Quality first, time answers. GAC Toyota's 2024 Highlander is officially launched, with the official APP rights of 20,000 yuan for all models, and the price range is 229,800-305,800 yuan after comprehensive official APP rights. The new Highlander inherits the gene of "original quality of Dachang", and closely follows the needs of Chinese users, the product has been advanced again, the smart space has been deeply innovated, and the driving experience has been comprehensively upgraded.
The 2024 Highlander has been repriced, and the price has fully entered the "2" era. Among them, the official price of the intelligent electric hybrid dual engine was reduced by 43,000 yuan, including the suggested retail price was reduced by 23,000 yuan, the official APP rights and interests were 20,000 yuan, and the threshold was lowered to 229,800 yuan, and the official price of the 380T system was reduced by 53,000 yuan, including the recommended retail price was reduced by 33,000 yuan, the official APP rights and interests were 20,000 yuan, and the starting price was as low as 264,800 yuan. With more competitive products and prices, the 2024 Highlander has become the first choice for "200,000-level intelligent electric hybrid high-quality large 7-seater".
The 2024 Highlander car machine is fully iteratively upgraded, equipped with a 12.3-inch large screen, mainstream 8155 high computing power chip and Huawei AI voice, as well as face voiceprint login, three major smartphone interconnection and remote control digital key, and at the same time introduces the car-home interconnection ecology and a rich self-built application mall, and the intelligent experience is comprehensively leading the joint venture. In addition, the Highlander has also upgraded the NAPPA leather seats, light-toned stylish interior, and 17 quietness enhancements for Chinese users, bringing a more comfortable and intelligent Highlander. In just three months, GAC Toyota's Highlander, Sena and Camry have completed a facelift and replacement with the "world's highest standard", and implemented "price reshaping" to subvert the price system of medium and large vehicles in the joint venture.
At the same time, GAC Toyota officially opened the "Quality Museum" tour exhibition in Nansha, Guangzhou, showing the details of Highlander's quality in an all-round way, and the secret of "original quality of large factories" for 20 years was revealed.
Show the true colors of the Han! Decipher the quality code behind Highlander's "original quality of big factories".
As the first global strategic model to open up market segments, the Highlander has evolved in four generations since its launch in North America in 2000 and has become "a good car carefully selected by 5 million users around the world" and one of the best endorsements of "Made in GAC Toyota".
Highlander's "big factory native quality" comes from the most stringent Toyota standards. With more than 80 years of car manufacturing experience and gradual exploration through practice under working conditions around the world, Toyota's standards are well known in the industry and known as "rigorous". It is precisely because of the mature standard system that Toyota is able to design redundancy with ultra-high durability anywhere in the world, bringing users a peace of mind and worry-free experience.
A new model development, more than 20,000 parts quality test items, Toyota's strict design standards, to ensure that every part that is adopted, can stand the test of time. Taking the wiper as an example, the number of actuation durability tests is 1.5 million times, including 750,000 times of muddy water durability tests; The duration of the brine composite experiment is 1440 hours, which is four times the industry standard; In addition, snow plugging actuation durability test, which is not available in industry standards, will be added to ensure reliability in various harsh use environments.
There are more than 600 quality evaluation standards for the whole vehicle, such as natural exposure to the sun for a whole year; The bad road driving test lasts for 2 months; The bending fatigue test of wheels has reached 260,000 times, which is 2.2 times that of the national standard, and can ensure safe use for 20 years. Specific to the model, Highlander uses a large number of high-strength steel, and uses 1500 megapascal hot-stamping reinforcements in key parts such as AB pillars and front floors, and even the details of the door hinges are the first in the industry to use 1190 megapascal ultra-high-strength steel. The front impact beam is made of aerospace-grade 7000 series aluminum alloy, which is twice as strong as the 6000 series aluminum alloy commonly used in the industry. At the same time, in order to prevent the steel plate from cracking darkly, a sufficient amount of deformation redundancy is required during the stamping and forming process, and Toyota's redundancy standard is 40%, which is twice the industry average. These ultra-high standards result in a highly rigid body with top safety.
Highlander's "Dachang native quality" also comes from Toyota's advanced manufacturing technology. GAC Toyota's "Global Model Factory" has been evaluated as "zero defect rate" by Toyota's quality inspection for three consecutive years. GAC Toyota adheres to the concept of "quality is made in the process", fully integrates the four major workshops of stamping, welding, painting and final assembly into Toyota's production methods and digital transformation, adopts a large number of advanced equipment and continuously improves the process technology, so as to ensure high-quality operations in each process.
The stamping workshop has realized the self-production of 90% of large-scale stamping parts including longitudinal beams and frames, ensuring the quality and stability of the whole vehicle from the source. The production line adopts a fully automatic intelligent high-speed servo press, which is exclusively customized by the Komatsu Group, the world's largest machinery manufacturer, and it only takes 4 seconds to stamping complex parts. There are also a variety of patented molds to ensure excellent surface quality. Through laser scanning numerical detection, 100% objective, accurate and efficient numerical evaluation of surface quality is realized.
The welding workshop uses a large number of automated process equipment and digital testing equipment, as well as many Toyota patented technologies, to ensure welding strength and accuracy. Among them, the electrode head shaping patent allows each welding to be carried out in a "new state", the welding strength stability is increased by 90%, and the 6,000 solder joints of the vehicle are perfect and zero virtual welding; Toyota's unique internal clamping technology can greatly reduce the process space, place more welding robotic arms, improve the welding accuracy by 1.5 times, and control the body accuracy by 0.01 mm.
