Synchronous renewal, the front is hard and rigid Crown Lufang, Highlander, and Wenjie M7 three-car PK

Playing with the car professor

2024-06-06 11:20Posted in Guangdong automotive creators

On May 30 and 31, three new blockbuster SUVs were launched, first the new Crown Lufang on the 30th took the lead, and then on the 31st, the new Highlander and the M7 Ultra also released their prices. At this time, these three-for-tat 6-seat/7-seater SUVs were released almost at the same time, and I believe that it must be the "finals" of many consumers choosing family SUVs.

The new Crown Land is put into the door that is seven seats, which is more sincere

From the point of view of the price range of the three cars, the new crown land is reduced by 34,000 yuan compared with the old one, and there are also many product upgrades, and the price reduction and allocation are yes; the new Highlander guide price has also been reduced by up to 33,000 yuan, and it is also accompanied by some configuration improvements; Wenjie M7 This time it is the Ultra version, the annual model is still "2024", a total of 4 Ultra models have been launched, mainly in terms of intelligent driving upgrades, The price range is 289,800-329,800 yuan, which is not any adjustment from the previous Max version.

The overall overlap of the prices of the three new cars is very high, of which the new Crown Land is a full 7-seat layout this time, and the configuration performance of the entry model is also good, front seat heating, leather seats, leather steering wheel, 20-inch wheels and reversing images are readily available, for the pursuit of practicality, relatively traditional family users, the configuration of the new Crown Land into the door model is also enough.

The minimum starting price of the 2024 Highlander is 249,800 yuan, but the entry model is a 5-seat layout, and the starting price of the 7-seat entry model (two-wheel drive elite version of 7 seats) is 257,800 yuan, and the configuration of these two entry models is a little too basic, plastic steering wheel, fabric seats, parking radar and reversing image are also not equipped, as a home use, the professor believes that the new Highlander starts from the 298,800 yuan two-wheel drive premium version of the 7-seater, which is worth recommending.

The biggest upgrade of the M7 Ultra this time focuses on the adjustment of exterior details and intelligent driving, and does not make too many changes to the performance of the ride, and still continues to choose between 5 and 6 seats. The advantage of the 6-seater version is that the second row has independent seats, which will have more lateral space and less passenger capacity, and the third row will be used more frequently.

As for the size level, you don't have to be entangled, Crown Land and Highlander are both medium-sized SUVs, and the M7 has always called itself a "medium and large SUV", but in fact, the size has not opened a gap with Crown Land and Highlander, the body length is 5mm longer than that of Crown Land, and the wheelbase is even shorter than Crown Land and Highlander30mm, so let's take a look at the level.

The core difference in the three-car ride is the seat layout, the new crown land is a large 7-seat seat layout, more universal and more sincere, usually a 5-seater car, when you need to open the third row to sit down 7 people, the advantage of the 6-seat layout is that the lateral space of the second row of seats is better, but the limitation is that the number of people is less than 1, and when the daily seat is 5 people, you also need to use the third row.

The new Crown Land Release: luxury and technology at the same time

From the brand point of view, there are certain differences between the three cars, FAW Toyota and GAC Toyota are both traditional joint venture brands, and the M7 is now attributed to Hongmeng Zhixing. Among them, the crown land is more special, it belongs to the FAW Toyota sub-brand - the crown, the brand has been 69 years old, the first time in history the crown officially entered the Chinese market in 1973, the first batch of models dedicated to the annual Canton Fair reception, the follow-up brilliant professor is not repeated, in short, the word "crown" in the hearts of many Chinese consumers left an indelible "high-end" impression, the crown mark is higher than the Highlander's bull head mark head rate is a very intuitive embodiment.

The advantages of the crown brand, in fact, are more tangible at the level of the new crown land release product power, although it is the same platform as Highlander, but obviously the crown land is more focused on the creation of a sense of luxury and respect, 2.5 HEV flagship model adopts NAPPA leather double-split seats, especially a number of upgrades of the new crown land - the seat headrest has added the crown LOGO of embossed technology, the crown exclusive welcome lamp and aromatherapy, Coupled with the wood grain decoration that is rarely seen in the market at present, and Toyota's excellent ergonomics, the whole interior atmosphere is indeed more classy.

The overall layout of the interior of the Highlander is consistent with the Crown Land, and the atmosphere is visible to the naked eye that the Crown Land is missing the sense of luxury and grade, which is reasonable, the two cars are on the same platform, but in the Toyota system, the Crown brand is indeed a head higher, and the Crown Land is definitely positioned higher than the Highlander, so the difference between the two cars is understandable.

