Electrification and passenger use have become the most critical lock for pickup trucks to pry the market.
In recent years, China's policy on the "shackles" of pickup trucks is visibly reduced, in 2018 there was no need to spray words, paste reflective strips, in 2021 was included in the "new three packs", and now more than 97% of the country's cities have canceled the restrictions on pickup trucks entering the city, pickup trucks are no longer stereotyped trucks, but many "petty bourgeois families" pursue quality life, tour the landscape of travel companions.
It is based on this trend that passenger pickup trucks are blooming everywhere in today's Chinese market. And the pure electric pickup truck we test drove today, the Radar Horizon, is based on this background and is built for people who love outdoor life.
0-100km/h 4.5s，还可“原地掉头”
If there is a city in China whose terrain can test the mechanical quality of a car the most, it must be Chongqing. The city is surrounded by a complex transportation system, while outside the city is a series of steep slopes and mountains.
The test drive of the Chongqing station of the Geely radar horizon came to the Chongqing Geyue Mountain National Forest Park, which retains a relatively primitive natural style, compared with the all-round cement-paved avenues in some scenic spots, there are many primitive mud roads, after several days of continuous wind and rain, and even look a little muddy.
Through such road conditions, it is necessary to comprehensively test the performance, passability and ability of a car to get out of trouble.
First of all, as a pickup truck, the radar horizon has a good passability from the innate structure, and as a tram, considering the outdoor wading scene, the radar horizon uses a high-end ball drive shaft to bring a larger swing angle and longer suspension travel, bringing better support to the body, and the minimum ground clearance of the vehicle is 230mm, which can be easily passed when we drive to some places where the potholes and ups and downs are more obvious.
It is worth mentioning that the radar horizon itself has a unique wading pattern, with a maximum wading of 815mm and a maximum climbing of 95%, and there is no pressure to pass through some deep wading sections.
The motor equipped with the radar horizon has a maximum output of 315 kW and a maximum torque of 594 Nm, and offers seven driving modes: snow, mud, off-road, and wading.
Because the motor is strong enough, the 5.26-meter-long "big man" of this car can also run 0-100km/h in only 4.5s, driving the radar horizon on paved roads, can easily experience a strong sense of pushing back, climbing steep slopes is also "as simple as breathing", to the mountain dirt road, can still easily deal with.
In addition, the radar horizon combines the four-wheel drive system with environmental fusion technology and intelligent algorithms to achieve intelligent torque distribution according to road conditions when driving, and dynamically adjust the torque ratio of the front and rear motors, so even if we don't have much experience exploring this "primitive road surface", it is not difficult to drive at all.
Impressively, there are a lot of mud, puddles, and many narrow serpentine curves on a section of the road surface of Geyue Mountain Forest Park, I thought that the radar horizon is not good for this larger car to corner, but the radar horizon makes full use of the four-wheel drive motor decoupling for rear wheel control, which greatly reduces the required turning radius, and the shortest is only 3.5m on the book data.
The large space can be "installed", and the configuration is also humanized
For pickup trucks built for passenger use, space is also the focus.
Judging from the book data, the body size of the radar horizon is 5260mm, 1900mm wide, 1880mm high, and the wheelbase is 3120mm, thanks to the relatively flat top design, sitting in the front row or the rear row, the head of an adult male with a height of 175cm+ is more than a fist away from the roof, and the rear row is not as cramped as other pickups. It provides ample lateral movement space for the occupants.
During driving, the quietness of the radar horizon is also remarkable, the opening and closing of windows are two worlds for the ear, and the irritating electromagnetic whine on some tram bodies is also invisible.
In order to optimize NVH, the radar horizon adopts a double-layer 5mm high-performance soundproof PVB film for the front windshield, and a large number of sound-absorbing materials are also used in many details such as the roof, carpet, and rear wall of the car to effectively isolate the transmission of tire noise and wind noise. At the same time, the motor adopts "umbrella frequency" active noise reduction technology to further reduce electromagnetic noise.
