AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/29 Report--

On March 29th, SAIC Zhiji announced that the price of the Zhiji L7 Pro is 408800 yuan. According to previous reports, Zhiji was jointly built by SAIC, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech and Alibaba to position as a high-end intelligent pure electric vehicle brand. Zhiji L7 is Zhiji's first production car, which was launched synchronously in Shanghai, London and North America in January 2021. The new car positioning is a large pure electric sedan, with competitors targeting similar models such as the ET7.

As the first mass production product of Zhiji car, the overall appearance of Zhiji L7 is more fashionable, the front face uses closed modeling, the headlamp shape is more sharp, using similar to the Greek letter "∑" shape, with "intelligent lighting system DLP+ISC", enhance the momentum of the front face. On the side of the car body, the Zhiji L7 adopts a through waistline design to increase the visual length of the vehicle, as well as the popular hidden doorknob. In the rear part of the car, the through taillight is equipped with an intelligent lighting system, which can display custom content.

In terms of size, the length, width and height of the Zhiji L7 Pro are 5098/1960/1485mm, the wheelbase is 3100mm, and the positioning is medium and large pure electric cars. Although the length, width and height of the body is a little smaller than that of the ET7, the wheelbase has reached 3100mm, even close to the level of the BMW 5-Series long wheelbase version.

In terms of interior decoration, the Zhiji L7 adopts a simple design technique, and the central control adopts an integrated design, in which the instrument + central control is 26.3 inches, the auxiliary driver is 12.3 inches, and the vertical screen of the central channel is 12.8 inches, while the two oversized screens on the center console have the function of lifting and lowering. The steering wheel shape is very unique. For smart driving, it features a converged sensing solution with Nvidia Xavier (30mm 60 TOPS), 15 HD vision cameras, 5 millimeter wave radar and 12 ultrasonic radars. In addition, the new car supports the upgrade capabilities of Nvidia Orin X (500~1000+TOPS) and three lidars.

In terms of power, the Zhiji L7 adopts a dual-motor four-wheel drive layout, and the front and rear motor power and torque are 175kw/ 209N ·m and 250kw/ 399N ·m respectively; another model motor power 250kw, torque 399N ·m. In addition, the car is equipped with a standard 93kWhternary lithium battery with a mileage of more than 615km.

In addition to the Zhiji L7, Zhiji also unveiled a concept version of the Zhiji LS7 at the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show. The new car is located in a large pure electric SUV, which is scheduled for mass production this year. Compared with the already mass-produced Zhiji L7, Zhiji LS7 is still in the concept car stage, but in terms of appearance, it is basically not very different from Zhiji L7, including design elements and rim shape. In terms of interior decoration, according to the official map, Zhiji LS7 uses a two-color combination of brown and milk brown, which is perhaps the biggest difference from Zhiji L7, while the central control triple screen and central channel vertical screen are all visible in the official map, which is not much different from the overall design of Zhiji L7.

On November 26th, SAIC announced that the "L" project of SAIC was officially named "Zhiji Automobile" and was built by a joint venture between SAIC, Shanghai Pudong New area and Alibaba. The initial round financing of the project is 10 billion yuan, of which SAIC holds 54%. Pudong New area and Ali each own 18%, and the others account for 10%.

The English name of Zhiji car chooses two capital letters "IM". According to the official explanation, take the first letter of Intelligence in Motion (Wisdom Travel), and the English homonym "Ihumm" means "I am wisdom (self)". Zhiji's LOGO is a combination of two dots and two slashes, derived from the brand itself and a variant of the letter "IM".

Although Zhiji Automobile is a brand new car brand and will adopt a new structure and operation model, the brand is guided by SAIC, not Internet companies, so Zhiji Automobile does not belong to the new force of car building. From the perspective of management, "Zhiji Automobile" should be parallel to SAIC passenger cars, SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC General Motors. According to the plan, the first product of "Zhiji Automobile" is a car model, that is, Zhiji L7JI will launch SUV, concept car and other products one after another in 2022.

With regard to the emergence of "Zhiji cars," Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the passenger Association, believes that without the effective launch of joint venture brand new energy high-end cars, the high-end new energy of independent brands is still relatively favorable, and it is a development opportunity for independent brands. Compared with overseas brands, independent high-end new energy brands have strong local advantages of location and traditional industrial chain, but have disadvantages in technology and intelligence.

In addition to SAIC, Changan and Dongfeng are also planning their high-end new energy brands. On August 3, 2016, the ARCFOX brand of BAIC Langu released its first mass production SUV ARCFOX α T in October 2020 and ARCFOX α S in April 2021. On July 17, 2020, Dongfeng's new high-end electric brand Lantu Automobile was officially launched. the first model, Lantu FREE, will be launched on June 19, 2021, and the second mass production car, Lantu Dreamer MPV, will be launched on April 7. In addition, on November 15, 2021, the Avita brand jointly developed by Changan Automobile, Ningde Times and Huawei was officially launched. the first model, Avita 11, was launched synchronously, and the new car was positioned as a pure electric sedan SUV, based on the Intelligent Electric Network platform (CHN) jointly developed by Changan, Huawei and Ningde.

As more and more brands enter the market, the competition in the high-end market of new energy will be very fierce. On the one hand, the sales of car brands such as NIO, ideal and Xiaopeng continue to rise, Tesla localization is in depth, Volkswagen domestic electric cars are menacing, the difficulty of these traditional car enterprises is obvious. In addition, with the landing of high-end new energy brands such as SAIC, Dongfeng and Changan, they will compete on the same stage in the future. it is also doubtful what differentiation advantages these brands will have.

In the case of increasing competition in the automobile market, independent car enterprises are facing greater market problems and are under more and more pressure from joint venture car companies to reduce prices. On the whole, a number of traditional car companies have launched new new energy brands, hoping to get rid of the predicament of low-end product positioning. Of course, can these high-end brands survive? Will it fall into the dilemma of traditional independent brands again? Maybe only time will prove it. Some people in the industry have said that it is too difficult for Chinese local car companies to try to break through by building new independent high-end brands, and products, technology, design and corporate image are insurmountable dilemmas.

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