Look at the world of questionM7 Ultra, the interior continues the design of the past, the overall symmetrical layout, compared with the crown land and Highlander, the interior of the world M7 is more simple and technological, there are few physical buttons, the screen size is larger, equipped with a 10.25-inch full LCD instrument and a 15.6-inch 2K floating central control screen.

Of course, the real luxury is not limited to the interior materials and details, the dynamic ride experience is also particularly important, in this regard, the new crown land uses the same shock absorber as Lexus LM, although it is an annual facelift, but it still optimizes the sound-absorbing components, the front and rear wheel covers, between the cabin and the inner front wall, the floor, the central channel and the front and rear door panels, etc., not only use sound insulation, sound reduction materials, but also add vibration damping materials, so the new crown land amplifier on the engine noise, road noise and other aspects of the treatment, there will be an "audible" upgrade, Able to impress more high-quality people.

The core change of the M7 Ultra is the upgrade of the 192-line LiDAR to further improve the intelligent driving ability and the addition of CDC shock absorbers. The most obvious advantage of the atmosphere in the car is the HarmonyOS intelligent cockpit system, which can be equivalent to the flagship mobile phone or tablet that is commonly used now, but to unlock the optimal experience, the owner needs to have a Huawei mobile phone.

But now the new Crown Lufang and Highlander are not the same, both have been replaced with 8155 chips, both equipped with the new Toyota Space smart space, and great progress has been made in terms of intelligence. Like the now popular intelligent voice control (support continuous dialogue, dialect recognition, etc.), car-home interconnection, online navigation, etc. are readily available, and interestingly, the voice interaction of the new Crown Land and the new Highlander are jointly developed with Huawei. In particular, the new crown Lufang is a new upgrade, and it is also equipped with a car WeChat and 28 small programs jointly developed with Tencent, WeChat can be sent and received freely, and it also supports digital keys, the most important thing is to support CarPlay, HiCar, CarLife three major platforms, do not pick mobile phones for easy interconnection, 8155 chip for the future OTA upgrade reserved enough performance redundancy, the overall performance in the field of joint ventures is also an excellent level.

In addition, compared with the M7 Ultra, the new Crown Land and Highlander still retain a lot of physical buttons in addition to improving the intelligent performance, which is actually a reflection of Toyota's deep insight into the SUV car scene, simple and reliable, convenient for users to operate blindly while driving, and do not need to leave the front of the sight, so as to improve driving safety, which is particularly important for SUVs with a certain outdoor orientation.

In fact, compared to this part, the difference between the three cars has been more obvious, the new Crown Land has a stronger sense of luxury, the interior details are more in place, and the advantage of the M7 Ultra lies in its intelligent performance. However, with the intelligent upgrade of the new Crown Land and the new Highlander, it has narrowed to a point where the gap is not very felt in daily car life.

Smart Driving: Ultimate Safety or Radical Experience?

(Configuration table of the official website of Crown Lufang)

The new Crown Land Fang and the new Highlander are equipped with Toyota Pilot high-end intelligent driving this time, and both cars are standard for the whole series, so correspondingly, the M7 Ultra is equipped with HUAWEI ADS 2.0. The following professor will analyze these two systems with you.

Toyota Pilot has reached the L2+ level and includes up to 18 related functions, including PCS and collision safety system (with front pedestrian recognition), PKSB parking collision avoidance assist system, start assist control system, vehicle proximity warning system, and so on.

In addition to the conventional L2 level assisted driving functions, it has automatic parking, memory parking, remote parking, automatic lane change assistance, and the most important ramp automatic exit (in), in urban roads and high-speed sections, it can achieve automatic driving to a certain extent.

At this stage, Toyota Pilot high-end intelligent driving is still aiming at "zero-error intelligent assistance" and is committed to reducing the incidence of accidents, so at present, in terms of safety, this set of Toyota Pilot high-end intelligent driving performance is quite extreme - backed by Toyota's global intelligent driving record of 20 billion kilometers and zero accidents. In contrast, the HUAWEI ADS 2.0 scale of the M7 Ultra is definitely much larger, and it can even get an experience close to autonomous driving in simple road conditions, but a larger scale often means greater risk.

At present, the domestic market delivery of mass production of intelligent driving system professors have basically experienced, do not deny that many scenarios can bring more amazing performance, automatic lane change, ramp access, etc. can be realized, but those are a kind of experience under the premise of a high degree of mental concentration, if you really want to relax, the right to drive to "automatic driving", the professor must refuse, because behind the right to drive is the life safety of the driver and passengers. So do you want the ultimate in safety, or do you want an aggressive autonomous driving experience? This is a question worth pondering.