Compared with conventional passenger cars such as SUVs and sedans, the advantage of driving a pickup truck is that you can have as much as possible to complete the items you need for travel, after all, it can be loaded. The cargo box length, width and height of the radar horizon are 1525mm, 1450mm, and 540mm, with a vehicle space of 1200L, and a maximum rated load of 865kg, which is the original pure electric pickup truck with the strongest load capacity, and also has a towing capacity of 3000kg.
In addition, Radar Horizon has many functions developed based on the user's actual car use scenarios.
For example, when traveling outdoors, many people like to carry some food raw materials to make food on the spot, and the radar horizon supports up to 21kW external discharge, household 220V, commercial 380V, and V2L/V2G/V2V in one step, the electrical appliances that need to be used do not need to be picked and picked because of compatibility problems, and say goodbye to bulky gas tanks and inconvenient coal, you can achieve outdoor barbecue, outdoor hot pot, and even charge other cars.
Radar horizon also has an interesting function, its IoT coverage can reach ㎡, support more than 100 intelligent ecological categories access, can be called a mobile "super base station", connected to the drone can control the surrounding road with a broader perspective, used to record life is the best. Of course, if it is commercial, it can also be used to connect to the drone for "inspection", or use the plant protection drone to assist in crops.
The "leather" is durable, and the safety is also in place
When you go out, sometimes you will encounter some unexpected situations, and a more "leather" pickup can make people feel at ease when driving. However, in terms of the current market environment, many pickup trucks seem to be "rough", but the overall materials and body rigidity are not as good as those of passenger cars.
Radar Horizon is China's first and only pickup truck built on passenger-grade safety standards. First of all, its body is shaped by an integrated load-bearing body structure, the proportion of high-strength steel used in the vehicle is 70%, and the torsional rigidity is 30300N·m/deg, which adopts a collapse design in many places such as the front anti-collision beam and hood, which can avoid the deformation of the passenger compartment as much as possible in the event of a collision and ensure the safety of the driver and passengers.
In addition, some traditional pickup trucks are easy to rust when they encounter rainwater containers outdoors, or they will leave conspicuous scratches when they are rubbed by gravel and branches on the side of the road, while radar horizon cargo boxes are made of high-end composite materials with strength comparable to steel plates, which are 30% lighter than traditional metal cargo boxes, while corrosion resistance and friction resistance are better.
Of course, when talking about safety in trams, battery safety is an indispensable part.
The battery pack equipped with the radar horizon has reached IP68 level of wading protection, coupled with the structural sealing design of the whole vehicle, so you don't have to worry too much about flowing through streams and puddles when driving outdoors. The battery itself has also undergone 48 hours of immersion, 4.9m drop, acupuncture, and high temperature tests, plus it is equipped with a battery management system that monitors the status of the battery in real time, warning and blocking thermal runaway at any time, and the safety is sufficiently guaranteed.
At the same time, the radar horizon also uses the L2+ level driving assistance system, including intelligent navigation ICC, lane departure warning LDW, front collision warning FCW, automatic emergency braking AEB and other functions, which can prevent accidents when driving more easily, plus 540° panoramic image, driving on gravel roads can help drivers beware of chassis scratches, or other obstacles in blind spots.
In terms of details, considering that some users may drive farther, the radar horizon is equipped with ADB headlight automatic light avoidance and anti-glare, AFS headlight follow-up steering and IHBC intelligent high beam control, which can better assist the driver's vision needs when driving at night, and is not easy to affect pedestrians.
Written at the end: vehicle electrification solves the biggest difficulty in restricting the development of pickup trucks in the past, from a policy point of view, this difficulty is emissions, and from the user level, this difficulty is the cost of use. However, even if pickup trucks as a whole have a trend of developing in the direction of passengerization, many car companies still can't let go of the shape of pickup trucks, pay more attention to some off-road attributes, but do not take full care of the driver experience. Through this test drive, you can feel that the radar horizon has done a lot of humanized thinking around the outdoor use scene in the design, and the off-road and comfort are in place.