens, but it has not forgotten to design the commonly used functions as physical buttons, and all its physical buttons are chrome-plated, which is very delicate both visually and tactilely. In my opinion, this is also the essential difference in design style between traditional car companies and new car manufacturers.
Due to the lack of experience in automobile manufacturing by the new forces, they often pay more attention to the intelligent interactive experience such as car machine systems and assisted driving, and it is difficult to consider the user experience from the ergonomic point of view like the traditional car companies that have been dealing with car users for many years.
From the perspective of creating a luxurious atmosphere, I personally think that the atmosphere in the car of Lantu FREE is by no means comparable to the new forces of car manufacturing, even Weilai, which is known for its high-end and luxury, is no exception. Almost 90% of its interior is wrapped in leather, and the material is very solid, even if it is not wrapped in leather, it will not show the slightest plastic feeling.
In terms of riding experience, the front seats of the Landu FREE are more fully populated, and the overall wrapping and support are good. In addition, the configuration of these two seats is also quite rich, the main and co-drivers provide 12-way electric adjustment, equipped with seat ventilation, heating, massage and other functions, and the main driver also supports the power seat memory function.
Among them, seat ventilation and heating can correspond to consumers with different needs in the south and north, respectively, and I mainly experienced the seat massage function of Lantu FREE for several hours. Measured, although the seat massage of this car is small, it can have a significant effect on relieving fatigue.
Space is a compulsory subject for almost all medium and large SUVs, and the wheelbase + large 5-seat layout of the Landu FREE 2960mm makes its rear space very generous. It is worth mentioning that the rear row of the Landu FREE is not only spacious, because its seat cushions extend forward a lot, and the whole car is equipped with 5 aviation headrests, resulting in its leg support and head support are very in place.
Obviously, as a high-end automobile brand under a traditional automobile group, Lantu Automobile has brought into full play the understanding of traditional car companies for high-end. In terms of car-making heritage, traditional car companies have innate advantages, but in terms of intelligent experience, traditional car companies also have natural deficiencies compared to new car-making forces, and Landu Automobile is of course no exception.
Driving assistance is effective, and the interaction between the car and the machine is insufficient
In the current era of smart cars, I think we should look at the degree of intelligence of a car from two dimensions. First, the driver assistance function; second, the intelligent car machine system.
In terms of driving assistance, the lane keeping function of Landu FREE provides a good experience on clearly marked roads. In my opinion, for a medium to large SUV with a body width of 1950mm, this feature can greatly reduce the risk of the vehicle running off in daily driving, allowing users to focus on observing the road ahead and the surrounding road conditions.
The ACC adaptive cruise in the full-speed segment can also provide users with strong convenience in their daily car life, which is especially useful when driving at high speeds. Of course, Landu FREE is still only in the L2 level of automatic driving, and the nature of its auxiliary function means that when we use it, we still need to be ready to take over the vehicle at any time, and remember not to take it lightly.
After 4 days of experience, I gave a positive evaluation of the Landu FREE driver assistance function. However, I think there is still a lot of room for optimization in its car and machine system.
As I said before, Landu FREE designed 3 large screens on the center console, but perhaps limited by the performance of the chip, the most functional central control screen is not smooth. You know, the software level can be upgraded through OTA, but the hardware level can basically only hope that after the change, it will replace a set of hardware configurations that can match its software.
However, Lantu FREE is not very good at the intelligent software level, and it has logical problems in the minimum UI design. For example, as a pure electric vehicle, charging energy is one of the most common operations for users, but the switch that Lantu FREE opens the charging port is designed to be quite "brain-burning".
To open the charging port of Lantu FREE, we need to place one finger on the left edge of the central control screen, and then slide right to pop up the shortcut menu, so as to find the virtual button to open the charging port. When you finish charging, we have to open the "Vehicle Settings" and enter the "Charging Management" interface to see the virtual button of "End Charging".
Is such a tedious operation really fast? I think these often available functions are not as convenient as designing a physical button directly in a more conspicuous place, like the air conditioning control area.
Range extender + pure electricity, two different user groups
For most pure electric vehicles, endurance is their core indicator. From the parameter point of view, the Landu FREE 2021 four-wheel drive pure electric version model is equipped with a set of ternary lithium batteries with a capacity of 88kWh, and the NEDC cruising range is 475km.
From the current point of view, the current pure electric vehicles often exceed 600km, and the Lantu FREE with an endurance of only 475km can only be regarded as a passing level at best. However, in my opinion, for the user group of Landu FREE, endurance may not be the most important indicator when they buy a car.
You know, if you can spend more than 300,000 yuan to buy a Lantu FREE consumer with an endurance of less than 500km, there is a high probability that there will not be only this car in their home. For them, Landu FREE is just their short-distance means of transportation, and if they need to travel long distances, they naturally have other means of transportation.
It is worth mentioning that even consumers with long-distance travel needs can also choose Lantu FREE, because in addition to the pure electric version of the model, Landu FREE also provides a range extended electric version of the NEDC with a range of 860km.
In addition, because the Lantu FREE pure electric version of the model needs to be limited by the endurance, so its two long-endurance models neDC mileage reached 505km, but they are only equipped with a maximum power of 225kW, the maximum torque of 520N·m AC asynchronous motor on the rear axle, only the top of the high-performance version of the model is equipped with two identical motors in the front and rear axles at the same time.
Lantu FREE extender electric version is different from the pure electric version of the model, with the range extender support it does not need to be limited by endurance, so it is on the basis of lower price, at the same time in the front and rear axles standard with a maximum power of 225kW, the maximum torque of 520N·m AC asynchronous motor, the maximum power of the system up to 510kW, the maximum torque of the system up to 1040N·m.
summary
Through the above 3,000 words of description, I have shared with you my test drive experience and experience of the Exclusive Deluxe Suit of Lantu FREE 2021 Four-Wheel Drive Pure Electric Edition in 4 days. Back to the question raised at the beginning of the article, is it worth three hundred thousand to buy this car?
Endurance may become the main point of the keyboard warriors attacking The Landu FREE, because after the lateral comparison of other models in the same class, the endurance is indeed its weakness. However, is endurance really that important for consumers who actually buy Lantu FREE? I don't think so.
It's like a person who has both a hardcore off-road vehicle and a sports car at home, so why should he drive a sports car to play off-road? In the same way, as I said above, the consumer group of Landu FREE will most likely not have only one car, so it is basically unlikely that running long distances will be the travel task that land map FREE pure electric version needs to undertake.
In other words, if the consumer group of Landu FREE really needs it to run long distances, then why don't they choose a range-extender electric version without endurance anxiety? Therefore, in my opinion, for new energy vehicles with dual-power layout, endurance is a false proposition.
From the configuration point of view, I think the Landu FREE car is worth a lot. You know, in addition, it is difficult to find a medium and large SUV at the same price that uses high-end materials to fully fill the luxurious atmosphere with high-end materials in terms of comfort, and has a costly configuration such as air suspension, and has a torque of up to thousands of Nm in terms of performance.