The choice between HEV and REEV

The crown Lufang and Highlander are highly overlapping in terms of power, and the professor will not split them to say, but directly compare the range extender power of Toyota's intelligent electric hybrid dual engine THS II and Wenjie M7 Ultra.

Toyota's intelligent electric hybrid dual-engine THS II is a representative work of HEV hybrid, the engine and the motor realize power distribution through the planetary gear set mechanism, the engine itself has a high thermal efficiency, and then further reduce fuel consumption through the peak shaving and valley filling of the motor, without the traditional sense of the transmission structure, to achieve the infinite distribution of power, to avoid the possibility of frustration. Toyota's THS II diesel-electric hybrid has gone through 27 years, has 25 million users worldwide, and has achieved zero battery safety accidents in the past 27 years. In addition, there is no need for external charging, the energy replenishment experience is exactly the same as that of traditional fuel vehicles, and the smaller battery capacity does not bring extra weight to the body at all, which are the core advantages of the THS II hybrid.

The range-extended power system of the M7 Ultra can be directly understood as a pure electric vehicle carrying an engine, which is only used to generate electricity, and the drive is completely dependent on the electric motor. The range extender is essentially pure electric (pure motor drive), so the power texture of the M7 is no different from that of conventional pure electric, with good smoothness, and can have high torque of pure electric, and acceleration can be done very quickly.

The structure, ideas and characteristics of the two power systems are very different, first of all, the most intuitive, Toyota intelligent electric hybrid dual engine THS II has always used a lightweight small battery, the extended range power system has always been a large battery, the use of extended range power vehicles are obviously much heavier - the M7 Ultra curb weight is close to 2.5 tons, the crown land is only 2.1 tons, nearly 400kg of weight difference, sitting on 6 adults Crown land release may not have an empty M7 Shen. The weight will mainly affect two parts - energy consumption and handling, the heavier the energy consumption will inevitably be, the worse the control, which is well understood, the same car is driven by one person and fully loaded with a car of people, the feeling of driving must be very different.

Then look at energy consumption, Crown Land and Highlander, the WLTC comprehensive fuel consumption of the dual-engine four-wheel drive version has reached 5.97L/100km, which is a four-wheel drive medium and large SUV, in terms of fuel consumption, no one has ever questioned Toyota's intelligent electric hybrid dual-engine THS II.

The fuel consumption of the M7 Ultra at the lowest charge is 7.45L per 100 kilometers (4WD model), which is significantly higher than the HEV version of the Crown Land and Highlander. The reason why the fuel consumption performance is not as good as most people imagine, because the engine of the range extension system cannot be directly driven, and the process of supplying power to the motor after generating electricity is lossy, and then the high curb weight brought by the large battery will inevitably bring more energy consumption.

Of course, one of the major advantages of the M7 Ultra extended range power is that it has a long pure electric range, but what many people don't notice is that the power consumption of the extended range pure electric driving is much higher than that of ordinary pure electric vehicles, such as the power consumption of the M7 four-wheel drive 6-seater model is 24kWh/100km. If the user travels a lot of long distances, or does not have a home charging pile at home, the energy replenishment cost of the extended-range vehicle may not be as low as that of the HEV hybrid. Even for some users, the anxiety of extending the range will be higher than that of pure electric vehicles, because the battery is not large, and the owner wants to use pure electric driving every day, resulting in too high charging frequency.

Another point that cannot be ignored is that the HEV versions of the Crown Land and Highlander only require 92 gasoline, while the M7 requires 95 gasoline, and if you consider long-distance self-driving, it is obvious that the former is more universal.

Crown Land and Highlander belong to the type with good adaptability, fuel consumption and output texture are very good, and the oil is not picky. The range extension of the M7 belongs to the advantages of electric cars and oil vehicles, and it is not very good on both sides, and it costs more electricity than pure electricity for charging, and it costs more fuel than HEV hybrid for refueling.

Summary: From intelligent driving to power, Crown Lufang, Highlander and Wenjie M7 Ultra all belong to the two factions of players, Toyota may not be the fastest, but it must be the one that is more stable. The most important thing is to make up for the shortcomings of the once intelligent, and in terms of assisted driving system, it has made more extreme efforts to achieve the goal of "safety", and the traditional advantages of space and HEV power system have also been inherited.

Between Crown Land and Highlander, although the product overlap is higher, the characteristics of Crown Land are more distinct, and the Crown brand feels more advanced and the interior and exterior design are more luxurious, which will give people a kind of old money style and invisible rich temperament. The Highlander has always given people the feeling of keeping their duty, and it is a very competent and reliable family car. So which one would you want to choose? Consider sharing it in the comments.

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