On August 21, the launch event of Beijing Automotive New Energy EU5 in the eastern region was held in Hangzhou. Compared to previous models and brand image of Beijing Automotive New Energy, it is not an exaggeration to describe EU5 as a “comprehensive upgrade”.
In China’s pure electric vehicle industry, there are brands such as BYD for established players and NIO for new comers. However, few remember that in 2017, Beijing Automotive’s EC series was the top-selling pure electric car, and Beijing Automotive New Energy ranked second.
Why has Beijing Automotive New Energy been forgotten? Reviewing Beijing Automotive’s past products, there is a harsh fact that cannot be ignored: the product quality of Beijing Automotive’s pure electric vehicles, represented by the EC series, is mediocre, and the impressive sales figures were more due to incentives and the resource tilt of license policies, resulting in outstanding “performance to price ratio”.
EU5 is the answer that Beijing Automotive New Energy has come up with in the era of gradually reduced subsidies.
Design
Why talk about design first? The design of Beijing Automotive’s past products, both in terms of appearance and interior, was relatively mediocre. However, EU5’s design language comes with a completely different temperament. A picture is worth a thousand words:
As a pure electric vehicle, no air-intake grille is needed, and handling it smoothly is a real test of the designer’s skills. The overall closed grille + silver chrome line is the main body of EU5’s front face, supplemented by the “double fork” contour light bar and the C-shaped daytime running lights. How to put it, whether it looks good or not is subjective, but at least the recognition is there.
One point about the tail design: the overall recessed tail design of the car can protect the rear-view camera from being directly exposed to rain and snow and help with reversing in rainy and snowy weather, according to Beijing Automotive. In addition, the C-shaped design language of the front face’s C-shaped daytime running lights is unified with the decorative design on both sides of the rear bumper.
Lastly, take a look at the layout of the front cabin.
Tesla and Jaguar I-PACE do not have a front trunk, but isn’t the structure and layout of this design quite neat?
Li Yixiu, the marketing general manager of Beijing Automotive, confirmed my judgment: EU5, along with the upcoming EX5, EX3, and LITE to be launched in the second half of this year, belong to the 2.0 product series of Beijing Automotive’s overall product planning architecture.
Performance
EU5 is equipped with the “E-MotionDriver 3.0 Intelligent Electric Control System,” which means:
- 160 kW permanent magnet synchronous motor is used.* Maximum torque: 300 Nm
- 0-100 km/h acceleration in 7.8 seconds
- Battery pack capacity: 60.2 kWh
- 30 minutes to charge from 30% to 80%
- NEDC range of R500: 416 km
- NEDC range of R550: 460 km
How do we evaluate this? With the current level of three-electricity technology, any car manufacturer producing mid-low end pure electric vehicles must make a trade-off between acceleration and range. This is a decision that has to be made whether they want to prioritize range or acceleration.
EU5 adopts a clear strategy of prioritizing range over acceleration with its 160 kW motor, 7.8 seconds 0-100 km/h acceleration, and 60.2 kWh battery pack capacity. Similar products include the Weltmeister EX5. Interestingly, EU5 has a slightly better product performance.
Intelligence
The 12.3-inch digital dashboard and the 9-inch central control screen provide basic multimedia functions, voice navigation, in-car Wi-Fi, and business travel management functions. The EU5 navigation system also has a built-in charging network planning feature.
For voice interaction, the EU5 uses the Baidu DuerOS + Nuance bilingual voice engine (Nuance: the world’s largest professional voice recognition provider, has previously provided production vehicles like SAIC Roewe RX5 in the Chinese market).
As an example of EU5’s in-depth human-vehicle interaction dialogue and voice control, this system can understand multi-task voice commands such as “find a Sichuan restaurant with an average cost of 200 yuan per person” and “turn on the air conditioner and then turn off the radio”.
Actually, the items mentioned above do not fully reveal the essence of intelligence. What is the basis of intelligence? EU5’s car system and the electric vehicle’s BMS discharge scheme can be updated through an OTA technology with an independent gateway. Remote OTA can refresh the entire vehicle’s ECU and MCU programs, and this is standard across the board.
In terms of intelligent driving assistance functions, lane departure warning, adaptive cruise, blind spot detection, etc. are all supported, but OTA is not supported.
Considering the product positioning of the EU5, Beiqi’s progress in intelligence has greatly exceeded my expectations. EU5’s intelligence level is on par with or even exceeds some of the first pure electric vehicles of some foreign luxury brands, whose product positioning and price range are way beyond EU5, but their intelligence level is comparable.
Price & Launch
The R500 is available for delivery in August, and the R550 is available for delivery in October. The prices are shown as below:
After the press conference, Li Yixiu, the marketing general manager of Beiqi and Bu Hongsheng, the general manager assistant of Beiqi, accepted the media interview. Li Yixiu said a sentence that impressed me:
Internally, we at Beiqi New Energy believe that 2020 is a watershed for the new energy vehicle industry. Before that, it was more of a market driven by subsidies and policies. After 2020, it will become market-oriented and product-oriented. Therefore, in the post-subsidy era, we need to transform and upgrade the competitiveness of our entire product line, and this is what we are working on.
It is very surprising that Beiqi New Energy, which many consumers consider to be a vehicle for occupying a number and elderly transportation, has such determination and has launched products like the EU5.
Beiqi New Energy, who won the championship of pure electric vehicle sales last year, is unwilling to fall into an embarrassing situation with the decline of subsidies, and has decided to capture consumers with stronger product power. However, frankly speaking, the large-scale sales of low-end mediocre products in the first two years must have caused damage to the Beiqi brand. We will wait and see if Beiqi New Energy can defend its title.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.