Through advanced technology and patented technology, the painting workshop not only improves the anti-corrosion performance of the whole vehicle, but also ensures that the paint surface has zero color difference. In the pre-coating process, the phosphorus-free "zirconium process" has better anti-corrosion performance and stronger adhesion ability; In the spraying process, Toyota's unique iX spraying technology greatly improves the adhesion rate of the paint and effectively reduces the poor coating surface. The coating line is also the first to use AI inspection technology to eliminate paint color differences that are difficult to judge with the naked eye.
Toyota's unique multi-platform substitution spreader system is used in the assembly workshop to realize the flexible production of multiple platforms and models, and the automatic handling system of the door-shaped corridor and the accompanying assembly equipment of the chassis assembly ring line have further improved the production efficiency. Based on the quality management information system to monitor the operation parameters of the whole part, the power to stop the production line is also handed over to every employee, and when there is a defect, the production is stopped immediately, and no quality defect is allowed to enter the market. At present, the final assembly workshop is able to achieve a first-pass rate of more than 99.7%, which is the highest level among Toyota's global production bases.
Highlander's "original quality" also comes from the unique car-making ecosystem. GAC Toyota adopts the "incubation procurement" method to manage the supply chain. Compared with the common "selective procurement", "nurturing procurement" replaces "simple business relationship between Party A and Party B" with "close mutual growth relationship", and focuses on "long-term quality stability" rather than "blindly pursuing low prices". Each supplier is an important partner of GAC Toyota. GAC Toyota will send a technical team to each supplier, introduce Toyota's quality standards, develop synchronously, and manage the whole process. Correspondingly, suppliers will also devote their best resources to GAC Toyota's products.
After GAC Toyota identifies a supplier, each supplier will participate in the production preparation and verification process throughout the process, and ensure the maturity of all parts before the launch of the new car through 5 production preparation activities and 3 stages of multiple loading. Taking Highlander as an example, it takes 3 years and 2 months from sending orders to suppliers to mass production. Time is money, but quality is the capital. GAC Toyota has been striving to improve the speed of responding to market demand, but it will never shorten the development cycle without a bottom line, let alone lower the standard.
In the 20 years since the establishment of the factory, GAC Toyota has only 307 parts suppliers, and the defective rate has reached 0.3 pieces per million units, which is unique in the entire industry. At present, the price war is unprecedentedly fierce, GAC Toyota does not arbitrarily bid to change suppliers, and rarely places orders for the same parts to different suppliers, so as to ensure the consistent quality throughout the life cycle of the model.
Experience and upgrade! The 2024 Highlander is an innovation for users and an advanced model for China
Infused with the strong gene of "Dachang's native quality", the Highlander has once again carried out localized upgrades based on the "China plan", introduced China's exclusive intelligent cockpit on the basis of global cars, and deeply upgraded the comfortable driving experience, bringing the world's best Highlander.
In-depth innovation of smart space. The software and hardware of the 2024 Highlander Toyota Space smart space have been fully upgraded. In terms of hardware, it is equipped with a new 12.3-inch intelligent in-car entertainment system, with a screen of 2K-level resolution, built-in Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 car computer chip, 12GB running memory, computing power increased by more than 4 times, and response speed increased by 8 times, ensuring smooth operation while leaving 40% computing power redundancy for 2-3 OTA upgrades per year in the future.
In terms of software, the new Highlander supports CarPlay, HiCar, and CarLife, three mainstream smartphone interconnections, and has Toyota's first self-built app store built-in, which is pre-installed with first-line applications in various categories when it goes offline, with a richer ecology and a better experience. Powered by Huawei, Huawei's "Hello Xiaoyue" AI intelligent voice interaction implements a wide range of control and interaction functions, such as dialect recognition, dual-tone recognition, continuous dialogue, no-wake commands, visible and speakable, and dual-intent in a sentence. The intelligent assistant is connected to Huawei Hi-link to achieve seamless interconnection between people, vehicles, and homes. At the same time, the new car will also provide advanced intelligent equipment such as face, voiceprint login, and digital key.
The driving experience has been fully upgraded. In the interior, the 2024 Highlander replaces the ordinary soft plastic with soft leather cladding, covering 80%, and adds a new "ivory white" interior option, which is more luxurious. The central control also adopts a matte trim plate made of patented light-absorbing material to achieve 84% absorption and refractive index to avoid reflection affecting the line of sight while driving. The rear seat of the passenger seat is electrically adjustable, the backrest of the second-row seats can be adjusted by 38°, the sliding travel of the second-row seats is up to 180mm, and the seat material has also been upgraded to high-grade NAPPA leather upholstery, bringing the comfort to a new level. In addition, the 2024 Highlander has also implemented a total of 17 quietness upgrades in five parts: the instrument panel, the main and passenger floors, the second-row floor, the rear cabin floor, and the central soundproof tunnel floor, which greatly improves the quietness.
In terms of intelligent driving assistance, the 2024 Highlander is equipped with Toyota Pilot high-end intelligent driving as standard, with the goal of "zero error intelligent driving assistance", relying on the development of "zero accident" data of more than 20 billion kilometers of intelligent driving around the world, following the car smoothly, centering the corner, and braking without rushing, providing users with better intelligent driving assistance.
In the 15 years since the introduction of domestic production, the market has changed several times, and the opponents have changed several times, but only Highlander has always maintained its sales volume in the forefront of the market segment. In the wave of electrification and intelligent technology in the industry, GAC Toyota will continue to ensure that users can feel at ease in the whole car cycle and continue to provide users with "mass production happiness" in the wave of electrification and intelligent technology in the industry.